What's The Difference Between Creepy and Romantic?

[Strazdas]

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Holy wall of text batman.

You contradict yourself in the very first paragraph.

And an advantage of that is you can take pride in the fact that you're generous, giving, or self sacrificing.

So they are doing it for the pride and feeling good about themselves. Hence, selfish motivation.

The same goes in your example:

What motivation is there for that?

she had my gratitude

No, i woudl argue that you, and others responding in same manner are the ones having a shallow view on the world. You dont understand how human needs work when it comes to psychology and what motivates us to fulfill those needs. You also incorrectly associate selfish to asshole (though i guess thats the cultural impact working here).

Edit: snipped the wall of text for readibility.