Making friends, dating.

[oak]

Thanks so much for your kind replies. I am touched.

[rivergirl]

Oak,
For what it's worth, your secret changes my opinion of you this much: 0.

I'm confident that you can make the changes that you've been working so hard to accomplish, but don't forget that at your core, you're okay just as you are.

rg

[Tinyfiddle]

I don't think it is anything to be ashamed of either. It may feel lonely or you have regrets but you're trying to change things to the way you want them. That's great and we send you strength.

[oak]

Thank you, everyone, for your kind, loving posts. I feel accepted.

It is not unknown for me to encourage others here to "use their words", and as difficult as this secret/shame is, here goes. The more I don't want to do it is the more I should.

(btw, the following is 99% true!)

In brownblob's lovely thread http://mentalpod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=11161 he mentions the kind cashier, and Berniece. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and his example gives me ESH.

Much like brownblob's cashier and state hospital friends, I had someone accept me as I was. This is really hard to share. I feel very vulnerable.

On my way out of working poverty, when things were getting bad, a young woman named Anna befriended me. Much as I would have liked to have dated her, we were friends and hung out (so rare for me!) in the summer and fall of 2012 about 10-20 times.

I have many cherished memories of her. I especially value two:

1. I was driving her home, and I was delighted to see my car's GPS that I had five more minutes to spend with her before the ETA. I was so happy.

2. Shortly after that stupid storm Sandy, I took her out for breakfast. I was using precious money from a job I'd just been fired from, and she got a bagel with cream cheese and coffee.

It was so... normal. In the best sense of "normal", "ordinary", or "prosaic".

What Anna did was make the mundane (driving, eating) sacred. I am wracked with guilt realizing how much I eat and drive alone, going back to graduate school 15 years ago. I am a loner. It hurts to say that.

I am not working poor (financially) anymore. But I am relationship poor, intimacy poor. I sold out, without realizing it, becoming a faceless cog in a corporate America that sees me only as a replaceable white collar lackey, less than nobody. I wanted to escape working poverty, but the price was high.

I am not in love with Anna (this may be the untrue part I referenced above), but I will always love her.

She accepted me as I was.

I have my hands full with handling life, and I am glad brownblob wrote about the cashier and Berniece.

While I probably don't believe in angels with wings, I do believe in the cashier, Berniece, and Anna. They make things seem okay.

[brownblob]

Hi Oak,
Be glad that you had your friendship with Anna. I know how it feels to have just a few rare friends like that. Treasure your memories. It's amazing how you can remember simple things like a bagel and coffee as such sacred events. Life is made up of things like this.
As far as being a faceless cog in corporate America. Most people are. I'm a nameless blue collar worker in a big international company. From your posts, it does sound like you are trying to get out of your relationship/intimacy poverty. All you can do is try. I'm wishing you luck and sending you a hug my friend.

[Beany Boo]

I'll say a few things:

Don't be afraid of the intensity of your need; of revealing how intensely you need someone; of showing that intensity to someone. You simply(?) need to be ready to allow the other person to do the same; and not necessarily at the same time as you; to reveal how intensely they need someone; who might or might not be you. If you're looking for intimacy and relationship, that intensity will die down. If it doesn't die down or you feel bound to that person, then one of you may be in it actually for the intensity only.

I get intimacy and relationship from 'familiars' (doctors, hairdressers, coworkers etc.) by setting very clear boundaries with them; as much intimacy as I do with friends, family or would with an intimate partner; if I had one. Saying thank you correctly to a Japanese person, a stranger, can be one of the most profoundly intimate experiences on earth because of the status of manners in that culture.

Which is to say, rather than seeking one person out, I no longer rule anyone out as a candidate for close connection. Even if I had an intimate partner I would only expect to have certain kinds of negotiated, intimate interactions with them; and not others; other activities for which I would still need with others (parents, accountants, co-players etc)

I've learnt that the difficulty in the past - my blueprint - has been, when I get close to someone I get too close and can't bear it but also can't pull away and still remain in the relationship. Now I'm learning to remove myself to a safe distance (still staying in the relationship) so I can get close again when I'm ready.

I think the Internet may have ruined offline intimacy and relationships. The intensity and performative nature of it makes the haphazard bumping about in real life seem inefficient and somehow less. In other words, I think lonerism, to coin a term, might be at epidemic levels.

Finally, comprehension of consent is changing as is how to negotiate it; sexually, relationship-wise and in all kinds of ways. If you can get your head around how to negotiate consent as a general life principle, your lonely days may be limited. That's my hunch.