You've heard the angst about fair-weather friends -- people who are with you right up until you really need them, and then they disappear.
Well, as it turns out, I can document (and have, in a book) that I'm a foul-weather friend. I tend to disengage whenever everything is going fine for my friends. Friends find me hard to access when all is well with them.
Perhaps it's the "rescuer" in me (or the loner/shy one) that causes this strange anomaly, but I just don't ever feel truly "wanted" till I'm needed. I was that way with DeForest and Carolyn Kelley, and I'm that way with everyone else, too.
Is it insecurity? Absolutely!
And it can cause a lot of problems. People who aren't in peril like to be acknowledged, too! Every human being on earth wants to be celebrated, not tolerated. I "get" that. I guess I've just always been such a "do-it-yourself" soul that I feel most serene and grateful when everyone else is happily doing their own thing, too. I rarely feel "lonely."
That's a good thing, but it can cause hard feelings for those who ARE lonely. Not being gregarious by nature, it's stressful to me to have to "entertain" others in person or via email. I love blogging, because it's self-directed and interactive on my own terms.
I'm always busy doing something, but most of it is solitary stuff -- writing, reading, walking, working outside, studying. Perhaps I shoulda been a monk -- or a monkette :-)
Anyway, I just want all of you to know -- if you sense in me any kind of "distance"-- it's nothing personal. It's just the way I am. I don't mingle much. Never have. At conventions, or at work, it's part of my "job" to mingle... and I do it... and you'd never know I was shy... but it exhausts me... because it's way outside my comfort zone.
My sister is just the opposite -- she loves it when people surround her non-stop. I would lose my ever-lovin' mind if I was surrounded non-stop.
But hey, if you ever need serious HELP, I'll be there! My emotional distance should not, ever, be interpreted as not giving a fig about anyone or anything.
I really do care. I just need a really, really great reason to show it.
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