(no subject)

[shadesong]

I'd probably be a lot better off had I discovered LJ a year earlier.

I've always had large groups of friends. My friends keep me balanced. Being alone tends to be very, very bad for me...I start overthinking, which leads to severe depression.

I moved to Atlanta in late June last year, knowing only two people, and only ever seeing one of them - yendi. My parents kept Elayna til August, and I was jobless all summer, so I spent the summer with no distractions from my rapidly-deepening depression. Yes, I was living with my soulmate - but I was so utterly isolated. I brightened when he came home from work, but there were all those hours in between...

Then Elayna got up here, and that was at least a slight distraction. Getting my job in late September also helped, but only a little - I still had no friends. No company. No balance. Just a growing silence. Befriended jet_li_wannabe, but he was a work-friend-only for a while, so I still felt very isolated outside of work. And mousegrrl was here for a while, but then she left. yendi just doesn't really have any outside-of-work friends, nor is he the type of person to pursue such friendships. And where I'd had a thriving network of friends that I interacted with on a daily basis for years, here I had nothing, and no idea of how to start over. So. Silence. I started to feel trapped.

Then, earlier this year, I discovered LJ... and started making contacts with local people. *Finally*. And Movie Night was born, et cetera....

So I'm finally building a network here. And I have my mousegrrl back. But I feel that some structural damage was done. I still feel off-center, fragile, broken-winged, and sometimes I bluster to cover that, and sometimes I just hide. It's hard to go straight from a long winter into this.



ˇ

Comments

Re: circles of friends

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

yendi just doesn't really have any outside-of-work friends

That's funny since I'm just the opposite. But I mentioned that earlier today...

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*hugs* back....

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

yeh. from famine straight to feast is as hard a transition to deal with as the opposite. perhaps if things hadn't blossomed so rapidly on LJ, you could have avoided some of the unfortunate encounters you've had...

::hugs::

i still feel guilty for leaving...

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Don't you dare feel guilty! *hugs* You were following your path.

perhaps if things hadn't blossomed so rapidly on LJ, you could have avoided some of the unfortunate encounters you've had...

Agreed... I should've been more discriminating from the start as to who I let into my life...


I

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

I should've been more discriminating from the start as to who I let into my life...

well, you were lonely, and you wanted local friends. i can't blame you for that, or fault you for accepting everyone who came along into your circle. and it's just your nature to be open and welcoming and trusting.

now you can be more picky. =) ::hugs::

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Right, like I was saying to you last night and Ken just a few minutes ago - I have managed to keep my optimism so far. I'll be damned if I'm giving it up now.

Re: optimism

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I had to back my optimism up on tape for a little bit but the restore is mostly finished now...

Re: optimism

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*giggle*

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

I have never had a large circle of local friends until just recently, and I'm still getting used to that. It's strange that if I try hard enough, I could probably find someone to hang out with. i'm used to being alone for weeks or months until I can find a way to be with a friend. But here, people seek me out. So sometimes I feel the need to just hide. So..same effect, opposite cause. Or something.

*hug*

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Aha. You do what I do, without either of us thinking about it too much. Use the box to create relationships that get into real life. It really does help.

Far better that than what a number of folks I used to know did, use the box as an escape.... I know at least one case where it helped cause a separation....

*hugs*

da Bear

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not escape - needed *relief* from isolation, not further isolation!

You're a bear too? Gyeesh... Mouse and I were just talking about how she's surrounded by wolves and I'm surrounded by bears....

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I'm round and cuddly and fuzzy and have snaggledy teeth and growl... but, much to a number of cuteboys' chagrin (including, I believe, wolfieboy, I don't swing that way. Ladies only, please.

Kinda reminds me of the time we were at Vulkon at a room party, me and a (former) friend of jenkitty's... which friend at the time was pretty much totally lesbian. (Much to my chagrin; I had a crush on her like a bear trap... but I digress.) Anyway, this room party was almost all folks of alternative sexualities... and this one flamer mistook me for gay, and her for straight. We gently disabused him of the notion, and he facepalms, "I'm so embarassed...."

Aaaah, well, it wouldn't have turned out well anyway; she ended up falling for another guy, and... well, the end of that story isn't one I care to relate in public. Too many personal details. Painful, too, in a distant sort of way.

But yeah, I've had "Pooh bear" as a nickname since I was six and growled when it was time to get out of bed. And Jen and I have agreed that when we have kids, the nursery will be decorated with good ol' Pooh, just as my room was when I was little.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Oh, I knew you were het or at least bi; I wasn't using bear as an exclusively gay term. Though I did have cool bear friends in FL. The bears I find myself surrounded by now are all hetero...

If you look at T-shirt design #1 on shayara, Halloran, the guy giving the girl a piggyback ride - he's a bear. :) Personality more than physically...

Elayna's room was decorated in Pooh until very recently. She decided she was too old for Pooh. I wailed, "No one's too old for Pooh!" but she wouldn't listen... *sigh*

[elorie.livejournal.com]

I'm coming out of a long stint of being a Hermit. I used to have a pretty big circle of friends...one I didn't have to go to any effort for, as my ex is a weirdness magnet in many different senses. I am sort of a gregarious introvert, which means I play an extrovert on TV, am very talkative and amusing and like people, but am mostly too shy to actually pursue hanging out with them most of the time....

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

You and I *definitely* need to meet!

[nukewolf.livejournal.com]

If you ever come to Austin, you'll have at least one friend here. :) *HUGS*

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*hugs* back!

[photognome.livejournal.com]

Hopefully we will get to meet soon! :-)

-Joe
(kilted)

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

I do hope so!



Á

[skylion.livejournal.com]

Alot of this is in hindsight. And that rearview mirror is kinda warped anyway.
Right now I really don't have any real life friends. I have my LJ friends, but---
I does get lonely sometimes. For the past six years it was work and family. I never gave myself time for outside friends. I have Jayson. He is a brother too me. But for the most part I am stuck in a rut of having few friends. A 20+ year long rut. I don't know if this skylion can ever fly.
I don't mean to slight anyone here, but for the most part the distance in more than miles. I am afraid to let anyone in. I still have wounds that are in the process of closing. And I don't want anyone to find out things. And that has nothing to do with most of you.
Most of the time I feel like a pariah. And that feeling is self-made. But I don't know any other way.

I am blessed to have many of you. And I am equally blessed that so many of you take the time to encourage me along my path. Humor keeps me going.

Did I mention that I have a huge crush on Mouse? I don't know why that came out. I have met so many great people here. Nekkid or not.