47 Comments

1. 

   BlueCatShip on February 10, 2018 at 12:28 am

   Hey, folks. I’ve become very isolated, and I suppose that shows by what and how I post. I mean, most people would vent to friends, family, roommates, partners, co-workers, whoever, and many times, I’ve basically vented online.

   I have very few friends in person these days; more like acquaintances; to the point that the friendliness from several fellow fans here has really surprised me and touched me more than once. I don’t know how to express that fully enough, but thanks to each of you. The thoughtfulness sometimes, or a few who’ve emailed or private messaged me, or mailed, has been really appreciated.

   I don’t know how common my situation is, or how my path through life is, compared to most people’s. — But over the years, my friend group has dwindled down to way too few. Most of the people I know are more acquaintances, including the recent friends I’ve mentioned lately. A few are folks who work and live various places across town, including, say, the constable who helped out before I moved. Hah, he sure can’t drop what he’s doing, and has very limited time off. My former neighbor was always nice, but now they are twenty or thirty minutes away. Former church friends, much the same, and the last time I ran into someone from my former church, they said they loved me, wanted to contact me, and I stood there and thought, “Well, so why has no one called or written or stopped by my house (at the time I was still in my former home) in months?” Even though I think that friend sincerely meant to be kind, it also irked me, privately. And I don’t know what to think of that, their reaction or mine. Maybe that’s being too judgmental, or maybe not. I’m sure she meant well. But it’s pretty much like that. People have moved away, some passed away, some are former “church family” who are closer to my parents’ generation or in between. So…so basically, I have hardly any friends around who could help, and little to no contact with them anymore. And this wasn’t just me. — To be fair, after my parents each passed away and after my grandmother passed away, I went through periods where I withdrew, and the phone ringing or the doorbell would spook me, startle me. (That particular thing started in college. I thought I’d gotten past it while taking care of my grandmother, and I _think_ I’m past it again, but for a while there, the few times anyone did knock or call, I was too withdrawn into my shell to answer. (I’d clam up, not want to answer right away, not quite a panic reaction, but close it.) Why that started and persisted, I don’t really know; it’s not a rational thing, and it sure isn’t helpful or healthy for oneself or relationships. I don’t think people understood at all, and this contributed to people dropping contact with me. But overall, after my grandmother was gone, I hardly ever heard from anyone, and then just didn’t, unless I ran into them while out in the neighborhood. I took this personally, because I’d really thought people at church were more supportive and more real friends. I had stopped going to church, while grieving, and had rarely been while my grandmother was declining. I was too exhausted by then, emotionally and physically. (I should have taken advice when my dad passed away, and set up a trustee then to take care of my grandmother, so I could have a life and income. I didn’t, and by the time I knew that, I was too far involved.)

   Well, so it boils down to, nearly everyone I knew, I’ve lost contact with, I don’t hear from. I got very down about this, whether it was me or them, and felt that if they were truly friends, they would’ve understood and persisted. But, well, that goes both ways; I contributed to isolating myself without really intending to or wanting to. — But withdrawing goes way back to being a kid teased in school, and an only child, and so I’d hold a lot in and let it out alone at home. (Oh, hah, I was a sensitive kid and didn’t necessarily hold everything in. But by high school, I’d matured enough that I took things pretty well, and was pretty happy, for the most part, during high school. But still, most of my friends then were at school only. That is due, I think, to my parents’ way of doing things, controlling or over-protective. So the patterns go all the way back to when I was a kid.

   I’m friendly, sensitive to over-sensitive even now, a bit naive, even now, but also there’s a strong stubborn, independent streak in there, and a tendency to hold things in in person, while letting a lot else show with friends, and one or two inner walls, where friends get past one, but maybe not that inner wall. — I am not describing this well, but I see it to one degree or other with most people. How common my personal version is, I don’t know.

   And, well, yeah, I want strong friendships, but tend to have trouble with those lasting longer-term. Or I don’t see that they do, maybe. (I still think of many people as friends, even if I haven’t heard from them in years, they moved away, or if they or I ended the relationship. It’s funny how that works.)

   So… not enough local friends, close friendships or not as close, no family in town, and no significant other or others, because, well, that has never really happened for me, since I had such trouble with that even as a young adult. (Especially uptight in my college years. Oh, how I wish I could go back and talk to that younger self and convince him otherwise. And I do not know what would have reached me then, because nothing and no one much did. ) So there’s never been a significant other / partner, or even a short-term or long-term couples relationship. Which is a big empty spot these days too. But the lack of close friends or casual friends, or a roommate, is maybe more of a need, even than that. (And I realized, I’m not sure if I’d try to latch onto a roommate or close friend now out of need for and confusion about strong feelings of friendship shading over into the more intimate or romantic or sexual feelings. … But that may be just another form of that earlier reluctance to accept myself, like the uptight religious phase in college, where I got myself so tied up in knots over not accepting myself and not coming out.

   So…yup, I’m a mess. I feel too shut-in and I think I’ve actually made progress again, but somehow, I haven’t made those new friendships yet. Uh, I am really not painfully shy. I do over-share online in what I write (hah, examples above). But that is, I guess, dropping an inner wall and sharing my inner self in writing. I seem to be able to express myself better that way…and yet even so, I often feel people don’t get me. — In person, I’m more nervous and withdrawn than I used to be, and way more self-conscious because of how my vision has changed. Things I used to take for granted are now more difficult for me to see and do and navigate, and I’m more conscious of this. I used to “present well;” meaning, I adapted well enough that often people didn’t know the extent of my vision-impairment, because I didn’t “act blind” so much, I guess. I’m pretty sure it’s more obvious now.

   I’ve never understood how someone like me can try to be outgoing, and on the one hand, people say they’re friends, and on the other, I realized they weren’t as close as I thought, or as I wanted to think. But this means I’ve never had a bunch of close friends in my life. I’ve had a few, and some good friends. — I don’t think I have ever been as isolated as I’ve been for the past few years.

   I’d thought I’d come out of that quickly when I moved in here; that I’d meet neighbors and make friends quickly. But somehow, that hasn’t happened yet like I thought it would. And it means I need to redouble my efforts, change how I do things, put myself out more, like I was when I first moved in, only more so. I’d thought I was doing pretty well at that, but I hadn’t realized I’d dropped th eball on it.

   All of which is to say, yeah, way more alone than I want to be, and not sure how it happened or how to get out of it, back to a reliable group of local friends, but it needs to happen. I don’t like being this alone, and it’s not good for practical reasons, such as errands, or if I got sick or had some emergency. But it also means, that more sensitive emotional side of me needs friends and other relationships to satisfy those needs for support, friends, love, a partner, a roommate, and so on.

   Note: It should also show that I haven’t shared a room with anyone in ages, and haven’t shared a home with anyone since taking care of my grandmother, or since living with my parents between and after college. I don’t want to have my heart mistake a roommate for a love interest, and I think I may be prone to that, from being so alone or without living with anyone for so long, or not having a significant other.

   Er, I’m not sure how to trust my own judgment, either, for who would be a good roommate, for instance. Heh, blind gay guy seeks friendly roommate for, er, roommate-ness. — Honestly, I think it’s probably a ways off before I’m ready for a roommate. I feel like a group of friends would be the most help first, and then getting other relationships and support structure going. However, the biological clock is still ticking, and wishes there was someone special. That, I think, is a big step up and a long way off too. (I no longer expect that knight in shining armor or loyal squire./ sidekick / whoever, y’know? If a relationship of that kind ever happens, at this point, I’d be astounded. But a guy can still wish.)

   Sorry for the over-long, over-personal answer. Er, that’s what you get from me for asking. LOL. Yup, I’m a mess, but I’d like to think I’m a nice, friendly, maybe lovable mess.

   Also please note: This is what you get from an idealist dreamer type who always had his nose in a book, and (hah) was particularly enamored of 19th century romantics and realists, besides science fiction or any school readings in English or French lit., or high school Spanish. 😀 Also throw in a heavy dose of foreign language interest and some geeky computer science. So, y’know, I’m a mixed bag. Yes, I’m a mess. Nice to see y’all too. 😀

   (This could go a long way towards why I like characters like many of CJ’s heroes so much. Several of them feel very familiar in some ways.) — I would like to think that I’m still OK, just that life has sort of knocked me around some, especially lately. What or if I’m learning much or improving from it, I suppose is a question. But I’d like to think it’ll work out, even so. — My more depressed periods, I basically try to muddle through and keep my head above water and remember to get through it. — I’m doing OK for a while, a better period, but still struggling with it, and frustrated. — I never imagined my life would get in anything like this position, and trying to work myself out of it, fighting my own quirks or personality tendencies, plus how the world often is, meh, is proving to be taking longer.

   Thanks to folks here who’ve taken the time, now and recently, to care and try to help. It’s very much appreciated. Several of you, and sometimes you don’t know it. 🙂

   CJ and Jane, you’ve been, without even trying, a welcoming couple of friends, just by providing a space where fans like me, like all those here, can hang out and talk and share with acceptance from each other. Maybe we don’t often say so. Y’all’s writing is just one part of that, but it has surely helped many of us fans, and myself, many times over the years, with good stories, things to think about or challenge or excite us, and characters to relate to, however wonderfully alien and fully realized they are.

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   • 

     Hanneke on February 10, 2018 at 2:12 am

     @BCS, from the way you described the layout of you appartment building, you have a very visible but picket-fenced sort of front porch area overlooking the central garden/ pool area at each appartment. Could you set up a comfy garden chair there, maybe with a little side table? Could you make the porch a bit more interesting, put some pots out there, or something kabiu? Or just take out a chair when you want to sit there?
     Then you could, while it’s warm enough (even if you need to bundle up a bit) and not too hot yet, go and sit outside while you’re reading and not on your computer, or take your lunch outside to eat when it’s a lovely day.
     Just being outside, with a view of some greenery (even desert plants) is good for people, helps against depression, and getting daylight in your eyes in the morning is good for keeping the sleep-wake cycle from getting too far out of whack.
     It also makes you much more visible to the neighbors, and lets them get used to you as a fixture around their garden area. It’s much easier to exchange greetings with anyone who passes and might stop for a chat when you’re outside for an hour or so at a time instead of passing by for a few minutes.
     In high summer it’ll probably get too hot outside, though taking in some early-morning or evening shade and breeze might still be pleasant.
     I found that I made most of my new neighbors’ acquaintance (more than 20 years ago already!) while working in my small front garden. Some of the little neighbor kids would stop and ask what I’m doing, maybe ask if they could help, a parent would stop by and talk while watching the kids, or talk about the trouble we all had with ground elder encroaching from the public border while tidying up their own front area, or I’d compliment their color choice and talk about whether they knew a good handyman to ask for jobs like that when they’d paint their front door while I was out there in the garden, and things like that. Then in the winter, it’s cold and wet and grey outside and everybody stays indoors, and we hardly see each other to say hello on the way in and out the door, unless we specifically knock on each other’s doors to ask or bring something. Still, I’m very happy with four of my neighbors, know I can count on them if I need help (and vice versa), and built up friendships with two families to the point where I’ve been sharing the Wednesday evening meal with one family for the last three years, and babysitting/ cat sitting/ bike sharing/ getting groceries for me when I’m sick/ helping with awkward jobs and emergencies with the other for a lot longer.
     Just being outside, visible, relaxed and approachable has worked best for me to make those contacts – I don’t easily approach strangers without a direct and immediate reason, or knock on people’s doors just to talk to them, but being pleasantly occupied outside and responding in a friendly and unhurried manner to any ouvertures did work, with patience (and some help from curious and bored kids), as my street is a nice and friendly one too.

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2. 

   nighthawkatshejidan on February 10, 2018 at 9:52 am

   In my case, I’m finally admitting to being elderly (79). I can still drive, enjoy traveling, go for walks when the weather permits–right now there’s a foot of snow outside, so it’s not happening.
   But many of my old friends are in poorer health, or have died, and it’s hard to make more than casual friends now. I suspect we are all a little shy of getting too close, knowing that our friendships can’t last as long as when we were younger.
   I do work at not getting socially isolated, take classes locally, stay in touch with the neighbors. And Facebook has helped me stay in touch with friends of many decades who live far away. I don’t see myself going the cohousing route, but it’s an interesting concept.

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3. 

   BlueCatShip on February 11, 2018 at 6:31 pm

   I need to finish reading Hanneke’s reply before really answering, but I’d wanted to get a chair or two for outside, and a folding table. It looks like those go undisturbed in the few cases I’ve seen any out, here. There’s at least one wooden slat park bench inside the pool area (fenced for safety). That, in warm weather, could work too. — There’s a routine here. Adults work and any retirees or the like seem to stay in during the day. When school’s out, kids and some teens hang out outside to have fun, play, and talk. (I am not sure how often the pool gets maintenance and is open for use. It seems underused until it’s summer, and then it gets some use, days and evenings.) The kids’ activities seem to go in waves of friends coming and going, with vacant lulls in between. But I’ve wondered how some of ’em get their homework done. I get the impression there are regulars. At some point, parents and older teens get home or leave for evening shifts, there must be meal prep and eating later. The same bunches of kids stay out or get out there again. Less often, older teens and adults get out there and play or socialize. Partying doesn’t happen as much in cold weather, or else the times are getting to people’s mood to party. In warm weather, partying can happen during the week and definitely on weekends. Kids and teens are sometimes included. With the adults and older teens, there’s more tendency for music and more boisterous partying, dancing, and what seems to be self-controlled levels of drinking or volume of music or rowdiness. In other words, you’re getting the idea I’m not a party animal, but it is (thankfully) not out of control by even my sense of things. (Although if it lasts past 1 or 2 a.m., it depends on my mood, what I think of that. Heh.) — It’s nothing like how college kids party, though, so this is fine and I consider it fortunate. — I have the impression that human or hani or mahen spacers would have more, ah, verve and swagger and carousing, more rowdiness going on. 😀 — I’ve occasionally been surprised to hear kids and adults out over the summer, even at midnight to 1 a.m., and given how often people come and go at night with work, etc., I think this is probably that the kids get to have fun when the parents are around to join them or to supervise from a distance. But that tendency for all ages is still a big surprise for me. — I didn’t grow up with a lot of other people around, kids or teens or adults, and I was used to being around adults, except during school. (I think my parents did not realize how much they also actively limited my relationships, growing up.) I did outgrow some of my shyness during high school, and then college and work life made me outgrow some more of it, but that tendency still is there more than I know, I guess.

   So — stuff to work on, getting out there and getting to know people. — This weekend, it was chilly to cold and damp to drizzly to rainy to maybe icy. Even the usual gang of kids were not out much. So maybe this week and upcoming weekend will be better.

   Our weather is fluctuating wildly between cold-and-wet and warm-and-sunny. This is fairly normal for here, but except for a couple of very cold snaps, including (oh my!) a snow day, a real rarity here, it has otherwise been warmer than normal the whole winter. But “noraml” seems to be, now, each year gets warmer with global warming, or more extreme swings, if not so much warmer. Either way, it feels like a noticeable warming trend to me. I’m expecting another summer with highs above 100 for several days in a row. — This has made me wonder if that, as much or more than any social customs or availability of cloth, was why the ancients seemed to go nearly or entirely au natural so much.

   Hmm, I’m fast approaching 52 in less than a month, and irked that I’m supposed to be middle-aged now. I can tell it, and yet I also still feel not too different than my young adult self, just lots more, hmm, experienced or cynical, I guess. But I’m still getting used to, and not happy with, the concept that I’m at the midpoint in life, and so I either can expect some 15 to 20 more years (my parents went early by family norms) or 40 to 50 years, such as my grandmother and several other relatives who made it into their 90’s, or in her case, 102. So…barring unforeseen events outside my control, I could be around a while. I want it to be better than it is now, and I’m struggling against both some of my own tendencies, plus outside / world events to get things in my life to improve, at least back to something like before. I was mistaken about what I thought I had before, but years on my own and taking care of my grandmother and after have proven that. So now I want something like I had before, with appropriate adjustments where needed.

   Life is so weird. I’m almost 52, I can count my life to this point in thirds, three major stages that got me to this point. Even if everything had gone like I imagined when I was first starting college (oh, was I mistaken and badly confused about one major point, which changed the whole course of things) I would still have likely ended up at about this point. I, or someone, would’ve had to have taken care of my grandmother, and if my parents had lived longer, they would by now be at the age where I’d be taking care of them.

   So here I am, at about the midpoint or later in life, basically starting from scratch. In some ways, I feel like that college kid with no budget that I was at the start of the second third of my life so far. Only in many ways, I had it better then and didn’t know it, and in one way or two, I really, really needed to bust out of my own and my parents’ expectations and.beliefs, and strike out on my own for what my heart was telling me, which I was too afraid and too steeped in beliefs to allow in. I wonder what would have happened if I had been able to. I also wonder, if my life had turned out as I’d imagined or planned then, where I’d be now, if all else was as it was. But we don’t get that. We get the one path, the one trail of choices leading to others leading further along throughout life, with no do-overs, no rewinds or replays. We make the best of it we can manage at the time, within our own limits and what’s set by other people or man-made or natural world events.

   So, well, here I am, dang it. There’s got to be a better way I can get around things and make my life better. — At least I’m trying, most of the time, but dang, it’s an uphill battle, and sliding back down is not cool, whether it’s my own cause or things I have no control over.

   Well, but compared to where I was last year or the year before, things right now for me are a lot better. Gotta remind myself of that too, and keep on keeping on.

   If my ship comes in, I wouldn’t mind if there’s a really nice, kinda cute, compatible and available shipmate of the male persuasion. Heh. Just saying. — Heck, I’d settle for a lot of things if he’s just a really nice guy and long-term works out. Meh. I keep wishing. Haven’t ever figured out how to get that one from dream into reality. Kinda wish I’d had some practice earlier in life, too. Didn’t work out that way, but then, it didn’t wind up worse than it did, either. So I suppose I’m more OK than I think. I just wish it were better soon.

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