I haven't posted an entry here in a long time, decided I would again. I'm not sure if anyone will ever end up reading this, not sure what difference that will make though. If anything I'll be able to look back on it two years from now and see how things were and how they are now.
I've been feeling like no one gets me, which has always been the case but it's not something I always think about. I forget, that while people may have things in common with me it does not mean they are just like me, and more and more I'm reminded that that is in fact the case. I am different and when I forget that it causes miscommunication and me feeling more alone.
So I'm going to try to explain my situation to someone who knows nothing about me and as far as I know cannot relate to me at all in any way. Since most of the people I surround myself with I make a false assumption can relate on many levels they cannot, my explanations and thoughts are colored with bias usually.
First the tangible basics. I'm at college at the moment, with my family 4 hours away. All of my friends are virtual, meaning I do not communicate with them in person but over the internet. There are two people from high school I have stayed in touch with since, but we are growing apart. I have not spoken with either of them since July, but I still consider them friends, and feel I would be able to spend time with them comfortably.
I had to add in that comfortably because I am deathfully shy. It would be much easier to see if you met me in person, but I'll try to explain. The post before this does a good job explaining the feeling I will often get, like I just can't. I cannot stress the excessiveness of this shyness enough, 99% of the time I am just completely unable to say a single word, even if I wanted to. Often I do want to say things, but my body will not allow me. And I am not exaggerating for emphasis here, while there are exceptions to this is how I am in most situations.
I'm able to nod, and I'm able to smile, to strangers. I can become more comfortable around people though, when seeing them frequently and building up confidence around them. I will usually reach a point though where this progression stops, in a zone I think most people would consider to still be very uncomfortable. This is a very slow process, and takes a lot of work and patience from the other person, as well much effort on my own part as well. I'm going to leave this alone for now, because I want to talk about the now and I found this to happen more frequently in high school. I did gain comfortableness with my roommate last year, I should define what I mean by comfortable though.
The people I'm most comfortable around, i.e my sister, parents, grandmother, my 2 friends (Tyler and Woo) and to a lesser extent my brother. I would say my sister is the person I am most comfortable around, so I will try to explain what that relationship is like. Tv, movie, and music - we can talk about these things. Not on any sort of deep level, more or less I like this/do you like this. She's much more open and comfortable about talking about these things than I am. Some music I like, and tv and movies I am not comfortable telling her I like. We will tease each other, but most of it is sarcasm or fake meanness. I usually do not talk about things outside of her, meaning I won't tell her stories about a friend or about what other people like, unless they're about our family. I'll talk about my classes with her, or while in high school about discus. We never shared struggles or anything, Very very report oriented conversation, like I'm teaching or explaining something to her. Impersonal. She'll tell me about school, her piano, other things. Sometimes she'll gossip to me, but for the most part report talk. Nothing ever personal, we never share out feelings or innermost thoughts. She'll go to my mom or my dad for that, or maybe her friends. I just keep it all inside.
And that's the closest I am with a person right now. Very report and impersonal conversation. Me and my sister like each other very much and are close on non-vocal level, but I've known her for 16 years so it's no wonder. The rest of my family I am comfortable talking to about different topics and on a slightly lesser level, but it is more of the same. It is not that I do not want to be talk more openly with them, it is I feel something is holding me back and not allowing me to do so.
I haven't addressed thoughts I have yet, and I will only do so with caution. They change very frequently while my ability to communicate with others do not. I'm tempted not to at all, but I don't know how well I can be known or understood without going into them a little. I won't do this directly but may touch upon them later in the entry.
I have talked about my life and shyness, and explained it in a way I hope you can understand, but feel that seeing me would be able to show you much more clearly what I mean by all this. It is really very obvious, everyone I know is well aware of it without me having to tell them. I act differently in public than in the confines of our home, or when someone I do not know is in our presence. I feel like a coward when I change like this, not being able to fight this thing disabling me.
I would like to talk about dating and girls for a second now. If it is not clear that the idea of doing so never even crosses my mind, I will go into detail now. I have 0 experience of dating or any relationship type things, never kissed, hugged, held a hand. I've never even talked to people about dating, with the exception of a few comments in internet chatrooms. And I've never, never felt that closeness two people do when they date. There's a few possibilities for dating and relationship like things. First, blind date/date with stranger. It takes me six months to just get comfortable with 4 sentence conversations, dating a stranger is absurd. The more realistic, is to be friends first and develop into relationship. At the rate I get comfortable around people, this would take years. But there's also a complication.
I haven't decided if I will share this entry yet, but if I do be known this is something that is very hard for me to say. I have a lot of guilt built up inside of me, and while I'm open about this online I am not open about where this guilt comes from. Please don't try to guess or figure out what it is, but it's of a sexual nature. I feel like a disgusting, perverted, disturbed human being. It's something I've struggled with since the age of 12, and my whole life I've been trying to hide it from the world. It's had a ripple effect, extending to things that don't direct relate but could cause a chain reaction to it being found out.
Dating is not one of these distant ripples, it's directly associated if not one tier out. Clearly, all dating leads to things of a sexual nature eventually. My whole life I've been trying to fix myself so I could properly hide it, or put it so far into my past it doesn't matter anymore. But I can't, it keeps coming back. I don't even want someone touching someone as grossly disgusting and perverted as myself.
And an ever bigger problem than that is, if I want to hide it I have to either be willing to lie or just avoid a situation where I may be pressed to say something about it. I already feel guilty and dirty about it already, I do not want to add lying to my list or horrible things about myself. So I avoid the topic. This is why I am not personal. This is why I do not let people get to know me, allow myself to be open. If someone asks me a question about it directly, I either have to lie or confess. That is where this ripple effect comes in. If someone asks me a question 50 tiers away from this one, I can mumble and not answer really and it will not be a big deal to either. The person will not be able to move any closer to me even if they are able to come to a conclusion about the question I did not answer.
This makes me extraordinarily uncomfortable around topics about or closely related or that may lead to anything sexual. I can sometimes fake it on the internet, where I feel my words and actions mean less, but not on any real level. If someone brings up sex or porn or anything graphic/specific I'm blushing uncontrollably looking away and making no noises. Girls, girlfriends, and dating will also shut me off, another topic I am not able to talk about on any level. Topics that may lead to a dating situation also make me close up, for example if I were asked about the attractiveness of someone in a non-objectifying way that may lead to possible topic of dating said person, or dating in general. I can more easily do this online as well because I do not feel it will lead to any dating situation. These situations are far and in between, the only people who would bring this up are those who do not know me and I rarely am in a situation where I am interacting in such a way.
That is why dating is so far out of the question right now. I did not even divulge into the intimacy of dating, and how it has to be based in honesty and openness which you can see would be a great problem for me.
If I did end up sharing this, please don't try to talk to me about it or help me out or point me to someone who can. I am not asking for help, I just want people to understand what is going on. I've never told anyone this, not nearly as directly as this at least. Reading it back I think I barely tipped the iceberg of what I wanted to explain, I don't feel I properly got across how I'm feeling or that anyone reading this will really understand me. Tip of the iceberg is hopefully better than no iceberg at all.
