labelleizzy | Maintaining networks.

This morning it feels to me like I'm a failure at extroverting. That's not untrue. I love a lot of people, andat the same time I don't have a great habit of maintaining regular contact.

It's even easy now! Not like when I was a kid and you had to write long laborious letters by hand, or call someone on the landline. (Ye gods I'm old, yes that was a rotary phone)

Email and blogging and messaging systems... Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr...

People I love are in anguish. People are murdered by the police for their skin color, and riots are the voice of the voiceless.

I'd say this is not my America, but that would be a lie. This has always been what America is, but I had the privilege to not-see, not-notice.

I can dimly imagine the fear and the rage of their whole lives, the humiliation and stress of forcibly swallowing all that down to try and be allowed to live. To just live.

I have to do better. To get past my block about contacting people.

I have to do better. To manage my own discomfort about learning and acknowledging uncomfortable truths.

I have to do better. I belong to communities, and I have responsibility to those communities that I cannot dodge or deny. I will not be a coward.

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*hug*

I need to reach out more, too. One challenge for me is that I have a lot of baggage around being the unregarded one, the one no one notices or cares about, the one whose absence from a group isn’t remarked upon until the day *after* I fled in extreme discomfort. When I reach out and don’t get much response, that is a normal and natural state of humans, but I pile it onto the No One Wants Me Around baggage-cart. This is not an excuse, just back story. I need to reach out more; I need to do better.

I don’t for one moment think you are a coward. ♥

I grok that particular style of baggage-cart. Especially since Spouse is so charming and outgoing. (Sometimes I get jealous/envious of his social success). Logic brain know I just have a different way of relating, different venues for relationships but I also have MUCH more fear around the idea of dating, of trusting someone that far.

Also: something that I balance between is the idea that Reasons aren't excuses. They inform our actions and our goals. Have you noticed that some people use "excuses" like it's a dirty word? Like "how dare you have a Reason Why Doing The Thing Is Difficult," or "how dare you ask ME to Bend The Rules to Accommodate YOU." (Implication: a mean spirited 'youre not special')
I feel like, you have injuries, I have injuries. I have a bum knee and did not try to climb half-dome when I was pre-surgery. Also I don't try (anymore) to force myself to "trust" someone to get something I want, or even need.
But we have to be brave and learn how to ask for what we need and also for what we want. And that's hard, when we've been hurt for asking, before.

I'm sorry that happened to you. It's awful to realize that probably nobody noticed (and we assume, didn't care) Although... Sometimes, I've learned, it's just that nobody said anything TO ME. And then it feels like a case of horrible miscommunication. Probably regrets. on all sides. But usually I don't learn that for like, months.

Would it feel better, hypothetically, if you knew someone had missed you, but just failed to check in on you?

I too get jealous/envious of the social successes of others, particularly others who are close to me, really particularly the ones who don't notice I'm missing (because at a gathering, they're rolling around in their social success like cats in catnip?). And then I don't trust those people to have my back, not quite so much, after that. And they wonder why and I can't even explain very well. How do you explain something like that to someone who has never had the lack of it?

I have an oversimplistic view that says the charming and outgoing types make friends _easily_, while the ones who are a little more cautious and slow make friends _deeply_. That's a bit too pat to be wholly true all the time, but I suspect there's a lot of truth behind it nonetheless. The ones who are charming aren't the ones who are gonna notice unprompted that you're looking a bit blue today. They're not the ones who will be a little vulnerable and let you see who they are inside (at least not easily). Maybe they'll help in a job search. Great! I'll be grateful. But "friend" can go so much farther.

Reasons: I agree that reasons are not excuses, but they do change what we do and when, how we approach it and what our likely path to success will be. I am trying to learn to be kind to myself about all of that. IT'S SO STINKING HARD! It's likely the work of a lifetime. I'll be your support-buddy about that here if you like, & you can be mine, if you like.

Would it feel better, hypothetically, if you knew someone had missed you, but just failed to check in on you?

That would be a little bit sad, but better than what I've got; I've checked.

Some of the folk in my circle have certainly got their own problems at the moment. I grok that. I want to be the kind of friend who understands that & waits & hangs in there, so I will. Others just aren't really wired to notice people around them, and that doesn't mean they're bad people, either, just... we all need a few friends in each category, yanno?

Anyway. Reaching out more. I'm with you. I need to do this. It's important, and whether or not people reach back, it's STILL important and I still need to do more of it. Thank you for pointing it out. ♥

Maintaining networks.

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