TheBanyanTree: Random Pity Party

[Cecil]

At 8:31 PM -0800 3/25/05, Monique Young wrote:
>And you're invited, but feel free to decline this invitation. You have
>been warned.
>
>Sometimes I wonder if I can ever trust anyone again. What for? To what
>end? Leave me alone, I want to tell everyone, when the last thing I want
>is to be alone. But I can't ask for anymore than I already have. I ask
>for too much. I'm over my head, I'm drowning in deep water, and all I
>want is to be safe without having to rely on anyone. But I can't. I
>can't be by myself, alone and self-reliant. And why not?
>
>I don't know why not. But I can't. And I can't trust anyone else to be
>there for me either. In the end, I am certain, everyone is looking for
>something better. I won't be left again, I tell myself, and people tell
>me, "who ever left?" My ex says that, always in denial about who left
>whom when. He left first, he fell in love with others while I was right
>there, trying to support him in his illness. Betrayal sucks. My first
>husband chose to drink instead of be married. He says I left him, which
>I did, but he checked out first. It wasn't right anyway - I was too
>young, we weren't together for the right reasons. I dated someone who
>told me men are always looking for something . . . different. I don't
>think that's true, not for all of them certainly, but I now believe that
>anyone who is with me will be.
>
>I imagine my bf coming to me and saying he met someone else, though he's
>not like that at all. He'd break it off first.
>
>When my ex became ill my life fell apart. And my friends, some of them,
>disappeared. Not disappeared entirely, but they kept their distance. I
>understand - people don't know what to say, it's out of their realm of
>experience, but some of them were very good friends, and I felt as if
>they had left me too. What did I have left?
>
>I drive people away. That must be it. If I send a greeting to my mother
>she responds and says she's been thinking of me, but she won't call.
>She'll only email me if she hasn't heard from me for, oh, weeks and
>weeks. We used to IM, but she was rude, she'd disconnect in the middle
>of a conversation without saying she was leaving, because her husband
>wanted to use the phone, and that was unacceptable to me. It takes a
>second to type, "gotta go, bye," or just . . ."bye," instead of leaving
>someone sitting there waiting for a response. So she doesn't IM me
>anymore. She hasn't called me in many years. My father doesn't call me.
>Ever. My brothers, my sister, never. Friends? Rarely. And I? I call no
>one. I have phone phobia. No one wants to talk to me on the phone. If
>anyone calls me I probably don't answer, because I don't know what to
>say on the phone, and I sound stupid. And slow. Verrry slow. Very bad at
>conversation, that's me. I talk to my boyfriend on the phone. I talk to
>my ex on the phone. I talk to clients on the phone, but even then I
>email if possible instead of calling, except for a few that I like to
>call. There are those. I can talk to my older sister on the phone, if I
>call her. She won't call me because she doesn't think to. My brothers?
>No way. No talking. They'll barely, very barely, respond by email. My
>ex-mother-in-law IM's me frequently. Just today we IM'd while, at the
>same time, I IM'd with my ex. In fact, she was asking me questions about
>his current condition which I found the answers to by asking him, then
>relaying information to her, weeding out what would have been not
>received well. The surreal part of the entire episode was that the two
>of them were in the same house in California at the time, while I'm two
>states away. Sometimes I'm the interpreter, and then I'm not sure if I'm
>me or just doing a job. Even by IM I'm just trying to solve people's
>problems. If you don't have a problem, no use talking to me. I'm useless
>other than that.
>
>I avoid the phone, I avoid people calling me and wanting to talk
>because, really, what have I got to say that's of any interest to
>anyone? Nothing. I was told, often, when I was growing up, that I had
>nothing interesting to say so I might as well stay quiet. So I did.
>
>Sometimes I'm not like this. Sometimes I'm almost, well, almost
>gregarious. Not quite, but almost. Sometimes, often, I'm confident that
>I'm not completely socially inept, or at least, if I am socially inept,
>I at least possess a modicum of . . . something that makes me bearable.
>Other times I think that what makes me socially inept is insurmountable.
>
>I don't know. When I'm alone, like right now, I don't know what to do
>with myself. I ought to just get to work and forget about it. And I
>will. But sometimes I just want someone to hang out with me, have a few
>drinks, and talk about nothing. Normal people do that, right? I don't
>know how. Sometimes I know how. I know that. But right now - I feel like
>I don't know how, and if I did know how, I wouldn't know who to call.
>
>So I'll walk the dog now. Then I'll go pick up my bf at the airport. The
>pity party will be over. None of this makes sense, I suppose, because I
>can't articulate it well, I can't say what I want to say. It's a common
>problem, and not just for me. Don't call me. It just goes to voicemail
>because I'm terrified of the phone. I appreciate it when people do call
>me though, I really do. Those of you who have called me and gotten my
>stupid voicemail, know this: your call meant more to me than I can ever
>tell you.
>
>M

If I could hear well, I'd be pestering the hell out of all my friends 
(both of them) all the time on the phone, All my relatives (all 
266,000,988,77 of them) would get unlisted phone numbers and make 
sure I didn't know them.

As it is, I talk to very few people. I can't blame them. After all, 
who wants to shout and be asked to repeat constantly? I wouldn't. But 
why don't they e-mail me? Now, that's a whole 'nother ball game.

Maybe I'm like the guy who spent hundreds curing his halitosis only 
to discover his friends didn't like him anyway.

Do you believe in predestination? Are some born lucky? Are some 
destined to become wealthy? Am I a born loner? No, I don't believe 
that. I think there's a logical reason for everything. If people shun 
you, there is a reason. If folks are attracted to you, there is a 
logical reason for that also. People react. Everyone wants to be made 
to feel good and to be appreciated. Some of us go through our entire 
lives without learning that simple fact and wonder why we have so few 
friends.

Please understand that I'm pointing my finger at myself alone and at 
no one else.

Merely being aware of facts, however, is not enough. Our 
personalities are formed early in life, and any change for the better 
requires effort.

Cecil, waxing something or other