Not bad or good... chaotic

[jay]

Tonight's PPP was pretty good, rather chaotic for me with good and bad moments. Thanks to mikz for being there and talking as soon as I arrived in the pool... that helped me ice-break and enjoy the rest of the evening more than otherwise. The rest of HD was there, and I was glad to see them... even if I'm still annoyed at one of them for something zie said (that pushed one of my buttons, hugely)... maybe I should start calling myself Jay again, in these circles. Confusing. Chaotic.

I wandered a bit less than I would have liked (didn't arrive until 10:20pm), but spent lots of time with oakdragon, runeshower, redhawke, phoenixrisen and grynz. One of them gave me a pleasantly-unexpected kiss, near the end :-). Confusing. Conversely, I missed spending much time with dawnd or akienm, except in passing during cleanup afterwards, and only got to wave to mactavish as she was leaving, just after I arrived. A bit chaotic.

The weather cooperated... it cooled down, and the pool temperature was a bit lower than at some past parties. And others liked my strawberries with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, it all disappeared :-).

I think I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea who is attracted or interested in me, personally... people that I think might be interested, then do or say something to the contrary. People that I'm pretty sure are indifferent, or just-friends at best, surprise me with affectionate gestures. I'm just confused, now. Nothing correlates, it's all chaotic. Time to sleep.

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

OK, I'm gonna pick this to pieces in a moment, partially in an effort to truly understand what you are saying, and partially to try to express my rather different perspective on this. You have been warned.

A paraphrase of what you said, with emphasis: If you BELIEVE that someone MIGHT want to be your friend then you FEEL an obligation.

So refusing to believe that someone might want to be your friend is a way you avoid feeling an obligation.

Interesting choice.

What if there were no obligation? Personally, I don't think that someone expressing an interest in friendship occurs any sort of obligation whatsoever. Their feelings, their responsibility. Now, in an established friendship, where both parties are agreed about it, there MIGHT be some degree of COMMITMENT (I am committed to helping my friends wherever possible, for instance, within the bounds of my own personal safety and my established commitments to family and other friends). But even there, I'd stop short of calling it obligation.

Again: What if there were no obligation? Would you then feel it necessary to avoid any perception on your part that others might want to reach out and be friends with you? Do you see that this belief is likely a core piece of why you feel lonely and left out all the time? Because you are choosing to feel left out and lonely? Because the alternative--obligation--is far scarier than being lonely?


...If my expectations are then met with someone, I'm still in control of the situation (even if it still hurts a bit).

What makes you think you are EVER "in control of the situation"? Their feelings are THEIR FEELINGS--you have no control over their feelings. Heck, you don't even have control over YOUR feelings. You have control over your ACTIONS in RESPONSE to those feelings. But you have no control over anyone's feelings, or anyone's actions other than your own. Influence, persuasion, gentle nudging, requests, yes. But not control.


my self-esteem is actually quite robust, even bordering on arrogance in some areas ;-)

Yes, in this case I'd agree with those who made that assessment, with no irony whatsoever. I would consider it quite arrogant for you to believe that you have any sort of control over other people's feelings, good or bad. To attempt to manipulate other people in this way is definitely arrogant (as well as annoying and off-putting).