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Originally Posted by lurkette
Also, Gilda, don't underestimate the contribution this thread is making to other people. You being so raw and honest about things gives others (like me) an opportunity (even a challenge!) to look really hard at our own feelings about this. Look at how many closet introverts have spoken up and been touched by what you've written.
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Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I was thinking about just myself, and not the dozen or so other people involved here. It was selfish.
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I talk a big game, and most of the time I do have this managed, but shit, there are still times where I would rather chew through my own ankle than go to a party with people I don't know. It doesn't take much - a bad hair day, catching an unflattering glimpse of myself in a mirror, wearing the wrong shoes, saying something stupid in a meeting - and suddenly I feel like a worm and I can't imagine exposing myself to the inevitable and (I feel) righteous judgment of people who are so much more accomplished/beautiful/intelligent/kind/effective/choose my flaw than I am.
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Oh. I'm sorry that you feel that way. I wish there were something I could do to help, but as you can see, I'm not real good at dealing with this stuff myself.
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Everyone else looks at me and says "what the fuck are you thinking? You're brilliant, beautiful, poised, blah blah blah" and I know that's not how I feel, but that's what they SEE. So this is the insight I can give you: listen to the people around you. Your feelings are not necessarily (or even likely!) correlated with reality.
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Yeah, I get that. But understanding that certain feelings and emotional responses are counterproductive doesn't make them go away, or deprive them of their influence. I understand intellectually that getting on that 300 foot tall roller coaster is safer than the car ride to the amusement park, but it doesn't keep the coaster from scaring the bejeezus out of me, and the coaster wouldn't be any fun if it wasn't scary.
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And they don't need to stop you from having the life you want.
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See, that's a big part of what makes me feel so foolish. I have this life that, on paper, most people would envy. I'm soon to be a college professor at a top university. I'm married to a beautiful woman who loves and accepts me unconditionally. Between the two of us we make a very comfortable living. And so on. Make a list of the good stuff in my life and the bad stuff and most people would scoff, and rightly so, at my whining and complaining about getting bad service in a restaurant. Hell, as I was reading back what I wrote, I was thinking, this is stupid, why didn't you get up and leave 15 minutes earlier instead of making yourself miserable?
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There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be by yourself, which is a healthy impulse; but we ALL lose something precious when a beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, caring person like you stifles herself because she's afraid of what we might think of her.
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That's the weird part. When I'm here at home, I don't want to be by myself. That's why I came here and posted all that stuff. I don't do alone well. When I'm out, I want to have someone with me, specifically Grace or Sissy, or when he's around, Boris (my brother). When I have someone with me to act as a filter so that I don't have to deal with strangers by myself, I'm good. Most of the time, I don't even think they realize that they're doing this.
It's only when I'm out in public or in a new place, like my new job, that I want to be left alone. All of the people stopping by today while I was trying to write up my syllabi for my upper division courses weren't just annoying because they were a distraction, they were, each one of them, a new opportunity to say something foolish or offensive.
Thank you for the help.
Gilda