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12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Your Top 3- Thought Provoking Questions

Blimey, Samantha! I'm no good at this kind of clever conundrum, but these forums are so quiet I'll try and participate.

In answer to your question, I'd say that you are the same age that you would be if you did know. Illustration - if I have a dog that was born five years ago, it doesn't know its age but it is five years old. What a boring and prosaic way to answer the question.

I suppose you want mine:

'If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?'

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Old friend

I was recently contacted by email through a well-known website that I won't name by an old university friend of mine that I haven't seen for about 18 years or so. As we are both 50 this year, she suggested getting together to catch up, and invited myself and my partner to visit her at her house in the country.

She was a close friend of mine back in the day, and my first reaction was to accept. But then I thought about it and realised that I was ashamed to face her. I would have to talk about my life and it struck me that I am ashamed of my lack of achievement, my unhappiness and the fact that my life has been so boring. She would see how worn and old I have become, how my failures are writ large upon me. I just can't face it, so I emailed her and politely declined, but giving reasons that mean there is no revesing the decision.

Isn't that sad?

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Your Top 3- Thought Provoking Questions

Hi Rowsie

I'd rather be beautiful and dumb. Why? It sounds like more of a recipe for happiness to me. I'm kind of smart and kind of unattractive, and a fat lot of good that combination has done me, so I'd try the other option for sure.

Now my next:

'A lone tree sways in the wind. Without the tree, does the wind blow?'

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Old friend

Hi Vincenza

I know I shouldn't let my unhappiness take over my life in this way, but I just can't face the whole catching-up thing. Talking about my life, what I have and haven't done, I just can't bear the idea of going over all that and putting a happy face on it. I'm content, in a way, just to know that Nicola (name changed) is still alive and well. I should leave it at that. I know that if I change my mind and go ahead, I'll stress about the meeting beforehand and probably find some lie to get out of it on the day it's due to happen.

There is a slight soap opera spin to this as well. At university, I carried a bit of a torch for Nicola, but it was me that introduced her to Ivan (name also changed). I knew them both separately, and brought them together. They fell for each other, married, and are still together. She made the right choice - he's a successful businessman and an all-round nice guy. I have always really liked Ivan, but I can't help a spot of jealousy creeping in.

The more I think about this (and I tend to think far too much for my own peace of mind) the more complex it gets. What should be a casual, pleasant get-together has already become a monster in my mind. Best, I think, to leave it. After all, if we didn't have any contact for 18 years, then there can't be much of a friendship there.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Old friend

Hi Ashley

This issue does seem trivial, but it does feel important to me, for a few reasons.

I've always looked back on my years at university as my 'golden years', when I was the happiest I have ever been. Why's that? I think it's because it's the only time in my life that I have been surrounded by friends. So the memory of those times with those people have been precious to me.

As time went by and we all emerged into the real, hard, world we all lost touch bit by bit. And I've always thought 'Wouldn't it be lovely to see those people again?'

Well, I had a disillusioning bit of email contact a couple of years back with my very best friend from my student days. We exchanged news, and he was very patronising, referring to me as having been his 'little friend' Little friend! can you imagine how hurtful that was? This guy had been my best friend of all, ever in my life, I'd held my memories of the good times with him close, and all the time he'd just thought of me as his 'little friend'............Well, I immediately stopped contact and refused his suggestion to meet up for a coffee and a chat one day.

Back to Nicola. After all these years, what I hoped for has come to pass and we've got back in contact. And now I am just too ashamed of myself to go through with it. I don't want her or Ivan to see me as I am, worn-down and old before my time.

I despise myself for this weakness, this confusion. For all I know, Nic and Ivan could be in a worse state than me. I'm just assuming that they are successful and happy. And this is a chance to remake a friend, but I just don't know how to make friends any more.

Sorry, Ashley, I'm such a bore.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Old friend

Oh, Ashley!

Articulate...caring...good listener...intelligent...sensitive...insightful.....even talented and creative....

Everyone tells me I am all these things and more. Surely the ingredients for a successful and fulfilling life. So, I ask myself over and over, what's missing? The plain and nasty fact is that I don't have any friends to speak of, and just wouldn't know what to do with a close friend any more, and reconnecting with people who used to be friends carries levels of uncertainty and fakery that I just couldn't cope with.

I'm not the same young man I was when I knew Nicola and Ivan, and they are probably not the same. I would anticipate the encounter being guarded, awkward. I can't imagine how it would be a rewarding experience. Such encounters obviously involve a lot of talking and, no matter how articulate I may be on the written page, I hate talking socially, never have anything to say, feel stupid and boring. But we're straying here into my social anxiety, and I won't open that can of worms here.

It's sad, and troubles me so much, because 'normal' people appear to have ongoing friends, meet old and new friends, chat and interact so naturally and with pleasure, whereas for me it's traumatic and painful and carries no joy. And I do not understand what's wrong, what's missing in me, why I fear other people so much.

You ask me what kind of friend I would like to be. I just don't know. I look back on such friendships as I have had, and I have always been a leech, a hanger-on, a peripheral 'little friend'. That's reasonable. I can't expect other people to value me when I don't value myself.

But I have a family who accept me, thank the Lord. Without them I would be totally alone.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Negative core beliefs – Part III

Hi Vincenza, hope you're well.

This is interesting, the sociotropic/autonomous dichotomy you talk about. Is it uncommon that I feel I fit into both categories?

I am certainly concerned about relationships, disapproval and acceptance by others. I have a whole bunch of social anxiety-related issues, which I presume place me in the sociotropic category. Yet......

.....a lot of my present low sense of self worth comes from my lack of achievement, control, material success. I am almost obsessively concerned with failure and torture myself with feelings of incompetence. I am always feeling at work that one day my boss will call me in and tell me that they have finally seen right through me, that despite appearances they've realised how useless I am. So this fits with the autonomous category.

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Challenging Social Anxiety

Hi Craig

I got kind of choked reading your post, because you are describing exactly the way I felt when I was your age (I am 50 now). On reflection, I realised that you're actually describing the way I am now as well. I'm not going to come over all 'wise old guy' on you and dispense advice, I just want you to know that you are most certainly not alone in how you feel. More people than you probably can imagine feel like you do. Us socially anxious types tend to feel that we have a great beacon over our heads which makes us conspicuous, whereas in truth most people are too busy with themselves to notice or care.

I agree with Vincenza's advice to be yourself. You are creative, you love music - these are great gifts and enrichers of life.

take care and keep posting

Pete

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

Challenging Social Anxiety

Hi Craig

I appreciate your courage in sharing your feelings and your pain so honestly. I can only talk from my own experience, but you remind me so much of myself when I was 17. I, too, had heartbreak and yearning for one particular girl, and didn't have a girlfriend at all until I was 19. As you say, the simple things that look so effortless for so many people seemed to be denied to me, and I really couldn't understand why and it hurt like hell.

But here I am now, I'm 50 (though I still find that hard to believe). I have a settled relationship, with the first woman I dated (believe it or not) and three fine sons. I've not really changed - I'm still socially anxious, prone to lashings of self-doubt. I still stress over everyday things and struggle to cope, but my partner accepts me for who I am more than I accept myself. Now, I do love her, but she's not a saint, not an exceptional special person. She's an ordinary woman, and the world is full of ordinary, kind-hearted people like her.

Please, Craig, try and have hope. Close connections with other people can happen in unexpected ways and not always where or how you think they will. None of us are so unique that there is nobody with whom we can truly connect, though I know it can feel that way.

Enough of the preachy 50 year-old stuff. I know when I was 17 I wouldn't have particularly appreciated it from a stranger, and I still wouldn't.

take care

Pete

12 years ago 0 +0 / -0 223

How´s your summer?

In answer to the original question. What does summer mean to me?

I'm sorry to say that I'm one of those who doesn't like the summer. So what does it mean to me?

being too hot/freaked out by bright sunshine (I have a low physical tolerance for heat and bright light)
listening to everyone else go on about what a lovely/beautiful day it is, when I find the weather a test of endurance (am I a vampire???)
feeling guilty because I can't afford to take my family on a holiday
never knowing how much/how little to wear
feeling under pressure to go out, when all I want to do is stay inside in the shade
when the weather is hot, my neighbours fling their doors and windows open and play their dreadful music at ridiculous volume, intruding into the very heart of my home and leaving me no place to find peace and rest
when the weather is hot, my other neighbours have endless stinking barbecues in theor garden and play their horrible music

Horrid time of year

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