I've joined a dating app for friends. Note, this does not mean using a dating app for making friends - that would just be unfair. I'm also not sure that allowing the uncertainty that already swamps online interactions to proliferate is wise.
No, this is geared specifically at allowing me to meet friends. I have been cultivating a measure of technophobia for some time, and by technophobia, I really mean 'fear of technology.' Blame it partly on the show Person of Interest if you will (but do watch that show, because it is SO. GOOD.), but I have felt the ever-increasing presence of technology as a light but consistent pressure on me, which I am yielding to ever more, unless I break rather than bend.
Break, I have - I was never one to get too into 'social media' anyway and the commitment they demand has always felt to me like a chore upon other chores. In 2012, my life underwent considerable upheaval 'IRL' and that remained the case until 2016. From 2016, some of the madness abated enough to make me ask Big Questions.
Big Questions like - who AM I? I had goals for myself - don't murder your mother, find love and get the hell out - which I achieved. Then it was a case of finding a job... and now it is a case of finding a career. Though that's even some of the way towards being resolved.
The question of WHO AM I must be answered in component parts, because no-one is one monolithic self, but a collection of selves. I'm a wife and I'm also now a home-owner. Two things I never really thought I'd be, but hey! Due to the way I got to the wife and home-owner stages, I need to now answer the question of WHO AM I in relation to friends.
When you lack emotional support, love and acceptance, you will allow a great deal of unacceptable treatment just in order to maintain a connection with somebody. Boundaries become something of a disaster zone. This is almost certainly to do with my upbringing, which was all very heavily predicated on being the 'right' way. Be feminine, be obedient, be very slim, defer to seniors/betters but also be educated, be a successful professional, don't be too dependent on others to decide things for you... I was the disappointing, difficult daughter. So insidious was the messaging I received, constantly implying that I couldn't succeed because a) I didn't want to enough, and b) I was inherently incapable. SPOT THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.
It's worth noting here that parental narcissism and the gaslighting involved therein is a long-term project. I shouldn't really be surprised that a) it's affecting me to this day and b) I didn't spot just how dishonest it was earlier. My husband tends to use the terms 'survival' and 'surviving' when discussing my adolescence, and I'm really seeing how apt this is now. It occurs to me that maybe I'm a survivor in more ways than one? Maybe I have got so focused on 'getting through' that I am finding myself, as of this moment, back full circle blogging to try and get the welter of emotions under control.
Good Lord, are feelings complex or what! 'Feeling' your feelings, 'processing' your feelings and 'managing' your feelings... it's a lot of work.
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