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I'm sliding into myself as a 13-year-old. This is the life I lived then.

Aside from sewing, cooking, gardening, being really earnest, being enthusiastically idealistic, and having a mix of bafflement and impatience for most humans I am re-embracing my method for making friends.

It pretty much involves walking up to someone and saying "you look neat because of X. I'd like to do Y."

So far this mostly involves "you look neat on the internet because (you are PDA/you are a woodland creature/you do plants/whatever). I'd like to friend each other and watch from a distance for awhile."

It feels good to do. I learned a long long time ago that life is too short not to be forthright, and much too short to assume other people will do the work for you. Also it feels shitty when they "mysteriously" don't do the work.

TBH this is probably why I've dated too many people who want other people to do the work.

PS Hazard is staring transfixed into the flames of the woodstove, which I highly approve of but seems like a very ...human.. thing to do?

(no subject)

Kinda speaking of dating, a PDA friend of mine on the internet uses this as a dating screen question: "if this doesn't work out and I'm not feeling it a couple weeks or months in, how would you prefer I let you know?"

He says it's the magic question for him.

I'm currently incredibly frustrated by the number of close people who seem totally puzzled by the question "what response would you like, or do you expect, from this communication" in my life right now. I bet that magic question would have weeded them out.

Those basic concepts: communication exists to serve a purpose; people have different purposes for different communications; the person you're communicating with can use cues but can't really know what you want out of the experience if you don't tell them; you will probably not be happy with every type of possible response; some sort of mindfulness when interacting with other humans. They're not rocket science, right?

Right?

I was talking to my therapist today and proposed what felt like a super transgressive thought: I could ask people what they wanted from a communication, and if they went all blank-eyed and refused to answer I could just tell them to give me a shout when they figured it out and go do something else with my life. This feels mean and incorrect, right? As if it crosses the line between screening folks out and being mean to them?

I think I'm in the prickly part of my pill-muffled cycle.

But also I think I'll put that question beside what do you like about yourself? which is the most heartbreaking thing to ask people on dating apps, as a good screen for people who might be suitable for me. Since do you have self-esteem? and are you capable of day-to-day functional introspection? are unlikely to get useful answers.