2019

[greenstorm]

There really aren't people like me in the world. There are people I love and people who make me happy, but i don't have anyone like me. Not even folks who understand me well enough not to make huge false assumptions.

Makes sense for me to focus on places of overlap with individuals and keep the rest private.

My property, my garden, my animals, and achievements at work make me happy. Snuggling and conversation can make me happy if people are carefully selected. Overlapping hobbies can make me happy. Have to be satisfied with that, i think.

Comments

[graydon2]

I'm sorry to hear the loneliness in this sentiment. That sounds hard. Also sorry for huge false assumptions I may have made. I will always listen to corrections.

Consolation feeling: I think it is not likely that many people have a ready supply of people just like them. Some have a weak enough sense of self to conform to a social mold or to the shape imposed by coexistence with another, at least for a time, but those conformances cause a different kind of pain. You have a very forceful self that is not likely to go along with that anyways.

But I think it is good to keep trying to let people know you and to know others, even if all that you learn is the shape of the alienness in one another.

[greenstorm]

Most people can have a conversation about more than one area of interest, or one area of interest with someone who has similar life experiences or views. I can have narrowly silo'd conversations, but I cannot have any other kind without constantly explaining myself (gender, multi-partner, non-nesting, ecosystems & sustainability, animal and plant husbandry, science, forestry, rural living). Talk about farming? Everyone else has partners who live with them who can help out and I have to explain that. Talk about poly or gender? Everyone lives in cities and doesn't want animals and doesn't believe in ecosystems. Talk about permaculture? People don't really like science or are all in communes. Talk about gender? Everyone either makes snide remarks about men, snide remarks about rural prejudice, or doesn't believe in the patriarchy let alone flow into a discussion on animal behaviour. I just want to have a conversation where I'm not some sort of exotic specimen, but just a person.

I learned the term "hopepunk" today, it's making my day better. Plus, geese.

I want to have a conversation about geese with someone semi-knowledgeable without deciding what I want to come out about/not come out about.

Maybe one answer is to spend more time with myself, since I fit the criteria I need, honestly.

[graydon2]

Most people can have a conversation about more than one area of interest, or one area of interest with someone who has similar life experiences or views.

I see. That is isolating, yes. I know a small part of the feeling -- mostly separate my sex-and-relationship stuff from work-and-computers stuff from techno-and-drugs stuff from history-and-politics stuff from religious-practices-and-facing-death stuff -- but there may be more opportunities to cross those streams among my peers than you have among yours. You bring together a lot of threads.

I learned the term "hopepunk" today, it's making my day better

Oh, then I will pass along https://twitter.com/WholesomeMeme which I enjoy seeing in my timeline lately.

Maybe one answer is to spend more time with myself, since I fit the criteria I need, honestly.

It can be a good default. I like my own company, seek it out a lot. Less to explain or suppress. Also I find rummaging around people's written words -- online but also/especially in books -- lets me be even more selective about the pieces I borrow from them than I could be in person.