An Open Space

You seem to have a love/hate relationship with a lot of things. And I think that those two are closer to each other than either is to neutrality. Both are passionate.

I just seem to go around in circles all the time. My thinking is based on circles. And on tangents to those circles. If you think about it, there is an infinite number of tangent lines that can be drawn in reference to a circle. In theory, anyway. In practice, the number of tangents to a given idea is limited by a person's knowledge and intelligence.

I like squares. 'Cause it's hip to be.

Well, I love circles because they're really pretty in appearance but I hate them because of what they are and how they fit in with my life. The hate wins out over the love, really. I despise circles... but they are pretty.

FrayedEndOfSanity wrote:Hammer--love your marbles. I was gonna say, it reminded me of that one guy from the movie Hook, who went around saying "I've lost my marbles!" And then he finds his marbles....I was happy for him.

Haha it's been so long sine I've seen that movie, I can only vaguely remember what Hook looked like and that is it, but I'm reminded of something else. I don't know if you have ever seen the show Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends but in one of the episodes there is this bit of dialogue

Wilt: Have you lost your marbles?!
Eduardo: I no have no marbles!
{Later that day..}
Eduardo: Have you lost your marbles?!
Wilt: No, they're right here! {hands Eduardo a jar of marbles}
Eduardo: Ooooh!

I love them imaginary friends

As for circles I like the shape of them but I don't like circles as in the sense of having "circles" of friends. I bounce around a lot. Living in a small city I'm surprised at how many times I'll be in one circle and hear a reference to a friend I had in a different circle but the rest of the group doesn't know the person . Kind of like that Six Degrees of Separation theory.

I loved that show whenever I could catch it! I wonder if Netflix has it...

ohmygosh, they DO! Seasons 1-5

Yay!

I never had any imaginary friends as a child. I created some once but, obviously, that's not the same. Did you have any? I don't really understand how it works, to be honest.

Well, here's my opinion. It's not based on anything other than what I think. I don't have any research to back up my theories.

An imaginary friend is really a part of you. It's almost like a dissociation from your conscience. Think of a kid just playing with his/her toys. The kid is gonna talk to them, or pretend they say things. An imaginary friend is like that, except that there are no toys present.

When I first came to the US, I didn't have many friends and was often lonely. The language barrier made it somewhat difficult. So I befriended Leonardo from the TMNT series. I pretended like he could open a portal and visit me in my world, and that we could be friends. I walked to elementary school, about 2 miles each way, and talked to him. After I started making friends, I started to imagine him less and less.

If you've ever written a diary, there's a chance that you might have been writing as if you were addressing someone else. People will do that, Dear Diary... It's not that far a stretch to come up with an imaginary entity that would listen to you.

Some folks just talk to their imaginary friends. Others go to the extent of putting words in their imaginary mouths. There's nothing strange about it. It's the same as talking to yourself. Because that's where the "friend" came from.

People who have sexual fantasies about people, real or imagined, are in fact creating temporary imaginary friends (with benefits).

I don't think it's a problem, unless the friends start splitting off and talking back uncontrollably. This could be a sign that you're not being entirely honest with yourself (which is a good thing to keep in mind), or it could be an onset of schizophrenia, which can reach maturity as late as someone's early 20s (if you want to believe the textbooks). Or even of dissociative identity disorder (FKA multiple personality disorder).


It's interesting that you mention this. Since I've become pretty much a recluse, I've considered creating an imaginary friend. I compulsively entertain people. My social anxiety is really bad sometimes. So I figured, what would be the harm of setting up a different e-mail account or writing snail mail letters to myself, for the sake of company. Company that I could actually enjoy.

Then I realized that doing so would just further isolate me from social interactions and dissociate me from reality. So I talked to my fiance instead! And he agreed to spend more time with me. He's making me crab cakes this Saturday.

So my plans for an imaginary friend are currently on hold, lol! And I'm dealing with social anxiety issues in a different and healthier way. There's a difference between being self-sufficient and imagining someone who fills the place of a real person.

There are worse ways to cope with loneliness, though, than having an imaginary friend.

I don't know. I just feel like I'd be someone really likely to have had an imaginary friend as a child, but I simply never did. I was very imaginative and have never been all that close to anyone. I mean, the one thing I've wanted most, for as long as I can remember, is a best friend. Just seems like I'd've made one for myself. Maybe I'm just too... logical for that? I don't know. I'm two complete opposites put together. The completely insane, illogical, imaginative, disordered, feeling side and the logical, realistic, sensible, contemplative, organized side, but very little, if anything, in between. It's practically contradictory.

Nope I've never had an imaginary friend. I know all about having social anxiety and loneliness though. I guess you could say I'm socially awkward, I don't understand a lot of social norms and have a quirky charm, people are amused by it although to me it is normal I don't deal with loneliness too well, it drives me crazy but at least right now I have internet to talk to people and my cat meows at me, I meow back, he meows again, and so on, he makes me happy. Right now he is curled up like the firefox logo but he doesn't have an earth to cuddle with . In real life I meet people, stay good friends for a month or 2 and then just disappear. I make up an excuse about why I don't want to hang out with them anymore no matter how stupid and irrational it is. I end up hurting nearly everyone that tries to enter my life as a friend, that is one thing I'm good at by nature.

I used to do that a lot because I enjoyed the "honeymoon period" of friendships. Some friends I kept for years, but I would disappear for months at a time because I didn't want them to see me while I was hurting.

I have people in my life now who understand what I go through and don't step on me when I'm already feeling down.

I've made the step from avoiding people because I think they won't understand me to avoiding people because I don't want to spread my misery. It's a bigger step than it seems at first. It's not an end-all, though.

But I find that it's actually liberating to say to someone, "I'm feeling miserable and I don't want to spread the misery to you. How about we grab lunch when I feel happier?"



OK, new word:

Table.

I enjoy the honeymoon period also. I don't think that my "friends" don't understand my pattern of emotions. I just get a feeling like I'm sick of everything that comes out of their mouths, their very image. Everything annoys me about them, to the point that I don't want to see or hear from them again for a few months and then we end up randomly running into each other and everything is good. It's like the rollercoaster of relationships but on a friendship level in high speed.

Table - All cards on the table, nothing to hide. I'm good at being a man of 1000 faces socially when I'm interested in something even though I have social anxiety, it only works with strangers though mainly when they approach me, but just like friends when I tire of trying to relate I don't like to cut people out of my life FOREVER. I will turn mean, I act like a dick so they will stop talking to me because I'm not interested anymore. I don't really know why I get sick of anyone and after a couple months we are good friends again when we randomly run into each other, a couple months later the rollercoaster starts over.