Saturday, June 15, 2024

 Saturday, June 15, 2024

    It was a heavy grief day over one lost relationship or another.  As an extravert, I always seek connection.  I love loving people. I have someone who accused me of being a predator. Wow! I try to see it from their point of view. Suppose they're someone who has chosen to deal with the difficulties of childhood with avoidance. In that case, they spend their life avoiding too much connection. That keeps relationships with peers light; let's talk about baseball, cars, recipes, or music. But let's never talk about ourselves, and we should never discuss our relationship.   I go in the opposite direction, for better and for worse. Let's not talk about ourselves, and let's never talk about our relationship.  I've had my own missteps. I don't think there is any one way out of psychological and social difficulties.

   I loved it when Isaac was here, and I watched some of the awkwardness in our relationship resolve. Sometimes, it just resolves without much fanfare. Sometimes, it requires overt discussion. It can be challenging if it requires more explicit discussion than implicit resolution of boundary issues.  You never know which way it's going to go.  You have to test the waters. You must ask for what you want, say no to what you don't want, and negotiate from there. It can be scary, especially when you haven't built up a supply of trust.

   I think introverts who see me coming with a big smile on my face must see me as a local sociopath, someone who loves bombs and then blows up in their face.  I learned the expression love bombing from Lutz. He married a local woman who turned out to be an honest, honest-to-God sociopath. She loved bombed him. Then, once they were married, she set about tearing him to shreds. He reports she once said about a woman she was befriending, "I've got her so she thinks I really like her and she can trust me.  Soon, I'll start attacking her and watch her fall apart." Those weren't her exact words, but they capture the gist. Holy cow! Are there really people like that in the world.  Scammers who sweet-talk you to get your trust are only after your money.  This woman was after causing pain. She got off on schadenfreude.

   Now, in all fairness, not all people who pull a bait and switch are sociopaths.  They may suffer from a bad attachment pattern: they're anxious-avoidant. I think my mom was that way.  She was passionate about her children.  She put out intense, too intense, loving vibes. And then, when I got near her, she'd push me away in something close to disgust. It was hard. She had some sadistic tendencies. But from what I learned about her as an adult, she was as upset about them as everyone else.  My poor mom.  I remember craving closeness with others and pushing it away in absolute terror when it was an option. I resolved it when I learned to set my boundaries instead of relying on others to do it for me.

   I only had Adolescent D today. We agreed that he can read single-syllable words with ease. He has remaining problems with multi-syllable words. I'm curious if he's okay with two-syllable words by this point. I'll have to watch for that specifically.

  Netflix says there's a new season of Bridgerton, but every time I turn it on, I'm forced to watch Season One again.  Maybe I watched the series on Amazon, so Netflix thinks I'm new to it.

   Oh, the other day, I finally watched Crazy Rich Asians. What fun! It's not quite as good as my Big, Fat Greek Wedding, but it's enjoyable.