Opening My Heart To Love

I don't think I'm a good friend. Not a bad one, but I'm detached, nonchalant. I don't initiate conversations. I don't invite people out. I hardly text back. I'm an aloof friend, I suppose.

I avoided Brazil for over a decade rather than engage with my extended family. When I finally went back recently, it was only to regions far from where they live.

I do most things alone.

I'm not comfortable being hugged or touched by anyone who isn't my significant other. I don't express much love or intimacy outside of romantic partnership. I reserve all of that for my partner and my cat.

I, I, I...

It wasn't always like this. I've always leaned avoidant, but since graduating college it's gotten worse. I think it traces back to a handful of times I opened myself to platonic love and was left deeply disappointed. That shouldn't justify the way I am now, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm incapable of being loved platonically. I always feel too awkward, too autistic, or something. I never know if I'm making the right facial expressions, the right hand movements. I don't know the correct amount of eye contact, or what is and isn't appropriate to talk about. Maintaining deep platonic bonds feels like endless mental gymnastics. Which is rough, because I suspect I'm generally off-putting. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe my belief that I'm unlovable creates the very conditions that confirm it.

Showing love takes so much effort.

I'm not comfortable talking about my feelings, or being hugged, or holding eye contact. I don't know what to do when someone cries. I don't really understand how human relationships of any kind are supposed to work.

I'm rather avoidant.

I get overwhelmed easily-- claustrophobic, smothered.

Shallow, fleeting connections feel easier. I can be charismatic in doses: charming, smiley. I treat service workers well. I'll almost always offer a stranger a smile. But most things beyond that feel like a chore, like the mask has to stay on at all times.

I'm often riddled with shame and guilt.

I'm not organically a smiley person. It feels like we're all required to keep up this smiling face mask just to be accepted into society.

I don't inherently dislike people, but I don't inherently like them either. I sit somewhere in the middle.

Still I'm trying to open my heart to nonromantic love. Platonic love.

It feels so strange, so icky. Like a pool of slime I'm trying to wade through. The heart and the ego so often feel at odds.

My internal world feels very full. My mind is always running at a hundred miles an hour, crowded with tasks and things I want to do. Most of my hobbies are solitary: exercising, writing, painting, reading, typing away on my computer. Lonesome activities, all of them, and I treasure them more than almost anything.

I need a lot of time alone. When I'm around people too long, I get irritable, frustrated, weird, angry, impatient. I'm always scanning for an escape. How can I slip away from the group for a bit? And yet I still want to feel included. I want to be thought of, longed for. I just don't want to be obligated to anything. I already feel like I don't have a grip on my own solitary life. How am I supposed to make time for others when I don't even feel like I have time for myself?

How can I be more open to love while safely expressing that my form of love might be a bit unconventional?

I don't know if I'm strange. I think a lot of people feel this way.

There's just... there's just so much to do, all the time. But I'm such a monkey, and I want to feel included in the group.

An advanced monkey, though (I think?) -- and advanced monkeys have all these things they have to do.

Superficially, I think it's easy to capitalize on this. Most people feel overwhelmed by their daily tasks or their lifelong goals, and maybe they're all just looking for brief moments of relief from the hamster wheel. I think that's why the short bursts of charm come so easily to me. Everyone wants a smile. Everyone wants a compliment from a pretty woman. "You're such a good boy!" "I'm so proud of you!" "Thank you for your help! You're the best!" It's easy to know what people want to hear when they're never going to hear from me again.

But I'm not sure how to do long-term connection. Because I want to be true to myself, and I'm actually quite dark... I think? Ugh that's so cringe to say. I'm not mean. I'm very kind. But there's a charisma that comes out of me in Business Development work that never shows up in my longer-term connections.

So I keep asking how do I open my heart to love while being honest that my love looks unconventional? I don't have the answer. But I'm asking the question out loud now, which is more than I could do a year ago. The mask comes off eventually. I just don't know yet who I'm willing to let see what's under it. My partner. My cat. That's the list, for now. I'm working on making it longer.