Connecting

Loneliness can become a lifestyle.

When a person finds it difficult to connect with people over the years they subconsciously give up trying. This isn't always loneliness. Sometimes it is a desire to be alone.

I can be lonely in a crowd. All the people babble away about things I am not interested in. The social types keep stopping by to make sure I am not forgotten. My friends check with me once in a while to make sure I am ok. The cutie in the corner doesn't know I exist.

It can be like this online. Timezones and personal distance create barriers. The environment itself is foreign and artificial. All these computers are connected and yet I feel disconnected sometimes.

I know what the problem is. For years I didn't need much social interaction. If I had problems I would call my few friends. Sometimes there was loneliness but not often.

Since I started blogging things have changed. As my cybersocial network expanded I began to get more interested in people. The good point about this is that I wasn't so self centered. The bad point is that the environment is artificial and the situations harder to evaluate. I have made a few mistakes but I am learning from them.

I played around a lot being 'Uncle Firemind" and tried to listen to everyone and keep them blogging. It has been fun but it could be tiring and some people may have found it intrusive. I still like reading my friends blogs because I am entertained and I learn about them. It is satisfying to see people I "know" achieve things and change. I will write more about this in another post.

Something has felt odd about my blog recently and I couldn't put my finger on it. All of my silly (G - rated) links and surveys now get posted at 2 Lazy 2 Blog. This leaves Firemind for the writing I really like to do. The trouble is I haven't been able to do any.

Recently I have been connecting a lot with people through blogs, email, and IM. My mood would swing as I learned new things and adapted. Yet I wasn't writing much about it. "Firemind isn't an angst ridden livejournal or diary," I would say. I also don't like to give details or to gossip about people.

As I sat staring at my computer one night I got angry. I knew I could write what I want without hurting myself or anyone else. I knew I could give a sense of what I was feeling without resorting to melodrama. Then I started to write.

I didn't think about my readers. I felt some would relate to what I was saying and others wouldn't. I felt that by writing honestly I was connecting to myself. Some of this writing is dark and painful. Some of it tries to be but fails (like the last post).

I have connected with my readers and this has been good. If I didn't want comments I would turn them off. Thanks everyone.

Loneliness can become a burden. The key is to admit it is there when it appears and react. Visit a few blogs and comment or just say hello; send an email or two; or IM a friend: these are all good ways to connect with your blogfriends. You can also shut off the computer and visit people in person. These are all methods that worked for me recently.

Loneliness will come to you, but if you deal with it properly it will go away.