on finding people

what it means to me to not be alone

i don’t want to be anxious alone

i don’t want to be around people where i notice that the range of things i feel safe to be around them is limited in a way that restricts my behavior

also i want physical touch and intimacy

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so i want:

when i am doing something that isn’t routine to the point of mundanity, i want there to be someone i know i can turn to instinctively. “having emotions” counts for this; “i want to have somebody i can talk about what i’m feeling to” (duh)

if i am thinking of what i can’t say while i talk to you this is sad

this can be complicated

if you become important to me i don’t want to interact with you unless i feel safe to bare the deepest, most vulnerable parts of my soul. i wish i’d learned this explicitly sooner

if you are some guy at work i have never thought of baring my soul to you and probably never will

“boundaries are the closest point at which i can love you and me simultaneously” is a godsend of a quote, and true - but it cuts both ways, there’s a tweet about fire

yatharth (gone till 4/6) @AskYatharth

there’s an important physicality to a fire, which is you can sit as close to it or far from it as you want, you can bask exactly at the distance most comfortable for you to enjoy this fire

i don’t want to be next to you if your heat feels painful. if you don’t want to be that close to me either we can finish a project for business class together just fine

i don’t want to be a little bit away from you if your heat is alluring, beautiful; i do not want to yearn for someone i am actively speaking to

if i ever see you again, i hope i will come close enough to burn my fingers or run fast and far away

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i will make friends for all my interests

when i’m angsting about whether to bring something up - i will say “can i talk to you about this”, or just talk to you about it, or make it so i’m not going to talk to you about it. at least once i’ve been in a situation where my honest conviction, in retrospect, is that the best answer was “please do me a favor and block me for a few months”

all the details i’m not too fussed about. maybe that’s just enough. i don’t like living alone. i want to be someone who drags many friends to live in the same place so that i can always walk to be with someone i love

i am going to be happy. thank you