N as Sabateur

[Hopalong]

GS,
Wow.
That's one of the N things my mother used to have in spades.
Envy, jealousy, competitiveness....so if I published something in a national journal she'd say Oh.
And then haul out doggerel she had published in her school newsletter.

Sometimes she acted quite proud of me, and I do think she's mostly cut it out.
Only time she looks crosseyed now is when her gentleman friend (93) comes to visit and lights up at the sight of me or I give him a hug or chat with him for more than 60 sec.

I know my place! (And it's not competing w/Ma.)

She can win! I became more free when I decided that whatever she wanted in terms of someone ELSE's attention...I'd just gladly let her have it. And get out of her way.

Hops

[Plucky]

This discussion triggered some memories in me.  I learned early on that I was not to compete with N mom, and this extended to other women.  To this day, if there is another woman who wants to take what I have, my man, my friend, my place in the social structure, I cannot do anything but walk away.  I immediately give up and crumple down like tissue paper.  I know deep down that I do not and never will stand a chance.

What made the lesson more strident was the fact that my father only loved my sister, for reasons I could never understand or influence, and I never had a chance of receiving any of his love.

Men, I can fight to the death.  Women, I  am beat before I start.

Plucky

[Gaining Strength]

Plucky - I understand 100%.  I am just now beginning to recognize some similar mindsets that I have.  I was never allowed to say NO to my father, never allowed to disagree or to speak my mind if it differed from his.  As a consequence, for much of my life I simply felt bound by what men said.  I never experienced the power that women have over men.  Just the opposite.  But now - for the first time - now that I see how I got caught in this crazy thinking - I am having dreams where my ways of relating to men has changed.  I expect that soon I will see that happen in life.

Frankly, I could write pages on end about other warped forms of thinking that have trapped me my entire life but finally I am able to see them for what they are.  I honestly believe that I am going to be free of these traps.

From what you write, I don't hear you feeling such release.  Are you getting free or do you think you will be released from this trap?  I hope so.  I hope so for me too.

Hopalong

so if I published something in a national journal she'd say Oh.
And then haul out doggerel she had published in her school newsletter.

Isn't that crazy!! Oh please.  It really is nice to be published in a school newsletter but it doesn't quite compare to a national journal.  And it looks so petty in comparison.  Isn't that tragic that she doesn't even she that she is actually belittling herself.  The sad life of an N.

This afternoon a man from my grandfather's law firm came by my mother's to pay respects.  Many years ago he had dated my mother's youngest sister. And truth be told, he really came by to see her.  I was in the kitchen and could just hear my mother going on and on about a project she was working on so I went out to the living room to get her to come and help me.  It was hard to catch her between breaths.  She didn't have a clue that Nick had not come to see her.  And while he came to see them both - he wouldn't have come if my aunt hadn't been there.  Oh the life of an N.  Sad - so sad.

Some moments I'm Gaining Strength

[Plucky]

Hi GS,
thanks for your comments.  You are right.  I don't feel free from this.  It comes from not having female friends (ok, any friends).  When I sally forth to try to make some friends, as I am doing now.  It is crushing to confront my lack of social confidence, skills, and insight.  I make mistakes by being too pushy, too sarcastic, too needy, and too clueless.  I then relive those moments over and over and at the I am a crumpled mass of self-recrimination. 
And my worst fear is that my children will learn my handicap and have it themselves.
My only strategy is to keep at it and maybe learn something along the way.   But I know that I am also burning bridges and I am encountering now the bridges I burned in the past.
a pathetic
Plucky

[Certain Hope]

Hi Plucky,

  I can really relate to what you've said here... the whole thing. But look at what you have to work with! You're facing reality, being honest, admitting to a level of ignorance which I think alot of people share, but they're just too dug-in to admit it, so they cover it up with a false front. Maybe that's too cynical of me, but that's been my impression in general. Maybe I'm being selfish to say this because I'm in a similar boat, but to me, you have everything going for you, Plucky! It just feels crushing, but we're not really crushed, are we? Every time I face something like this in myself it's so odd... I feel less like "me" and yet more like the "me" I'm supposed to be. If we can just get past the disorienting sensation of being suspended in mid-air over a pit of hungry gators, I think we'll be fine.    Hugs, Plucky. I'm in this one with you.

Hope

[adrift]

Plucky,

   Don't give up and don't be discouraged.  I didn't have any girl friends growing up.  Heck, I didn't have any friends at all until my first boyfriend and that wasn't friendship but was my first experience with peers. I finally managed to make a few friends in college but then lost track of them.  I have one friend who is with me through thick or thin, but she lives far away. For companionship, I don't have any friends, but am working on it.  It's really weird and scary at the same time. Women can intimidate me in a second where I feel more comfortable with men.

Hang in there, Plucky, you can do it. It does take time, but it will work out.  Have faith in yourself.

Adrift

[Gaining Strength]

Plucky and Adrift -
I am in the boat with you on no friends.  I had plenty growing up and then fewer but enough until a few years ago and then I had none.  Ilost all confidence in being able to make friends, I had no sense of boundaries, couldn't understand where the limits were, pushed some people too hard and others let walk over me unti i finally just gave up the idea of having friends.  Now, however, after spending time on this board, I am finding that I am gaining a new sense of confidence.  I think the big thing for me is that I no longer need a friend to understand me.  That need is met by my friends here.  Now I can develop friendships of different levels because I can always come here and know that someone will understand my limitations and have compassion for my struggles.  Voicelessness gives me what home should have given me.  I really believe that we can encourage each other to go out and start making friends.  Let's workout our struggles together.  That's what friends are for.  What do you say? - GS

[Hopalong]

Plucky, Hope, GS, Adrift:

I am so sorry. You're missing half the human race and that's a big piece of a different kind of love.
But...I do relate, here's how.
Through high school I had no female friends, from 1st grade on up (as well as being at the bottom of the pecking order). Girls, from 2nd grade on (!) were my chief tormentors during the day. (Although the boys sured helped them.) I yearned for the girls' acceptance with all my being, but there was something about me then (so vulnerable, oversincere, no cool, all my yearning visible as a billboard) that just must've said "victim." Anyway, I became one.

The strangest was that I chose an all-women's college after a nightmarish girls' school for several years (though I later had graduated from a co-ed h.s.). I don't know why, but I had the thought, it simply can't be the way St. X's was. That was so bad it's not possible that it would be the same. I just had a gut sense that college women would be different. And they were!

It was so odd because I felt as though the very qualities I'd been hated for in elementary school (sensitivity and seriousness and vulnerability...can anyone say Nerd?) I was liked for in college? I went north of here, and people found me interesting, as though I'd grown up in a cow patch. 

Anyway, from those beginnings as a child, woman friends have become my greatest comfort in life. It was a joyful discovery and I think one can make it at any age.

A HUGE help to me was a women's support group where many of us didn't know how to trust other females. We had a wonderful strong leader who guided us through a lot of structured taking-turns and guided communication. That was amazing. People I might have run from I had to sit and listen to. And over the weeks, as I got to know the very diverse individuals...I one evening realized, we're all sisters.

Hops

[gratitude28]

Plucky (and all),
I grew up with the mantra "I don't like other women. I only like men." I am not sure where it came from exactly, whether it was something my mother actually said or just by example. But over time, I grew to realize how important the few females I had in my life were to me (one especially, whom my mother hates because she is beautiful). I now have a group of women friends I adore. This is the first time I have enjoyed that type of relationship. I still like men, but I don't have to prove myself among them as much. I always wanted to out-drink, out-muscle and generally show off when it came to men (and still do some... it was a comfort zome for too long). With my female friends, I can relax a bit and gripe if I want and joke about things I would never discuss with men...
Love,
Beth

[Plucky]

But I do like women as friends. I long to have women friends.  But now, at this late date, it seems to be so difficult to make any.  I had some before we moved here, 10 time zones away, but after I was married, my husband was very angry if I spent time on the phone with them.  So the friendships faded away.  All the other women have their friends.  They don't need a new, clueless, needy, clumsy one.  What for. 
The ones I used to have have moved on.  I have dug all the way back to undergrad and they are just surprised to hear from me, then it fades away.
Men friends would be ok theoretically, but I am still married and men seem to get the wrong idea if they are single, and their wives get the wrong idea if they are married.  So that is not a possibility.
Plucky
Anyway, I can see that I am just whining.  I'll stop. 

[gratitude28]

You are right, Plucky, it is a bit harder to make friends as we get older... for me, my standards have changed too. I don't want people to be exactly like me, but I definitely want them to be kind and loving parents and good people.
I have found that the best way to start a friendship is to show interest in the other person. Often, that will bloom into them showing interest for you.
That being said... I have chosen my "best" friends from a crappy pool over the last few years. The person I trusted most and wanted to believe in ( though I had that gut feeling all along) basically hosed me. And now I have chosen someone who is a full fledged drunk and I am tired of her self-centeredness and meanness.OUr kids are close and we live near each other. I am so done with her. Because of my alcoholism, I also wanted to be in the background if she ever decides to get help. She knows I was a drunk, and that I never condemn or even point out her behavior. At any rate, her boys are like my "other three children" but I am not dealing with her much.
Friendship is not easy game, I know.
Love, Beth

[Plucky]

Thank you Gratitude, Hopsy, GS, Certain Hope (welcome back!), adrift, for paying attention.  I feel so sad about this, but at the same time I feel guilty about whining over something that is my fault and maybe cannot be changed.  It seems that every time I start to get close to someone, they suddenly pull back as if they smell a bad smell or something.    After a lot of analysis I finally come up with something I might have done to cause it.  But I would never realise this thing while it was happening.  Is everyone else so perfect or ok besides me?  If this is my old tape playing, then why does it really keep happening in my real life?
And the worst is that I feel one of my children is having the same issue.  He is starting to be very leery of beginnig frinedships.  I feel I foisted this on him somehow and if it were in my power I would never do so, bt I have no idea what I am doing wrong or how to unteach it to him.
For their sake I need to continue, otherwise I would just withdraw into my books and maybe get a big pet.  I am just venting.  I know no one can help with this.
It really hurts.
Plucky

[Certain Hope]

Oh, dear Plucky!

I just know this isn't hopeless. Do you think perhaps the problem could be... unrealistic expectations?

Re: After a lot of analysis I finally come up with something I might have done to cause it.   

I can't believe that it's always a something you've said or done that's gotten in the way. What are the odds? You know what I think... maybe people just aren't accustomed to someone who is as "real" as you are and they're taken aback. If that's the case, then what's the solution? To be less "real"? Oh sheesh, I hope not. And how long does it take, anyway, to build a true, lasting friendship that's based on genuine intimacy and not mere superficial connections? Long time, I think. Lots of work and constant diligence. Relationships like that are rare, I believe, and in the meanwhile, we build up other levels of friendships on a more casual, superficial basis and wait to see which ones might grow into something more?

Wish I could help, Plucky. If you want to talk about this some more and give some examples of what happens when these friendships fizzle... I'll sure listen. Not because I think I have the answers, but sometimes what we're missing is right in front of our face, just we've become so accustomed to it bein there, it's invisible to us.

With love,
Hope

[Plucky]

Hi Hope,
I think you are on to something, at least the taken aback part.  However, it happens even when I make small talk.  But what does that mean, too real?  Too direct?  Too close for comfort?  Too touchy on their sensitive parts?  I do practice being what I think of as less real.  Last week I accepted an obviously false excuse for a last minute cancellation of an activity my son was going to have with another child without batting an eye.   I could easily have come up with an answer to solve the nonexistent 'problem', but I figured that if she wanted to lie about it, it just means she wants to cancel, period.  Why rope her in.
Maybe I should just adopt twenty kids and then go live on a desert island, so they will have each other and I won't have to worry about being accepted by society.  That is my silly dream.
Plucky

[Certain Hope]

Hi, Plucky,

  I'm thinking maybe it is being "too direct".

Boy, can I relate to what you practiced in accepting what you sensed was a false excuse. See, I have huge trouble with that, too;
I want to take people at face value and not be expected to read between their lines. It's so much simpler that way! But then I'm realizing that I have my own lines to learn to read between and I'm coming to surmise that if we aren't willing to bend and play the "game", so to speak, people are going to feel so uncomfortable in dealing with us that they'll take the path of least resistance and avoid. Ack. It's a tightwire act, for sure, and one I am absolutely rotten at, but I keep trying. Just know that you're not alone, ok? Who woulda guessed we could be so susceptible to peer pressure and all this stuff at the tender age of mid-life? But I don't think there's anything wrong with being a rare bird at any age and if we have to jump through hoops in order to "win" friendship, maybe that's not a friendship worth cultivating? Just being able to talk this through is helping me alot, because it's always seemed like stuff that people are expected to just "know"... only I've never known or understood. Thanks for the opportunity.

Hope

P.S. on edit... Also, could there be a certain intensity that people sense, even in small talk? You know, sometimes when people get so accustomed to a robotic sort of cliche response, anything different can really strike them as "odd" and leave them speechless. You know when that glaze comes across their face because the usual programming has been interrupted?