Dear Alone,
You are making a profound point. I had an incident with a female friend,Olga.. I have known her for over 20 years. *I* ,always showed her the "sanitized" version of myself(lol) b/c *I* only KNEW the sanitized version. I was not 'real" with myself, let alone her or anyone else.
A few days ago, I was really hurting and needed to talk to s/one. I called her and told her that I wa going to be really "real". We had a great talk and I realized that I DID have to practice being the "real" me, not the "cleaned up version".
IF s/one could not handle the real me, I would deal with it. There could be many reasons for it.However,it will not kill me. The board always has people who DO understand ,if I have a hard 3D experience.
Alone, I think that the hardest step of all is "intimacy" with ourselves. After that, the rest will be relatively easy, I think. Love Ami