| Funny how many things are similar in my own biography. OP: chess, checkers - me: school olympics, chemistry, math, physics OP: tour trauma, when asking tour guide a question, everybody laughed - me: tour trauma when tour guide played naughty joke on my mom and everybody laughed OP: abusive dad, divorced early - me: no dad, left at birth (fortunately awesome grandpa that taught me Ohm's law, how to drill, solder and lots of other stuff) OP and me: interest in psychology (for me ended with learning what Freud was saying, I have no business in branch of science where name of such clueless bent puppy is remembered) OP: crappy kindergarten experience, me: spent few hours in kindergarten, don't remember anything but I never went back there, I cried too much when they tried to drag me there Fortunately, I had (still have) great, stable mother, I had close friends (full honesty with them, nearly kind of mind melt) until I was 17 or so (OP had some till 12). I'm 34. My true self kind of melded with my fake self. They switch in seconds. When I'm interacting with acquaintances I still fake it. Often I fake amusement because I want to come off as cheerful, but I'm rarely truly amused. Pretty often I fake quite well which makes me proud. But I don't have to fake with few people that are close to me. I just have to restrain myself from exposing full me in some cases, but I guess most people do that even (especially?) with their loved ones. I went different way than OP, I was madly in love two times as a teenager, now I have de-facto wife. She's awesome. After 8 years or so of the relationship, from time to time I feel that I love her and I feel the urge to tell her that. Not sure if that's unusual but I think it's a good sign. But I know I chose one path. And sometimes I long for the other, for being a shut-in. I hate going out. I hate meeting people who are not my closes friends. I don't eagrely await meeting even my closest friends. Social interaction exhausts me. I used my relationship to shed off almost all of my friends. Still I think living among people takes at least 80% of my energy. I have only 20% left for doing the stuff I actually care about. As they say, grass is always greener on the other side. I'd probably be same looser with too high IQ and too little motivation if I were a shut-in. But one can dream. |