Yup........I think Daevid Allen got it about right when he said "only have friends if you need them."
Personally, I do need friends, though not many. I like one-on-one, groups get very complicated for me. The most important thing by far for me is my relationship with my partner, it often feels like I could do very well without anybody else but her, though I appreciate that things could go rather weird if it was like that for too long. I'd also be very upset if I thought I'd never see my (grown up) son again, and quite upset if my sister vanished. And I like playing music with other musicians, I'd miss that, though I can live without it quite happily for a long time. Parents are long dead, which I see as a sad thing, though it doesn't upset me from day to day.
It's generally rather a strain on me when I socialise, I get very anxious that I'll make a mess of it and I don't entirely trust people easily. And a lot of people tend to get noisy, which gives me sensory problems, so I have to stick to calm people who talk quietly and slowly and don't expect much of me. If it weren't for all that, I'd probably be a lot more outgoing and not suffer from selective mutism so much.
04 Jun 2015, 9:40 am
