Friends

The speaker reflects on their lack of lasting friendships and intense connections. They reminisce about a close friendship they had in the past and the challenges of maintaining relationships. They discuss their approach to romantic relationships and the complications that arise. They express difficulty in seeking out potential partners and prefer to be pursued instead. The speaker concludes by mentioning their current state of stability and lack of interest in pursuing new relationships. I don't really have friends. I have had friends, but I don't have friends, and I suppose the reason that I don't have friends is because they tend to, friendships tend to burn out quite quickly. They seem, they're very intense for me, and that might be because I don't really have friends. So, in those experiences where connection is established, especially when I was a bit younger, then I would want to, I would just do anything with them, everything with them, be in touch with them, hang out with them. The best experience of that, I suppose, was in the kibbutz, because we were living and working together, so if you made friends, if you had a friend, as I did, there were a couple, we saw each other all the time, and it gave me, I suppose, everything I needed. It wasn't that I was only seeing them sometimes, I was seeing them every day. I might be working with them, but I would be seeing them, I would be eating with them, I'd be hanging out with them. It was wonderful, but it's quite intense, and none of them, you know, they lasted several months, and only ended, in a sense, because people left. We left, I left. Growing up, I didn't really have friends. At school, I didn't really have friends. I had acquaintances, I had people who might allow me to be around them for a while, maybe in a group. But it was never, the friendships I've had have all been relationships, you could say. Putting aside the brothers that I have had, two or three, four, perhaps, in my life, maybe five close friendships where there was, it was a brotherly bonding. The other friendships were romantic partners. So that all my partners have been relationships, and friendships first, and then I can do anything with them. I don't have to do everything with them, but I can do anything, I would do anything. Whatever I might do with someone else, I would definitely do with my partner. We can go anywhere, enjoy anything, because there's a closeness I need. It's not, I don't, I spend most of my time at work, and with my work colleagues and other friends, and then see my partner sometimes, maybe that would be better, but that's not how it works for me, or worked for me. We would just be in each other's lives, all the time, everything, constantly in contact, loving every moment of it, can't get enough of her, that kind of thing. But it doesn't last, and then it's sort of like if you've had such an intensity, the contrast, when it sort of subsides, is really noticeable. Try to keep it going, try to keep the magic, but it's really difficult. It's intense, and it burns out. So it probably makes sense to have breaks, to have space. In my experience, in a relationship, whenever there was a need for space, it was always indicating eventually there would be only space. Relationship would end. It's okay to have space, but not when you need space, that you should always love to be around each other, but you just aren't always, and then whenever you have the opportunity to be around each other, you love being around each other. That seems to me, friendship, connection. But what do I know, because nothing works for me, so I'm not saying I've got it figured out, I know how it works, I'm just saying what I think it is. Sometimes, even someone I talk to, who I can say anything to, who I share all kinds of things with, as we did, it's too much. It's not exactly oversharing, but at the same time in some ways it is. And responses often come quickly, maybe several in the day. Nobody ever comes close to how it was with me and Lou for years and years. That was special. Several times a day, every day for years and years and years. I loved talking to him. I went to see him twice, lived with him once, with his family. That changed things, but at the same time, I couldn't have imagined a better experience of friendship. Who he was. Even though he wasn't free, we weren't free to explore an idea that we were the first time I met him, but it was lovely to have had the experience, even if it wasn't to be continued. I've had intense text relationships with women before, and single women or divorced women, whatever, then there's nothing interfering with things perhaps becoming romantic or heartfelt in that sense. And can be, because you're not hurting anyone. To have a textual close relationship with a married woman is problematic. Jealousies can arise. And I've experienced that too, especially if there's a physical element to it where one actually does spend time together. I had that with my then best friend and his partner. I kind of felt fancied her. I liked her. I felt like we were better suited. It's often the case. I didn't do anything. Nothing ever happened between us, but you could feel an underlying tension. And at some point they broke, their relationship broke up. And a few years after that, I saw her again. She'd lost weight. She looked gorgeous. And that would have been the time to get together. But by then, I just wasn't interested anymore. I'd moved on. Things had changed for me. I'd already been to Israel. But it was nice to see her. It was like a closure of something that was never consummated. Yeah, relationships are really complicated. And there's nothing wrong with that. I think that the challenge of a relationship is just good to learn from. And there's such wonderful highs that even though there can be horrible lows, it's all worth it really, ultimately. And I've done it enough times to recognize that there's something wonderful in going through the experience. Even though I have given my heart away too quickly, given up my life, thrown, you know, jumped straight into the deep end and had no idea whether I could swim or not. And then discovered that I can't. That's just how I've been. I don't know if I've fundamentally changed, but I'm not involved with anybody or even close to involved with anybody. And I feel more stable, I suppose. It's not that the possibility of it doesn't exist. It's just not happening. And I'm not looking for it. In fact, probably I'm a little reluctant. So I probably put out a vibe that is perceived as he's not interested when the opposite may very well be true. But I just don't show it. I'm very, I'm quite female in that sense or traditional female in that the role traditionally is that the male seeks the female, hunts the female, makes the moves, makes the play. And I actually like it the other way around. I like the woman to do it. And I have experienced some of that. And I understand why it's so much easier to let it happen, to let someone come to you. Well, women do do that. It's still traditionally, probably more likely that the man still does it. But at the same time, it's not like it once was where the woman never did that. But it doesn't really happen. And like I said, I don't, I don't think I put out any of the vibes that actually the signals that someone who's not autistic, for example, recognizes and works with. Probably I'm, it's not that I'm giving off a I'm not interested vibe, but it would be more like a neutral. And that would probably be perceived the same way. I don't think I, I don't think I can do friendship. I get too attached. I miss the other person. I love them quite quickly and easily. Not romantically, especially if I've never met them. I just feel close to them. And some of that is my fault. Because when I open up, when I am vulnerable, or reveal my thoughts, which can make me feel vulnerable, vulnerability creates closeness. And I am, I've always loved closeness. It has always become confusing, sexually, as it were, closeness leads to sexual connection. And that's why the closeness with somebody becomes a relationship for me. I've been close to women that I've never had any physical contact with. But I could always, it could always have happened. There was always, on some level, a possibility of it. It just didn't for one reason or another. With women that could, that was never on the table in a kind of attracting sense. I've never really had relationship, friendships with. So it always has always been complicated for me. You did practical things to find yourself a life partner after your first experience of marriage was a disaster. But you'd learned enough about yourself, about what you wanted by that point, and have found something that works for you. That's brilliant. I couldn't do it. I would get lost in just how do I even represent myself as a kind of, you know, the profile that you have to put out. I would really want someone else to write it for me who knows me rather than me. It's too either conceited or egotistical or manipulative or I'm trying to be honest, but if I'm really honest, it just wouldn't work. And it's so complicated. I can't do it. I would be, it would be easier for me to sort of put myself into a situation where prospective women seek me out and then interview me and then discover if I am a potential partner and accept or reject. That would make more sense. I don't want to do the seeking. I have tried that and I've had responses from women and when I do I don't want to go any further with it because I can feel the same thing that I don't want to experience within myself coming off of them. I don't like it. I'm not saying it doesn't work. It does work. People have found, many people have found love that way, but I can't do it. It's actually better for me not to have any thoughts about any of this stuff and I don't, on the whole. It's only coming up right now because I'm talking to you and I'm talking to you because we haven't spoken for ages. Clearly a long, a period of silence was necessary and when you think about it, we were often speaking every day or every other day. It certainly wouldn't go on for long. Long or short replies, conversation could happen, but new things would be put out there. It was not Lou. It was not like I would do with Lou, but it was closer than I'd done for a long time, certainly since him. And then something happened and it just felt like this was the time to stop. Not to react, not to speak my mind or this or just stop. And it sort of reminded me of what happened with my second wife. It just stopped talking and time went on. I had no idea how long the silence would go on for, but I didn't break it and then she didn't break it and so it just continued until that's all there was. And you could say that's all there is now. If I wasn't saying this, and this is not the first thing I've said, I've spoken to you a couple of times actually. And they've all been okay. Okay, heartfelt, you know, honest speakings, but I never felt like I could or should share them. And this is me doing it again. And there may be, it may not be pure in the sense that it's a Sunday, it's pouring with rain. It's about 10, 12 degrees in the van. I'm wrapped up, hat and hood and four or five layers. We've had a really powerful cold spell for two weeks where it was minus four, minus six. The weather that Penzance never gets dry, no snow, just freezing cold. And I'd wake up in the morning and it'd be four degrees in here. And occasionally my heater wouldn't work because I was using it more than I had. And I'm not driving around. The solar panel, without much sun, can't top up the battery a great deal. And to use this heating system takes so much out of the battery, I couldn't replenish it. I had to start the engine to be able to do it and that defeats the whole purpose. And so I had to figure out how to not use it. Just allow it, allow the cold. It's challenging. But I'll be sitting in the library all day and be warm there and, you know, I did it. Now it's milder. It's, as I said, 10, 12 degrees. That's much easier to deal with. But also there's a certain loneliness or a missing of something that was satisfying. But then at the same time I've also been experiencing this idea of stop talking. I was talking too much when I have the opportunity to speak and I'm getting responses and reflections back that are valuable, which encourages me to say more. I can suddenly slip into or switch into a more manic state where I can say loads of things and I feel like I like it. But there's a price to pay. I've not been diagnosed with bipolar, but I suspect I may have some aspects of it. ADHD. All of those labels that can be applied to people, especially autistics, Asperger's, comorbidities. I have some of those. I have those. They just don't manifest all the time. They're just not always obvious. I keep to myself though, so that's probably why. Generally I'm not lonely. I really like my aloneness, being in solitude. And yet, because friends are few and far between, the fact that without anything, you know, really significant happening, no real falling out, just perhaps the result of over-connection, such a thing exists. The need to stop arose and I don't know how long it's been. A month? Two months? Something like that. It feels like it's been a long time. And it's not that I'm hoping that I heard from you. I would expect the same thing is going on with just like the space. And once a certain amount of space has happened, it actually feels like it should just continue because that's how it is now. That's normal. In a sense, by frequently interacting or constantly interacting, perhaps underlying it is a fear that if that doesn't happen, then the space will take over. Now for most people, back in the day, if you were a pen pal and you would write to your friend, then you might not hear from months and months if you're lucky, you know. You would get a letter. There's no rush and then there's obviously got to write it and then there's the time for it to be sent and received and that was normal. Or maybe much longer. Maybe you'd get one or two letters a year. And that was a perfectly acceptable pen pal friendship with email and so on. We can interact instantly, constantly, almost in real time in some instances. Obviously, we can also do verbal and visual if we wanted to, which is real time and I think that quantity overwhelms quality and we have to be careful because otherwise everything gets so watered down, it becomes almost meaningless. Just doing it because we always do. Just constantly speaking because that's the pattern. And I'm like that. I don't receive a message from somebody and then I'm busy, I've got work, I've got this, I've got that and I get to it at some point. No. Generally, I'm in a position to make it my focus right now. It's in my present. I like the momentum of it. And therefore a response might happen quickly. And if that response elicits a similar turnaround, that's quite addictive, I think, for me. So that as time goes on, if there is something that comes in that doesn't really elicit a response, I don't really have much to say, I feel like I should find something to say anyway because the pattern is calling me to do that. The addictive frequency of contact. I have experienced so much codependency emotionally, psychologically in some of my relationships, maybe all of my relationships, that I think it's just a flaw in my character. And I have to be, technically, I would have to be careful in that I'm likely to always do that. Yeah. And codependency isn't good. It's hard to find independency, especially I don't have a job. I don't have mates that I hang out with. I don't spend time. I'm not in a relationship but then I haven't seen her for three or four days because I've been away. We might have spoken a little bit here and there, but maybe there's been several days where no real communication takes place. It doesn't need to be. And she's not just waiting at home for me to return. She's got her own life, her own job, her own friends. I have no idea what a relationship like that is like, but those are the relationships many people have. And maybe that makes it, helps it work better. I don't know. Maybe it's actually for some it's worse because there's so much space that you end up, you know, feeling close to somebody in a work situation and that's where affairs come out of and so on. So I don't know that there's any right solution to how to be with somebody else. It's just individual. Take it as you find it. I'm not very good at it. But that doesn't mean that I want complete, you know, isolation. I'm not completely isolated. I still see Kay. I still care for Eliza. But that's about it. I might have a little conversation at the meditation group afterwards when tea and coffee is being served. Mostly I'm just sort of present with them and it's nice, but I'm not really engaging or making connection. And then that's it. Hardly speak to anybody else in between. It's how it's always been. It's how I'm used to it. I like it that way. So if I have somebody that I actually have spent quite a bit of time talking to or I have shared things and talked about whatever is relevant, just to let it go seems wasteful. Like I'm allowing something that I once thought valuable to just not be there. I suppose you could say that with any relationship. At the beginning, you love them. You're in love with them. You want nothing more than to be with them. And then at the end, there's acrimony and hate and bad feeling and divorce. So what happened? What happened to that feeling? Was it not real? How can love be love and then it becomes something else? Surely if it's love, it must always be love. And if it becomes something else, it wasn't love at all. I don't know. I'm speculating. True love, unconditional connection. You might get annoyed with somebody or upset with somebody, but underlying it is always the love. That seems to be more like what I imagine love to be. But if underlying it, if that annoyance and upset and hurt and goes beneath the apparent love, then it couldn't really have been a deep feeling. Perhaps it wasn't real at all. Perhaps it was a need, masquerading as love. Hmm. Anyway, I just wanted to reflect, to talk about something. I didn't know what I would talk about or where. I just knew I wanted to have a go. And if it seemed reasonable, I would send it. So, if you're listening to this, if you've listened all the way through and got to this point, I did.