I love being around people

The speaker loves being around people but often chooses to be alone. They observe and connect with others without engaging in conversation. They enjoy observing people and their behaviors without judgment. They feel more comfortable observing people when they are not aware they are being watched. The speaker finds it fascinating to understand why people think and behave the way they do. They prefer to be around someone who creates a sense of connection. They do not feel the need to be around people unless it is for observation purposes. They enjoy the anonymity of observing others and do not share their observations with them. The speaker believes that people behave differently when they know they are being observed. I really want to be with people. I love being with people, but I constantly choose to be alone. Why? Why would I do that? How can I say? I love being around people. I love spending time with people. I love eating food with people, watching films with people. I love being with other people, but I constantly choose, not just end up, choose to be alone. You know, you can end up being alone if everyone has let you go. You are alone. It's sad and it's cold and it's lonely. Everyone's let me go. No one cares about me. Nobody wants to spend time with me. It's lonely. But if I've let everyone go, then I'm in solitude. Then I'm alone. And there's something really lovely about being alone. I don't know if I could be totally alone. I think there needs to be some balance. I have some balance, but I get used to being alone. So also, when there are moments when I have to wait, I don't have to do anything. Like, most people I see, if they're told, OK, you have to wait, the first thing they do is reach into their pocket, take out their phone, and they start doing something on it. But I'm not doing that. I just sit there and I look. I look at the people who are sitting there on their phone. I am connecting to them without them knowing. I'm with them without being with them. I don't mind waiting. I don't need to entertain myself while I am. I don't get bored waiting. I can even intentionally get somewhere very early because I just want to get rid of the anxiety about the journey and timings, etc. And then I just am. I just can be. I can completely just be there amongst other people. I don't have to put headphones on or isolate myself from others because I don't want to be there. I'm OK to be there. I don't have to converse. It can happen. But it's like I'm observing people without judging, but looking for clues as to who they are, what they do, what they like, what their habits are, seeing if I can see them or seeing if I can see something that gives me indications of what they might be, without judging it, without deciding I know, but just, ah, it just stands out. And I do it. I don't want to be observed. Like sometimes I'm sitting in the library and often it's just a table for two, one opposite the other. Often I'm there on my own for hours. Fine, I'll just get on with my own thing. That's what I'm doing. If somebody turns up and sits there, whether they're reading a book or they've bought their laptop or they're doing something else, whatever it is, male or woman, I keep looking. I'll look up. Now, if it's a woman and if she's attractive, that might, that's interesting to me. I'm looking at what is it about her I'm attracted to. I'm just every so often looking up. Now, I don't want to time that with their moment of looking up. That doesn't work. I don't like that. And I suspect from time to time they might look up too, and they're seeing me looking down, doing my thing, watching, whatever it is I'm doing. So we're not observing each other. We're not noticing each other. They're busy. And I look like I'm busy, but I'm actually often looking at them, just to see what they do, how they are, what choices they make, what's going on. I'm not trying to make contact, a conversation. I don't say anything, but sometimes something, somebody will say something to me. The other day, a woman took a phone call. The school was calling her to come in because her daughter, something was wrong. Not well, maybe, I think. She had the conversation. We hadn't said a word to each other or acknowledged each other at all. And then she sort of said something. You know, it's difficult when the school calls and you've got to go. I didn't respond immediately. And then I said, yeah, I remember that. I remember doing that. You know, alluding to being a dad and having so on. She was a youngish person and I suspect her kid was in primary school. But on the whole, I'm just observing. I'm aware of someone there, so I can't just ignore their presence and just carry on with what I'm doing. I also want to take the opportunity to observe somebody right there who's a real person living a life I have no idea about. Family, friends, whatever it is. Whole life story, life situation that has brought them to this moment and they're there for this reason. And I'll never, likely never see them again. But even if I do, it's just, I'm observing and there are knowings and learnings that come from that, which I find interesting. And it's more interesting than whatever it was I was doing, because I can always return to that once they go. But as long as they're there, it's like we are experiencing something together, even though we're not, but we are. Yeah, it's quite interesting. So I love being around people. Now, if I'm around a lot of people, then generally I am just my observer hat becomes firmly fixed. And I rarely say anything. I work best when it's one other or two others, just a very small group too. But once it gets beyond a certain number, I'm an observer. Unless somebody turns to me and we have a, sometimes in a larger group, you can have individual sub conversations. And that's fine. But it's why after meditation, I don't just go home. Some people do. But we stay, there's tea and biscuits and sweets and there's some conversation will take place. I don't drink the tea. I often eat whatever's around. But mostly I'm just having company in no rush to get back to the van. And it's quite nice. And I, especially if Kay is there, Kay is what creates the, it wouldn't exist without her. She's the hub of it. She doesn't have to be there. Sometimes she isn't. But usually if she isn't, I don't stay. There's something about her energy that connects everybody. Everybody is connected to this place through her. So she is the hub. I like to be around someone I feel is a hub. So again, it's people, it's being around people. And I suppose, because I constantly choose to be alone, because on the whole, there are, there aren't people that I can really be around much that I would really want to be. I always take the opportunity to be around Kay, but never really choose it. She is the one who chooses it. And I just agree. She has her reasons, she has her idea, she has a thought, and she reaches out to me and I do something with it. I always do something with it. I never reject it. Nobody else does that. Or if somebody else did that, who I wasn't feeling connected to, don't wouldn't want to spend as much time as was available, then I don't, I don't react to it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't make effort. Like one of the women who works at, works, who attends the meditation group, who I helped with her computer issues, who, I've had a shower there, who has invited me to use the shower if I need to, etc. When she made, asked me if it was okay for her to knock on my door, meaning that she would want to come and see me as a sort of a spontaneous guest, I didn't want her to. And I said, oh, I'm usually in the library during the day and don't spend a great deal of time in the van, especially in winter. If I'm, if it's warm and the door's open, then I don't feel that someone turning up is an imposition at all. They're there, oh, hello, how are you doing? And then neatly I'm happy to see them, even if I don't know who they are, but we have conversed before. But when the door is closed, curtains are drawn and I'm private, it seems to be an intrusion. And yet, if the door was to knock and I look out and it's Kay, I'd be opening the door and be, oh, hello, got a nice surprise, or hello, what are you doing here? Want to come in? And immediately I'm open to that connection. But failing that feeling, I don't need to be around other people for the sake of it, except as an observer, except in the capacity of finding people fascinating and understanding why they do what they do, why they think the way they think, what experiences have they had to think that way, to decide that doing it like that, feeling like this, believing this thing is the truth for them, something has led them to that point. And it's interesting to me. And while I suppose actually having a conversation where I ask questions like that would be interesting, I suppose, and obviously has happened from time to time, the reality is that I can't get to ask those questions, even if I wanted to, really. And those people are best kept without me actually knowing things. I just like to feel, see what I see, to see how it affects me, what it makes me think, and then go. It's almost like I have to be, it's best if I'm not observed. I feel that people change the way they behave if they know someone's looking at them. So I like to observe people where they don't know that they're being observed, and then they behave as naturally as they are likely to. So voyeurism is something that I have experienced and find fascinating because of the perspective that it offers. But most people are so self-absorbed that they don't notice, they don't even think about the fact that someone else is looking at them. Although many people are concerned with what other people think, and think that they are thinking about them, when in fact the majority of people are not at all. They're just concerned with themselves and they're in their own world. So I like to be around people who have no idea how it is I'm doing it, and I'm not, I have no need to have them understand that I am doing it this way. If I tell people that I observe them, when people realize that they're being observed and they are being seen, it can be a double-edged sword. They can, it can be something that someone who finds very interesting, they are seen, but generally my experience is that they, my experience is that they, I make them uncomfortable, because their flaws and their fault, the things that they have, that aren't exposed normally, suddenly are seen. So I try not, I don't tell people of what it is I see, because it freaks them out sometimes, it makes them uncomfortable. They thought they were hidden, they thought they were just, they could, they were just covered, but they're not. They make all sorts of tales and it's obvious if you are looking in a state of stillness and non-judgmentalness. If I can be, my mind can be still, that's the best, but it might be commenting, oh they, that person does that kind of thing, I wonder if they like that, oh look they do, or oh no they don't. Like I'm, I'm suddenly at school and I'm learning through observation, little moments, little things, depending on how sensitive I am in this moment. I used to tell people what I saw, because I used to think that they should know, they ought to know, because it would help them. That maybe was true for some, but for others, no, and the experience of doing it was too risky, like gambling, and I don't gamble, so I don't need to tell people something that they're not ready to hear, because who says that they should hear what I have to say? Who says that what I have to say, which may be true from my perspective in any way, is something that they need to take on board at this time. What, how do I have the right to interfere with what it is that they're doing, just because I have a different opinion or perspective? If they ask me, that's different. If I'm in a position where it's okay to reveal it, because that's what we're all doing and we're connected, but still, it still is better just to sort of be aware of something, because it may or may not be true anyway. I've said things that I think were true to people who have been deeply affected by them, because they weren't true for them, and it's hard to reconcile it, and that experience creates separation, and it's not nice. I need to feel connected, not disconnected. That's important to be, when I'm alone, that I'm not disconnected, I'm just alone. If I'm disconnected, if I'm not part of anything, that's lonely, and that's different, that's a whole different thing entirely. Now I'm not sure exactly what I'm connected to, exactly, but there's something, and I don't know, it's been, it's been interesting to explore it in this, in this talking, because I feel like I've said some things that are true, that are my truths, and that getting out my truths means that they're not hidden, that I'm aware of them in a way that is good to me. I don't carry them around as if I know, I can just reel them off the top of my head. What do you believe? Well, I believe this, I believe that, I believe... No, that, it's not an easy question. Sometimes I say I don't believe, I don't have beliefs, but we all have beliefs, it's just that I've got rid of a lot of things that are obviously beliefs, but there are things that are still beliefs, that are just core, accepted, this is what I do, but yet you could, I could technically do it differently, if I believed something different, but in order to, to believe something different, or to let go of something that I've held on to, I have to look at it, I have to be motivated to shine light on it, and understand and feel it, to see if it's still relevant, and if it isn't, it should, it just disappears. If I see something, and I realize that doesn't make any sense, why am I doing that? It just goes, there's no, there's no longer, it has no longer any reality for me. It may, it may sort of linger for a bit, because of a repetitive pattern aspect, but it will go, because I'm not giving it energy of belief anymore. I try not to have beliefs, I just try to do what seems the most efficient, what seems right, what feels right, and if I do something that isn't right, which feels wrong, then I have to be with that. Why does that feel right, wrong? Why did I still, why did I make the choice to do it? And would I want to continue with what now is obvious, not good for me, if it's not good for me, but yet can still feel the urge to do it, like I still want what I think I get from it, which must be why I do it, even though ultimately it's not good for me, it's detrimental. So I'm complicated in that way, there are issues that give me those kinds of questions, when I take certain actions that I know can't be right, not they're not the best thing for me to do, I don't really need to do, why am I doing it, what am I getting from it, but they have been a long-held habit or pattern or desire that has fuelled it, and the possibility and opportunity for realising it is so limited that when I have an opportunity, it's very difficult to say, ah, I know this is not good for me, because likely I'm not going to ever experience it again, but yet, and I had one of those recently, and I went through with what I had imagined I would do, but it had no meaning, it was meaningless, other than I can do it, look, see, I can still do it, I've taken control, I've done something that I wouldn't do in any other situation and wouldn't get permission to do, and the only thing about it that makes it exciting, because it wasn't exciting, makes it possible or makes it desirable for me to do, is because I'm not supposed to do it, is because it's not acceptable, or if I'm needing to be accepted by people and they knew that I had done that, they might not like me, they might say, oh, we don't want to be with you anymore, if you do that, that's not what we do, we wouldn't do it, so now they don't trust me, and why would I want to lose that through something that actually is meaningless? So, that's quite a powerful experience for me, and I've been, oh, really looking at that over the last, over the last few days, and it's not, I don't need to talk about it exactly, not in specifics, because I've understood, I understand where, where, what's going on, and it's a residue, a residual behaviour of somebody who is very young, who was very young, who got the opportunity to experience things that most people of his age at that time would never have that opportunity, they were, it was hidden from them, they, they were simply not, not exposed to it, and it changed the way I developed as a result, and so, over the course of my life, I've had certain experiences that I put down to coming out of the changes that took place, and the chances I took, and the activities that I found exciting, which were, which would have been, to some, kinks, you know, what they call, people call kinky, but it's a kink, which means that there's a straight line, so there's a little notch, and it's a kink in it, it's not exactly straight, but that kink creates difference, unusualness, strangeness, and other people also recognise it, but I, I don't, actually, it's not a real kink, it's, the kink is not, the thing that I do is not the kink, the kink is getting away with something that I'm not supposed to do, and the feeling that comes from having done so. Yeah, this doesn't happen all the time, and I'm not constantly struggling with this, but when I was younger, I did certain things, and I'm still capable of certain things which have been kind of prepared in my mind, based on thoughts that I've had about experiences, where I've, my mind has said, oh, you could do this, you could get that, you could, you could make this happen, and part of me says, knows, yeah, yeah, I think I could, and another part immediately says, yes, but why would you want to, and that's not good if you think that way, and if you focus on it, then you make it more likely that you will experience it, because when that moment, if that moment comes, it will be too hard to turn down, whereas if opportunities to do these things were happening all the time, then they would be even more meaningless than they actually are, and would soon become like, I don't care about them anymore, so I have to still make that, come to that conclusion, come to that realization with very little opportunity to experience it, I mean, at least since, well, really since my first wife, since Sarah, where I got to experience, I got to put into practice the opportunity to have that, to do that in some way on a regular basis, but even though I still didn't feel good ultimately about myself, because I knew that this, this must indicate a kind of corruption, indulge, being able to indulge that clunk as often as I did, um, I still continued to do it for a long time before I really got to a point where I had, I was, this was just too much wrong for me to keep ignoring it and overwhelming myself with, um, oh, I'm doing it again, oh, I'm doing it again, um, the relationship ended, and I'm no longer able to do it, so now I have to go completely cold turkey and spend time looking at what I do, and that's what I do, that's what my life is, and so if I am around people who seem to be doing it very differently, but again, I can't see into their private moments when they don't think anyone's really watching, voyeurism isn't easy to experience unless one is actively stalking things, which I don't do, um, I, I can only learn a little bit when I'm interacting with somebody who's had a completely different life to me, um, I don't know how much I can learn because I can only relate to certain things because that I haven't experienced them and, and won't be able to, and of course same goes for them, but I'm not, they're not learning about me as much as I'm learning about them because they're not open to me in the way I'm open to them, yeah, interesting isn't it, so I don't, I hope this has been interesting, I, I think it's interesting, I'm probably going to listen to it, I want to see what I've said, I want to listen to how I've talked about this, because I suppose, I was also reflecting earlier on my time with my therapist, she was a woman, and I realised that I, I actually would like to have an experience where I have therapy with a man, because no matter what experience that woman has, um, experiencing life as a man, there are aspects of that she can never understand, no matter how skillful she is at psychology, at psychology, because she's never experienced being one, the male perspective is very specific sometimes, and only another man will really get what it is I'm trying to say, a woman will get it, but maybe in a different way, so I'm thinking, oh I, it would be interesting to actually have had therapy with a bloke, and I, I came close to one, but he rejected it, it was a different system, in a different way, it was just an idea, oh I would like that, I very rarely talk to blokes, but when I do, I like it, I think I prefer it, but it's very rare that I get to talk to men, in the same way that I'm likely, more likely to talk to women, because women, that's what they do, they're, they're chatty, they have groups, you know, they're sitting, knitting, but they're talking, and men don't really do that, they go down the pub, drinking, they're talking about women, and football, and you know, whatever, and I've never, I don't do that, I don't like it, I don't drink, I don't go to pubs, and I don't sit talking about women and sports, I don't, I don't deal with either of them, and I'm just immediately weird if I try, but I don't need to fit in, and in the past I might have done that, because of the need to be, to fit in, because I needed to be around people, I need family, I need to be in a community, I need familiarity of people who I can get to know, and who slowly get to know me, and we are comfortable around each other, even if I don't do things with them, like on the meditation group, we're comfortable around each other, because there's a familiarity, even though some people don't know my name, and there are some names I don't know, um, and I have no idea who people are, other than who they appear to be, in the moment that they're, that we're together, sometimes I'll hear, oh, somebody says, well what do you do to them, I'm a GP, I'm a doctor, oh, and immediately that changes everything about who that guy is, he's not just Frank, who sits with us on a Tuesday evening, and um, his life is, you know, I can't imagine being a GP, and seeing patients, and he's got a family, and you know, so suddenly there's this whole universe that I have no idea about, just there, and that's just one, and there's all these other people who are also universes, some of whom have peripheral connections to others, they are in similar things, oh, I do, I'm a therapist, he says, oh, do you do, and they're talking of this, and that's how they are networking, and stuff, and they're doing things, neurologically typical people, and I observe that typical neurological behaviour, and it just, it's like watching another, another species sometimes, I, I sit in awe of their ease, in which they just make that kind of stuff happen, and, and knowing that if someone ever turns to me and says, what do you do, I have no idea how to answer it, they must, some of those people, many of them, few of them know that I live in a van, and some people know that I have made mandalas, and they don't, they don't know anything else, they don't know anything about, some of them know that I was out of the country for a while, in America, and had come back, um, there's little peripheral things that they know about me, and I'm just, this bloke is also there, who knows Kay, who, it's strange, but I can't answer, well, so what do you do? That question is so difficult for me to answer, I never know where to begin, what to emphasise, what's relevant, what's, what, I don't know, uncomfortable, so I might say something, which might have some truth to it, but isn't, and I'm really doing, whatever I'm doing is shutting it down, turning it round onto them, I want to talk about myself, but I find it incredibly difficult, unless somebody is extremely interested, and asks very interesting questions, and is really listening to the answer, and I'm also not, sort of, uh, taking over the group's talk, but suddenly it's about me, and everyone's looking, now I find that a bit odd, although I have been in a therapy ring, a therapy circle, where I have said things, but yes, it takes me a long time to get to feel comfortable, I can't remember exactly if I ever got comfortable, but I mean, I know I would have said some things, but never like this, see, I want to get to where I am comfortable enough to just talk in this voice, not necessarily for this length of time, this is just an indulgence, but in this voice, with somebody, and then the to and fro, and the connection, and the thing, and then wherever that goes, that's great, that's where the connection is made, but I don't talk in this voice with people, not really, very rarely, and I notice it when it comes out, if it does, but it's only a few words or a sentence at most, and that doesn't mean that I can't talk in this voice, because clearly I can, and I'm doing it right now, and that's all that matters, so this is practice, even though I'm not doing it with people live, it's practice, I'm practicing how to speak in my voice, my authentic voice, this is a voice I like to speak with, if I'm going to speak, I want, I'd like to speak with this voice, but if I don't have this voice, I don't really need to speak, because anything that comes out won't be this voice, it'll have a different vibratory voice attached to it, a different feeling will come with it, and it's not satisfying, so don't bother.