(no subject)

[stitchwhich]

I've been thinking about people lately and how much I love them - and how much I avoid them too. See, I doubt there is a person alive who I hate. In fact, I doubt there is a person who I can't feel some sort of love for* and yet I really, really cannot handle a large circle of "hang out all the time" close friends. But that, in the SCA, makes me something of a freak. And worse, to my mind, it creates a situation where people get their feelings hurt when I don't welcome opportunities to become closer/hang out/join their social clique.

And I regret that. At times, I will push myself to join in on a social activity in order to try to express my caring for them in a way they understand and expect. But it drains me and I retreat back into my house, and my quiet, for days afterwards.

For example, there is a woman in our group who has tried many times to get me to spend more time with her. Outside of our chosen hobby-group (and a mutual friend), we have nothing in common and our age difference is huge. She has invited me, and my husband & I, to parties, dinner, 'just hanging out', all sorts of friendly things with her alone and with her and her husband. But I end up totally drained whenever I spend much time with her - it's not a question of 'fault' or 'behaviour', it's just the dynamics of our personality-interactions. So I avoid her and find 'socially acceptable' ways to turn down her invitations. But I am bothered at times by guilt over that because I know that she feels I am rejecting her, devaluing her. But being around her exhausts me and makes it difficult for me to spend time with other, established friends who I care more for, and makes me feel even more guilty when I want to establish a stronger relationship with someone new to the group who I have more in common with... I don't have an answer to this. I've explained to her about introversion but I don't think she really gets it. Instead, I think she just feels, "Hrothny doesn't like me. I don't know why." And while I'm using her as an example, I could have just as easily used many other folks, friendly and interested in becoming established in our SCA group as well.

And that leads me to wonder. What happened to "friendly"? You know, as in, "a nice person, very friendly, I enjoy seeing them at activities but we don't run in the same circle" as an acceptable aspect of the SCA? Of just general society? How is it that (it seems) we have become a society where we are either strangers, enemies, or bosom-buddies? Where are the graduated levels of esteem and acquaintance? Did I, as I lived in my library-cave, drive down a social straight lane while everyone else is taking the new turnoff?

How does an introvert express their caring, their esteem, for others when they just can't physically be there side-by-side with them?

I tell you, sometimes I yearn for a phalanx of friends who can pull others aside and tell them, "Look, she just can't be around people that much. Don't think she doesn't care about you. She's just an introvert and her batteries are almost always low."

There is a hard balancing act for folks like me, who want to make sure a person feels welcome and at the same time, cannot (more truthfully, does not want to) befriend every single person who joins the social group.

I don't know. I can't express it well. I just feel bad that I cannot be as much there for people as they'd like for me to be.


*This does not preclude also feeling that it would be best if they were locked up for life, or even on death row, depending on what crimes they'd committed.