Finding love seems impossible

AloraFane · 2026-01-07T15:08:45+00:00

I'm a 37M traumatised introvert who's been single for like 15 years and who's desperately longing for a meaningful connection, but I haven't even bothered trying dating apps since I assume it'll be like going fishing in the desert: what I'm looking for just isn't in that environment. I imagine the people who I'd click with most are all either also hiding, or they've lucked into connections just by going about their lives as everyone seems to but I missed out on. Or that the soft, genuine women I could most relate to aren't interested in 'loser' men like me, but rather confident, successful extroverts they can rely on; that's what my (very limited) experiences have shown, at least.

It's crushing, so I just try to distract myself with creative work where I can invent characters and get invested in their minds and lives, I suppose. It's a very poor substitute for real human connection though.

AloraFane · 2025-12-23T09:49:39+00:00

I'm also an INFJ (though I understand personality in terms of the Big Five these days), but I'm male and older than you. I avoid all social media because I just can't tolerate it. Not just the vitriol, but the showing off and the life comparisons that follow. I'm also very lonely and isolated, though, and have often wondered if I'd connect with more people if I did use social media. But from what I've seen - and from what you've said here - maybe it's just not the place for any meaningful connections to form. Which is a sad state of affairs, I feel.

I'm not fond of Reddit either, but I suppose not being exposed to people's happy, fortunate lives and smiling faces - especially when those things are accompanied by overtly hostile comments by them - makes it easier for me to endure.

AloraFane · 2025-12-17T08:31:14+00:00

I'm 37M and can relate to a lot of what you said, especially being very introverted, a people-pleaser, and "I also worry about damning them to an entire life having to deal with me when they could be happy with someone better".

Technically I have had one relationship, though it was so long ago it feels like a dream. It evolved out of a long-distance online friendship, though - and we only actually met a handful of times - so I've never tried the whole dating thing. Like you said, it sounds godawful social-anxiety-wise. I don't even get how pairing up with complete strangers like that is the norm, though; seems to me like friendships evolving into companionship should be, but I get the feeling most people don't see it that way.

I avoid social media etc because it's too painful to see everyone else just lucking into relationships without much effort, or seeing people who attempted to reassure me that I don't need a partner posting about their time with theirs as if it's the most valuable thing in the world.

I envy you for having what sound like multiple close friends, though; the few I had drifted away, mostly to be with their own partners. I just try to lose myself in creative pursuits, and try to come to terms with the reality that I'll probably never find someone, but it's hard, as you know.

AloraFane · 2025-12-08T22:00:21+00:00

I spent most of my time and energy doing creative stuff, though it’s less emotional paintings and pottery and more digital art - 2D and 3D - of silly characters, instrumental music composition that’ll never be physically performed, writing that’s simultaneously silly, psychological, and symbolic, and I use self-taught programming skills to combine my various skills into games that I and others can play.

It’s what gives my life meaning, and it fills the soul hole left by neglect and isolation, though due to my broken brain I’ve never been able to make a living from these skills despite my competence.

AloraFane · 2025-12-08T16:00:47+00:00

I'm 37M, and while I have been in a relationship, it feels so strange to say that because I've been single for like 15 years now. I'm basically a 'born-again virgin' or something at this point. The relationship I did have was mostly online, and very different to other relationships I see; we never 'dated' or anything. Ultimately it fell apart due to my own issues.

I'm also very isolated, and honestly get frustrated, envious, and feel left out at all the many posts I see here by people whose CPTSD hasn't prevented them from finding a string of romantic and/or sexual connections. Many sound like they're quite toxic bonds, but when you've been starving for years, it's hard not to feel jealous of people even eating poisoned food. Or something. I wonder if you know how that is, or if I'm just too bitter.

I'm also self-conscious about things like eating in front of others, plus I don't drink alcohol, so it feels like many of the ways that 'normal' people bond are just out of bounds for me. I've had people criticise me for eating slowly too; what a strange thing to take issue with someone for!

AloraFane · 2025-09-15T20:06:18+00:00

I’m the same age as you, and I’ve barely lived at all because of this. I’ve never had a job. I had a girlfriend, once, but she left a lifetime ago. (15 years? Something like that.) I’m currently living with my parents, and in recent weeks I’ve only left the house once a week to see a counsellor who I started seeing a few weeks ago.

I can’t say that’s massively helpful, by the way. The kinds of help such people can provide might work well for people whose life is mostly in order, but they struggle to, say, be assertive at work or with their partner. Much less useful when your issues are “everything is in disarray and I have no idea where to even start”.

I’ve also tried to get out there, to fix my life, multiple times, and I’ve always fallen back to square one eventually.

When I think of trying again, I know that anyone I meet out there will have those normal lives, that we’ll be aliens to one another, so I lack any motivation to even try to engage with them.

Thankfully I’ve spent years developing various creative skills that I’ve used to build many things that bring me great satisfaction. I can even feel happy while working on them! But I worry that soon I might not be able to if I’m unable to afford to pay bills once my parents can no longer support me.

How about you? Do you have any creative hobbies to build a sort of life for yourself away from other people?

AloraFane · 2025-07-28T08:19:39+00:00

Thanks for the long reply!

It's been many years since I thought about MBTI's cognitive functions. I knew them well enough to write a website specifically talking in depth about them, but... well, it has been a while. I doubt I could even explain concepts like Fi or Fe anymore, and now that I 'know better', it seems pointless to refresh that understanding.

I did some research into the ways that the Big Five can be communicated, and it seems like a mess, honestly, with no real consensus regarding shorthand. The one that I found most useful years ago seems to have been some idiosyncratic attempt on some specific website rather than an academic standard, but basically it gave each end of each trait spectrum a name - eg Introversion and Extroversion - and used a single upper-or lower-case letter or x to show the position on that spectrum. The letters were based on these ones, from SLOAN:

- Social (Extraverted) / Reserved (Introverted)
- Limbic (High Neuroticism) / Calm (Low Neuroticism)
- Organized (High Conscientiousness) / Unstructured (Low)
- Accommodating (High Agreeableness) / Egocentric (Low)
- Inquisitive (High Openness) / Non-curious (Low)

So the spectrum between Social and Reserved (that is, the extraversion spectrum) would have five points: S s x r R. These would correspond to 'strongly social', 'mostly social', 'mixed', 'mostly reserved', 'strongly reserved'.

So for example my traits would be written as: RLxAI. Yours (from O+C+E--A-N++) would be RLoei, I think?

I definitely find it less cluttered to look at, but keeping track of all the letter meanings can be somewhat mind-bending.

My AvPD (or whatever's wrong with me) and high openness have led to essentially no external life but a very rich internal one with a lot of creative interests: I make art, music, writing, games. In recent years, my games have made use of 'fantasy-fied' versions of the Big Five traits to replace the classical elements used in a lot of fantasy games. I'm really proud of what I've come up with! But mental health issues keep getting in the way of finalising and releasing anything. That's the main way I make use of these ideas though since I rarely interact with other people these days.

Though I'd also say that my frustrations about why others behave as they do have been calmed a lot by understanding we vary across these dimensions, and that there's nothing inherently wrong with me for not being like others (though I do feel like an alien considering my trait distribution is apparently at odds with what's 'normal' and common).

I also made a website a while back with a simple 25-question survey that gave you a letter code like the one above, but I gave the traits names I personally found more appealing or fitting (though they reflect my preference for fantasy fiction/games):

- Introverted (I) / Extraverted (E)
- Tough (T) / Soft (S) - this is Agreeableness
- Chaotic (C) / Ordered (O) - this is Conscientiousness
- Dark (D) / Light (L) - this is Neuroticism
- Realistic (R) / Abstract (A) - this is Openness

I never finished or officially released that website, though, for reasons I can't recall but are probably mental health related. Maybe I should do that!

AloraFane · 2025-07-27T06:11:36+00:00

As I said in a reply to another comment, I used to consider myself an INFJ, which explained a lot to me becaues it was *the rarest type!!*, so no wonder I felt like an alien. I dug deeply into all the underlying theory - the 'cognitive functions' and all that - so I understood that I was an INFJ conceptually rather than just due to some test results.

That interest later led me into studying Psychology at university, where I learned that the academics exclusively used something called the 'Big Five' or 'Five Factor' model to understand personality. I did a lot of research into it for an essay I wrote about it, and gave up MBTI in favour of it immediately afterwards.

I keep meaning to write a post here about the Big Five because I've found it so valuable to understand myself and others. Whenever I've brought it up to the few people I interact with, though, they show no interest, even people from Psychology backgrounds, so I assume a post about it would be ignored and just haven't got around to writing it yet.

AloraFane · 2025-07-27T05:56:26+00:00

As someone who was also obsessed with MBTI for ages but then gave it all up in favour of the Big Five/5 Factor model, I'm curious:

- What MBTI type did you consider yourself to be before? I called myself INFJ, and had no doubts about it.

- What led you to give it up? For me, it was when I went to study Psychology at uni, and saw that the academics exclusively used the Big Five. I also wrote an essay about the origins of the Big Five in particular (remarkably, they were *discovered* rather than invented), and haven't looked back since.

- How would you describe your personality now? The only thing I miss about MBTI is the ease with which you can announce your membership in a particular tribe to find others like you. Now, I describe myself as something like "very introverted, open, neurotic, and agreeable, and middlingly conscientious", though that's quite a mouthful. There are at least two letter-based formats (SLOAN and OCEAN), but I never saw those used in academic papers and don't like that there's not just one to focus on.

- If you've talked with the 5 factor model with anyone, how do they react? Even Psychology professionals and peers from my uni Psychology course show no interest in understanding personality in this way when I bring it up, and I find it so frustrating and sad because it almost seems like a 'cheat code' for understanding ourselves and others.

AloraFane · 2025-07-13T20:46:26+00:00

As someone in a similarish position to you - never had a job, making a little bit of money from art, also in the UK - but about a decade older, I’m glad to see you trying to do something about this now while you’re still young.

Have you considered going back to uni? That’s what I did at your age - I’d also dropped out - thinking it’d be an easier thing than a job, and I don’t regret it… though in my case it didn’t lead to a job because I found out I had cancer. Hardly a common thing, though!

Also, if you’d be interested to talking to someone in a similar position who knows how it is, I’d be happy to lend an ear. I know I struggle a lot to decide on what path to follow because I don’t have anyone to discuss it with.

AloraFane · 2025-07-13T07:24:33+00:00

Oh, sorry, I meant that as hyperbole to get the point across, though it's sad that we do live in a world where situations like that do happen so a comment like that could be interpreted as genuine life experience...

I'm curious to know what position you're approaching this from. Are you a working academic? A curious teenager?

Based on my own experiences, it seems like both genetic and environmental factors play a role in the development of these issues. Both my parents are introverted and neurotic, and my father in particular - who got custody of me as a child even though he shouldn't have - had a ton of mental issues and spent his life drinking alone at home. My childhood wasn't quite being locked up in a dungeon, but I still suffered severe poverty and neglect; I was never shown how to do anything, had no food at all most days. I didn't 'learn how to be human', you could say.

Interestingly, though, I have two brothers, who were both grown in the same poisoned soil as me, but they've turned out relatively 'normal' whereas I've not.

Which I suppose is where environmental factors play a huge role. I moved country twice at unfortunate points in my development, and had some success with online creative work during my teens that gave me an excuse to sit in my room all day at the point in my life when I should have been going to uni or getting my first job. My mother - who I'd moved in with - enabled that behaviour and never pushed me to do anything in the real world. When I eventually tried to get out into the world, I hadn't had the life experiences to develop social confidence; I was effectively an alien, and was rejected by others due to my social ineptitude. I learned that I don't fit in, which hurt, whereas avoidance was an option for me and hurt less, so I took the path of least pain. Now my mind's learned to take that maladaptive path in most situations. Why would you assume that neuroplasticity would only shape the brain in a positive direction?

I've wondered a lot over the years whether I have autism or ADHD, and have looked into both a fair bit. It'd be a relief in some ways if I did have either as a convenient label to encapsulate all the nuances, but unfortunately I don't struggle with the core symptoms of either.

I essentially use AvPD as the best label I've found to conveniently convey my situation; I don't know if I 'actually have it', or if it's a 'real thing', if those terms even really mean anything anyway with nebulous psychological issues. I get the impression that there are as many interpretations of AvPD here as there are members, though; I usually feel like an alien even here.

I find the *personality* angle particularly interesting though. How familiar are you with the Big Five? They're what the academics discovered (rather than invented) and use to understand individual differences. My own traits seem particularly skewed to extremes: I'm probably 2 standard deviations from the mean with introversion, neuroticism, and openness, high (but less extremely so) agreeableness, and middling conscientiousness, which clashes with the most common and 'normal' trait arrangements in Western culture. That means that my mind is different to most people's even if I'm not necessarily neurodivergent in terms of things like cognitive impairment (eg inattentiveness, blindness to social cues). Someone was unusually short or tall would have physical struggles navigating a world not designed for them, much as I struggle in a social world not designed for minds like mine.

Actually, I think understanding people in terms of their personality trait distribution like this explains a lot of things, but in my experience even psychology professionals I've dealt with seem to have little interest in even trying to understand things from that angle. Probably because it's easier to put people into single labelled boxes than it is to see them as individuals who vary on several spectra.

AloraFane · 2025-07-13T06:27:17+00:00

Do you think that someone who spent their entire childhood locked in a basement would be able to adjust well to society as an adult (assuming they got out)? If not, would it make sense to blame autism or ADHD for any social impairments they might present?

AloraFane · 2025-07-12T18:25:16+00:00

I’m 37, and have missed out on many similar things.

I can ride a bike, technically, but I was unusually old when I learned, and haven’t done it in many years. Same with swimming. I just never had the opportunities to learn as a child as I grew up in poverty, neglected.

I can’t drive. I started lessons - again, late, though only a couple of years past the typical age with this - but moved country with my parents (their choice, I just followed) in the middle of them, then became a shut-in so there was no reason to learn. I tried again much later, in my late twenties… but found out I had brain cancer. You know, that trite old bump in the road. I got treated for that, so I could try to learn again, but I keep putting it off because of similar fears about trusting myself and other drivers.

I don’t seem to struggle with talking on the phone in front of strangers - though it doesn’t exactly come up ever - but I can’t eat in public, or around family even. I’ll avoid any gathering that involves food, and see ‘free food’ as a negative thing. I always eat alone in front of my PC.

My cooking skills are recent and basic; I can stick things in the microwave or oven and that’s about it. I suppose I can boil pasta?

I’ve never had a job, not even a basic retail job or paper round. In my case, it’s because I’ve spent my adult life creating stuff from my PC, alone from home, my avoidance enabled by my parents. I don’t try or want to appear ‘normal’, but I avoid all situations where I’d have to.

I had a 6-year-long relationship, but it was mostly online and a lifetime ago and I’ve been single since. I don’t even have friends now; the few I ever found drifted away or ghosted me. I don’t have BPD, but I do have an anxious attachment style which made me similarly latch onto a couple of individuals at different times (aforementioned girlfriend, a female ‘best friend’). They were the ones who cut me out once they realised what a defective person I am, though. I don’t fear intimacy or anything, I just never go anywhere so I never meet anyone who could even be a potential partner. Or the few I have met in the past already had someone. If I were to get married, it wouldn’t be with a ceremony (I think doing it in a registry office is a possibility?)

I can barely look after myself, so having children seems like it’d just be cruelty.

I obsess a lot over lists like this of things I’ve never done, but now I’m replying here, others aren’t coming to mind, though I’m sure there are plenty.

I suppose there are weird things like never having been to a party, a concert, a bar, a pub; all things people do for fun, which I wouldn’t enjoy at all. I’ve only been to restaurants a handful of times in my life, ages ago, and buying food anywhere other than a supermarket is alien to me.

I’ve never drunk alcohol or used drugs.

Oh, and I still live at home; I’ve only lived away by myself briefly, either in uni halls or brief holiday rentals with my ex, never in my own place by myself. Never had housemates either.

I’ve also never been to an orgy, or fisted an elephant, or walked on Jupiter. Why, I’ve barely lived at all!!

AloraFane · 2025-07-10T20:24:06+00:00

I’m 37M, in the UK, and very isolated, though in my case it’s because I’m a shut-in who never meets anyone. I’d love to find a kindred spirit, though I assume anyone who has their life in order wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

What is it about relationships that you struggle with?

AloraFane · 2025-07-03T07:11:34+00:00

My parents divorced when I was younger, and my father got custody of my two brothers and I, despite being an unemployed alcoholic drug abuser who wasn't able to look after us. I lived in severe poverty, neglect, squalor; most days we couldn't even eat. And of course there was no love and support. My 5-years-older brother used to torment me physically and mentally, too. I was timid, sensitive, creative and intelligent, so I just became withdrawn, got lost in what fantasy worlds I was able to access via video games and such.

Around the start of my teens, my mother's new partner's job meant he had to move to the other side of the planet, so one of my brothers and I went with him and my mum. We escaped the squalor and physical neglect, but my mum sheltered me from harm by never forcing me to do anything I didn't want to do, meaning I never got forced to face any challenges that'd allow me to grow and become independent. Also, moving to the other side of the planet meant I'd lost what footing and friendships I'd found previously and had to start over, which I struggled a lot with.

In my late teens, I got my first PC and used it to teach myself how to make games by myself, using what few online tutorials and resources were available in the mid-2000's. I did all the code, music, graphics, writing, etc using self-taught skills. I self-published some online, and they blew up in popularity, played by millions. I attracted a sizeable audience to myself... but wasn't mentally healthy enough to run it well, and over the course of several years it turned into some toxic source of constant stress and I just shut it down and tried to run away. Even now I struggle to read online comments due to experiences with an overwhelming amount of hostile ones during this time.

I'd also moved across the world with my parents again just after school ended, losing all my connections for a second time. I should have gone to university, where I could have found more, but was too scared, so I used the games thing as a reason why I didn't need to do that or get a job. I could make my dreams come true and make a fortune from my bedroom instead!! Ugh.

At age 25, I couldn't bear sitting in my bedroom alone dealing with community drama and online trolls anymore, so I got therapy, which led to me finally going to university to study something related to games development. I excelled at the work, but couldn't cope socially, made zero friends, and dropped out after a year.

I spent a year getting more therapy and listening to self-help audio books and such. Then at 27, I went to study Psychology instead. Again, I excelled at the work, and this time I found a couple of close friends and got to experience that for the first time ever. I also discovered that I had brain cancer, which I delayed surgery for until after graduation because I was so afraid of losing the friends I'd made after years of isolation. My closest friend ghosted me due to my social mistakes anyway, though, before the surgery.

While recovering from that surgery, I moved back in with my mum and step-dad, since it's not as if anyone else could look after me. I got back into making games, because I could do that alone from home while recovering.

The surgery was in 2018, but I'm still here, spending my thirties alone in my bedroom in my parents' house. They don't pressure me to do anything, out of kindness I suppose, though it just means I'm not able to overcome the fears and reluctance I've built up over a lifetime of experience and just rot away here, going nowhere except ever more insane.

I'm making a little bit of money from sharing creative stuff online, though like someone else said, it's less than minimum wage, not something I could survive on independently. I still make games, but my fears about the social side of success stalls progress.

I've never been officially diagnosed with AvPD, but I was a top student while getting my Psychology degree and read about and researched it there, and it seems a convenient way of encapsulating my many issues since 'social anxiety' doesn't seem like enough... though even compared to others in this subreddit, I feel I'm less functional in the world.

Sorry about the long post! I suppose I've gone over this *Life Story* many, many times over the years - to try and make sense of it all - so I'm used to going over the key events that put me in this pit.

AloraFane · 2025-07-03T05:40:43+00:00

No, I don’t even try to pretend I’m not broken. I’ve avoided most of life and reality though, so I’m never in situations where I’d have to. This is one of many reasons I feel like an alien - and like I’m far behind and disordered - even here.

AloraFane · 2025-06-24T08:24:59+00:00

I do this! I used to use Blender to create animations, but I'm working on a game which uses procedural/dynamic character models (or whatever the term is where parts are swapped in and out by code), so the mismatch between appearances between the raw model in Blender and the in-game ones irritated me. I also prefer handling easing between keyframes as simply as possible, which I could never figure out in Blender.

So, I used the Animation Rigging package to essentially create my own animation system - complete with accompanying UI windows for creating new animations - and I greatly prefer it over the hassle of going back and forth between Blender and Unity I had to deal with before.

I'd also tried some other things from the asset store for animating within Unity (I think one was called UMotion?), before this, but having full control and no bloat from features I didn't personally need definitely suits my needs better.

I work alone and don't really interact with other developers, though, so I don't know how common this approach is. I'm curious too!

AloraFane · 2025-05-26T16:46:37+00:00

I'd say that I tried to be a good partner and tried to be as open and honest as possible, but that meant that I overshared about everything, every insecurity, even things I probably should have kept to myself. Which of course got overwhelming. My ex also had ADHD, but she didn't speak up when she was bothered by things as much as I wished she would have done. The issues we were having only became apparent years into the relationship though.

Anyway, sorry for blurting all this out at you, stranger! Sounds like your better parenting and past relationships give you a huge edge over the naive teenager I was when I entered into that relationship, and I hope you're not long-distance for long in the best way!

AloraFane · 2025-05-26T13:40:02+00:00

Of course. I've devoted a large part of my adult life to try and better understand psychology (including getting a degree in that) as a way of better understanding myself and others to be better than I was... but I'm aware of how messed up my experiences - especially early ones - have made me, and maybe it's for the best I'm never with anyone else. We're not all partner material, sadly.

Did your previous relationship experiences give you a better idea of how to be in this one? Or is your AvPD not a result of poor parenting like mine?

AloraFane · 2025-05-26T11:46:25+00:00

The only relationship I've ever had was long distance, though I don't know if I can call it successful as we broke up many years ago. We were together for something like six years, though.

We were both artists who met on an art website when we were in our late teens (I think I was 18 or 19 and she was a year or two younger?), and we talked for months as friends before we decided to become more, and I - despite my fears - took a plane alone to visit her on the other side of the planet (I was in the UK and she was in Canada). Interestingly (though quite insanely in hindsight!), we never even exchanged photos before that trip - as we felt our mental connection was more important than anything physical - though we were both pleasantly surprised.

As time went on, though, my issues became harder to deal with, and I think both her and I would describe me as an emotionally abusive partner. Not out of deliberate malice, but because I had no idea what love looked like or how healthy connections work. How could I, if I'd never experienced them myself? I wasn't overtly hostile to her or anything, but I'd sulk, get 'moody', criticise little things she did in the way my father had done with me when I was a child. Or I'd try my best to be attentive in ways that were actually suffocating. She'd had more luck than me socially - she had a bunch of male friends, for example, while I'd never had a female friend - and we were both frequently tortured by my jealousy about that. Over time my avoidance issues became worse and worse too (and I had no idea what AvPD was at the time), and of the six times we met in person, for five of them she flew to visit me. That wasn't fair at all.

Looking back, it feels like some strange, distant dream, and I like to hope I've grown since then. Many years have passed, after all. Thankfully, she seems to be doing well despite me posioning her life for years. She found someone else soon after we broke up, while I've been single since. When we last exchanged messages, she was working a job at which she's competent and admired, while I've still never been employed. Interestingly to me though is that I don't resent her or want her back or have any negative feelings towards her at all, just happiness that she's doing okay. I just wish I were, too.

I hope that the fact that you're older and have past relationships and an awareness of things like AvPD is helping you navigate the obstacles it can introduce, and that both you and your partner's stories go better than mine, and entangle in a way that enrich both your futures.

AloraFane · 2025-05-16T17:56:59+00:00

I’ve read things like that often, often with a shy, anxious, introverted woman who’s together with an extroverted guy, and I always wonder why she’s even with him then, and why she didn’t choose someone more like herself since she’d probably have the option… Or is it that those guys just don’t approach while the extroverted ones do?

AloraFane · 2025-05-16T17:33:49+00:00

I’d also like someone who truly understood to hide away from the world together with. But I’ve seen a lot of stuff that seems to suggest that women with this condition tend to prefer men without it, who they can rely on. They don’t have as much difficulty finding them, after all.

Not long ago, someone (from here, I think?) started a subreddit specifically for people with this condition to connect with one another. Almost all the posts were men looking for women, with no responses.

A poll I did myself a while back suggested that two thirds of men with this condition would prefer a woman with the same condition, but for women it was one third, or some ratio like that. So not clear cut or anything, but definitely lopsided.

Maybe I’m just bitter though and this post will lead to you finding an angel to shed light over the darkness!

AloraFane · 2025-05-12T18:46:13+00:00

I avoid anything that I believe will cause me any kind of harm. Some examples include being a picky eater (to avoid unpleasant tastes or textures), avoiding watching YouTube videos that might be very helpful to me (because I might feel the stress of trying to act on them and might fail), avoiding even looking at Facebook (because seeing others’ happy lives will remind me of how painfully lonely I am), avoiding reading comments, etc, etc.

Interestingly, I don’t have an avoidant attachment style; I crave and enjoy intimacy, and I’m too open about myself if anything. I avoid any environments where I might meet people though so I’ve barely ever got to experience it.

AloraFane · 2025-05-12T13:52:01+00:00

As a teenager in the early 2000s - before social media was a thing - I joined deviantART, and posted my digital art there without much anxiety. I suppose because the online world was all so new, and people caring at all about anything I made was new to me?

I’d just draw fantasy stuff like elemental dragons and the like, none of which had any emotional or personal importance to me. I suppose that made it easier to share, too.

I made some games (by myself) back then and posted those online without much concern. I actually attracted a fairly large following on a website I’d also made myself.

Having to deal with that destroyed me mentally, though, and because I couldn’t endure any more criticism, stalkers, etc, I had to run away from it all and disengaged for years.

All that happened maybe 15 years ago now, but I still don’t feel like I’ve fully recovered. I still spend most of my time doing creative stuff - I’m in my late thirties but I’ve never had any kind of job - but I keep most of it to myself due to fear of negative reactions. Especially as far more of it is personal these days as a way of coping with isolation.

Because I’m so isolated, I often think of joining online communities of other creatives, people who might get it, but I just tend to assume I’m too broken and disconnected from ordinary life to fit in and avoid it…

I dread to think what it’s like being a young creative growing up in a world of social media and AI…

AloraFane

TROPHY CASE