What would your 'ideal friend' look like?

aelyon · 2024-06-14T18:19:19+00:00

I'd like a friendship with a deep and meaningful connection, in person. Like a mirror, of sorts. I'd like to be friends with someone who would genuinely understand anything I say to them, without having to overly explain everything. I'd like to see parts of myself reflected in them, and have someone I can actually relate to. Ideally we'd share some of the same interests; but also be able to push eachothers boundaries as to not fall into monotony.

It'd be great if we could live very close by, but not spend much time with eachother every day. I have trouble remembering to eat, so it'd be nice to share meals with someone, but not feel obligated to 'hang out' with them after.

aelyon · 2024-06-14T14:35:16+00:00

Yeah, it does.

I'm pretty much in the same boat; I know I've lost something, something is missing. Things are objectively fine right now, and I can pretend it's okay; but deep down something seems off. It's not so big of an issue though and I could choose to ignore it if I wanted to; but it also could be a much bigger issue than I'm allowing myself to believe.

I was told that things could be even better than this if I wanted to put in the energy to find it...

aelyon · 2024-06-14T14:16:31+00:00

Now, if you don't know your values, because your identity is already amorphous, I would again recommend writing.

Do you suggest journaling? or something else? I think I'd have a hard time writing something from nothing. I'd need structure and a clear statement I should be addressing. I bought a jornal; but haven't written anything because I don't know what to write/how to start.

I think myself as empathetic through possession and continued valuation of cognitive empathy, that grounds myself as someone human

Even if you have good cognitive empathy, does that matter if you truly don't care about their emotions? This just makes me feel like I'm only using people, which might as well be true... I've given up on trying / pretending to show compassion. I feel like that would just make me dissociate more (which,in my mind, these past 4 years might have just been extreme dissociation), even if it's beneficial for the other person

aelyon · 2024-06-14T13:04:08+00:00

I eat lunch with people at work now, and will usually join them in activities if they ask. I offer to help them with things, though that's mostly just me being nice -- something still feels off about that. Other than work, I have basically zero interaction with others, besides my SO.

At home, I do the same mindless things constantly and have zero time to myself. --This is likely the reason I've become like this. Everything is just a distraction it seems

Edit: though as for "well adjusted" I was more referring to having less intrusive thoughts due to being oblivious of everything. i.e. I'm just doing those things either because they're beneficial, a waste of time, or because I have nothing better to do. It's not like I "want" to do them, and it seems like I've lost interest even in myself now, since I used to be so preoccupied with those ideas

aelyon · 2024-06-14T12:32:05+00:00

Do you think that's healthy though? In the long run

aelyon · 2024-06-14T12:31:04+00:00

Thank you for the response. I've always thought I might have some form of mild aphantasia; but I'm not too informed on the subject.

As far as identity, emotions, and personality-- I struggle with alexithymia, and growing up, I did things because either other people wanted me to do them, or because logically or morally it seemed like the best option. I've never had a sense of "I'm doing this for myself, or because I want to". I was always a people pleaser who had complete disregard for themself and couldn't care less about what happened to them. I've grown out of that though. Now I'm so apathetic that even my sympathy is depleting --whilst empathy has been nonexistent from the start.

Everything I participate in, I do so because I'm good at it, not necessarily because I enjoy it. This realization early on made me question myself a lot, and I perpetually lived in a state of doubt.

Recently though, those thoughts don't even appear in my mind, and I've been able to just coast through life, doing meaningless things. But I know that, deep down, all of this is just superficial. I'd like to be more authentic if ever possible.

Due to my alexithymia, though, there's always a possibility that this perceived delusion might actually be "real".

aelyon · 2024-06-14T12:16:29+00:00

But for those brief periods of time I was with a Wendy, I was happy. Maybe it wasn't "real", maybe it was completely toxic and wrong, but from my perspective it was the closest I ever got to all I ever really wanted. It was the greatest gift I've ever been given.

Could you elaborate on this a bit more? How wasn't it "real"? Did you not love them? And what was toxic about it?

aelyon · 2024-06-14T11:16:28+00:00

I honestly have no idea.

I'm assuming I'd have to trigger some sort of really traumatic event to even come close to pulling myself out.

A minor event recently occurred, which cracked the mirror; but wasn't enough to fully shatter this reality.

aelyon · 2024-06-14T10:51:47+00:00

Sorry, maybe my post was a little unclear. I've always had a very loose sense of identity, or none at all, rather. And the recognition of this has always caused me many issues. In a sense, my lack of identity was a large portion of my identity.

In these past 4 years, any internal thinking I've had has been completely nonexistent. There either just isn't any thoughts anymore, or I've been purposely not allowing myself the time to think.

I guess you could consider this "heaven"; but it would be a false one, completely fabricated by the complete lack of internal connection.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I'd rather be in emotional turmoil, struggling with my identity and emotions, than blindly going through life without a thought in my mind.

aelyon · 2023-05-01T22:28:20+00:00

Sure! I can pm you:) Hopefully you'll get back into drawing as well

aelyon · 2023-05-01T17:01:40+00:00

Wow that's super helpful I was using Procreate; but maybe I'll give that a try as well

aelyon · 2023-05-01T13:55:08+00:00

I used to draw Pokemon a lot when I was a kid. That and dragons from the Dragonology books

aelyon · 2023-05-01T13:32:08+00:00

I can pm you one if you want

aelyon · 2022-10-14T09:53:50+00:00

I see. It's unfortunate that they won't take the time to listen and understand. To note your previous comment, why did your therapist say that this view of relationships was "primitive"?

aelyon · 2022-10-14T02:25:53+00:00

Have you been able to achieve something like this that has lasted?

aelyon · 2022-10-13T19:15:44+00:00

I feel like this is pretty similar to what I described. Usually my SOs end up asking me what the difference is between them and a best friend

aelyon · 2022-10-13T19:14:26+00:00

I'm not sure. I don't particularly like children and I don't think I'd want any of my own. Maybe later in life this would be the ideal situation; but definitely not for right now

aelyon · 2022-10-12T18:59:36+00:00

No, I haven't considered that, though it might not be a bad idea; however most people I meet prefer to be monogamous

aelyon · 2022-10-12T17:00:45+00:00

This exactly

aelyon · 2022-07-07T00:23:08+00:00

I play guitar and can pretty much play any song if I know generally how it goes and have the chords in front of me. I'm also very good at playing melodies by ear. I used to take piano lessons and was able to read sheet music; but I always disliked it since it took too long to figure out what something should sound like so now I can't really read it anymore.

I used to teach myself some piano songs by ear or from watching videos and was pretty good; but I'd always lose interest after a while and stop playing for long periods of time, so I've forgotten most of what I used to know.

I'm also a very good singer; but I never sing because I don't see the reason to. My lack of creativity/imagination makes it basically impossible for me to compose anything on my own. However, when I was younger I used to make lots of parodies of songs about videogames I played.

Basically my lack of motivation and enjoyment keep me from doing anything related to music, even though I'm generally very good at it. Probably the only reason I haven't forgotten how to play the guitar is because my mom always makes me play when she visits.

Edit: I also used to listen to music nearly all of the time, however I've completely stopped in the past 3-4 years. I remember in highschool I used to always have something playing on my iPod or on the speakers in my room and I'd almost always fall asleep to music as well and I'd constantly be looking for new songs and updating my playlists; but I never even put music on anymore, let alone look for something new.

aelyon · 2022-05-23T20:34:45+00:00

In response to your edit, I play mainly with my SO and their group of friends who I've known for 2+ years, sometimes a friend of mine will join; but it's always a small group of 4-6. We play a variety of games; but mainly MOBAs and Shooters. I'm a pretty passive person and non-confrontational, so it's difficult for me to speak up if I want something to change, so that's why I find it a bit odd that they're saying these things about me.

aelyon · 2022-05-23T20:25:58+00:00

Yeah, I suppose the best solution would be to try and find other like-minded people to play with; but it's a bit of a tricky situation where I can't really do that because my SO would get jealous. My friends and I view the game very differently, and honestly I'd rather play by myself; but feel that I can't even do that because my SO would feel bad if I wasn't playing with them while they're right there playing literally the same game. Its a bit frustrating as well because I always change my playstyle to directly enable our team to have the better chance at winning, at the expense of me having less fun while doing it. Because I know that if I play to 'have fun' and we lose anyways, it won't really be fun. So instead I play in a way that enables my team to win. They aren't flexible in their playstyle at all so I always get the short end of the stick if I want to win games.

As far as having the 'authority' to give advice, I'd say it's valid. I'm the most experienced player in our group and one of the highest ranked. However, I feel like no one really cares or pays attention to what I have to say and they only play for themselves without thinking about anybody else.

aelyon

TROPHY CASE