Hi there … I feel like we got off on a bad foot.
Do you have a dream?
Did you try to make it into reality?
Was it easy or hard for you to do?
That’s where I’m at in my journey. Instead of letting my baggage bury me, I’m trying to stand on it and find my way out. Sometimes I get it wrong, but not because I don’t want to get it right. Maybe this can be the moment where I make a friend. Fingers crossed …
What you just read is what I want to say to people when something I post on the Internet doesn’t land well. I have a lot of trouble interacting with people (What, a socially disabled person has trouble talking to people? Who knew?) yet, I want to extract something positive from the experience. I try to unpack every negative exchange to see what I should be doing differently to introduce myself to new people.
I know I’m not the only person who deals with this. Like other adult children of emotionally immature parents, I struggle to find and make emotionally mature relationships. Even simple interactions like “Hey, I’m a writer and I write stuff” get weird in a hurry. Hard to carry a conversation when you’re carrying all this baggage.
So yeah, I’m still working on this. I can’t let my personal baggage and damage prevent me from making connections with people. At the same time, because of my social issues, there are times when I fundamentally cannot process the difference between a post like this one and a post like this one. So many questions. All of them sound like “how do I get away with marketing to people” when what I want to do is say “Hey, I’m doing my thing and it makes me happy?”
It’s difficult for me. Yet, that can’t be an excuse for apathy. I can’t live my dream of being a professional writer without interacting with people. You can’t take trolls personally, but how do you channel negative feedback into valuable criticism? How do you take the hits and keep moving forward?
Having thought this through, the only thing I can really say is “I haven’t figured this out yet.” I also wanted to say what I said above. It might be a bridge toward a better interaction with people next time. Maybe one of these days I’ll have it figured out. Until then, all I can do is say ‘I’m sorry,’ and try to do better next time. Maybe it can be the moment where I make a friend.
Fingers crossed …