This thread hits a core wound of mine, and it seems so hopeless right now. But that's a feeling, and I don't sense any feeling right now, either. Just the usual numbness when my IC pulls out its rejection card again.
I've been so good at going it alone for so long it's second-nature, but it's like having a gaping hole not to have any relationships. But for me it's like Creative Cat says: "I still feel that I am 'too much' 'too needy' 'too aloof' 'too quiet' 'too loud' even 'too smelly'..."
While all my one-time relationships are severed--some deliberately (FOO), some due to circumstance, and some via death--I still maintained a loose connection with “friends” (some of whom I hired and mentored) at a workplace I'd been associated with for a long time, and where I thought I was still welcome. So the other day, someone I'd done huge favors for turned on me violently when I just asked for something I'd loaned back. Like you're [me] no longer part of our in-crowd, you're this/that/other and how dare you intrude.
There's lots of reasons they'd do that, starting with huge personal probs around drinking and such. Still all I could dwell on was "it's me, again...I just can't do people." And I've been around all the Walker tips, and many more, and none of it seems to matter anyway. I know it's just ego-talk, that in spirit I'm really okay; but I so easily just fall into self-blame, shut the door and hope never to be seen again. I'm convinced the friends part of life must have passed me by and I've been too smug to even notice.
It's just nice to visit this site, at least, and find real people I can relate to, and know they've walked the same lonely trail. I admire your perseverance in finding a way forward again.
Others here, too, are at least moving, anyway; while I'm just stagnant, stuck but with no outlet, and the notion of why bother looking for one. It probably doesn't make sense, I never seem to hit the sense level either. After all, they also said I'm not in touch with reality. Yeah, right, all that means is I don't go to their bars and fry my brains out like they do for their real fun. And I know that, but my gaping hole just keeps expanding in the meantime, and my options are pretty thin. And I'm only venting, or I don't know...it's just feelings, right? And they're only back where they've always been, hiding under the numbness that won't open the lid and let them taste freedom. Smelly, indeed, in that box of pain.