Settling in with my roots, my people

As far back as age 5, I can recall being rather withdrawn. It got worse through elementary school, and peaked in the middle of high school. Between my junior & senior year, I probably made the biggest change I will ever make in my life, and that was to experiment with turning my defense mechanisms off. Some combination of “I’m real smart” and “nobody understands me” was my #1 defense mechanism. (Rambling asides probably take that cake these days). Powering down the defense grid changed my world.

That was what opened me up to other people. Prior to that I probably had a definite, elitist, people-are-dumb attitude. These days that attitude is nails on a chalkboard to me. I haven’t shed my former #1 defense mechanism. And it took years to reduce its role in my life. But I’m glad I did. I talk to people more these days.

I like to talk about fiction, hypothetical situations, abstract theories, and the future. Always the future. I always have. And those conversations multiplied after I started, well, talking with people. But there’s something especially beautiful to me about getting a group of people (3-8 ideally) together who share a similar joy and know one another then watching/participating in what emerges. No wonder I like discussion classes.

I miss that alot. I had a bit of it with in minneapolis, on a regular basis (usually centered around final fantasy xi). Occasionally with classmates who got together. I had that in spades in pittsburgh, and in the bay area. I’m sort of amazed how little progress I feel I’ve made in that direction in chicago. I have a few such people, but they’re scattered all over the area. (We’ll ignore the scattering of friends across the continent. And the few bright dots elsewhere on the globe). The two guys I saw the most of while in nyc, and inspire a similar sense of comfortable fitting. In very different ways.

is my jewish mother (actually, more like “the jewish mother of my jewish friend” because there was the nurturing without the guilt tripping or nagging) with a beard and piercings. He cooked soup for me, gave me nyquil, and dragged my ass into the kitchen to help him bake a very tasty mango upside down cake. He played video games with me. We chatted, we talked about relationships, we ate out, we did some gymnastics (okay, that last one has no relationship to anyone’s jewish mother that I know of.) It was fun.

On the other hand is incredibly mellow and also quite fun. He was not like I expected him to be. He was far cooler. We chatted comic books, and video games. I overflirted. (Especially considering my sinus plague prohibited any sort of follow through). I didn’t get to hang with him nearly as much. A failure I hope to correct at some point.

In addition to both being fun in their own geeky ways, they’re also both cute, fuzzy guys. Such lucky boyfriends they have… =)