This came about after an imaginary conversation with a friend, in which I tried to explain why my behaviour was sometimes contradictory, sometimes irrational but in general internally inconsistent. It was an imaginary conversation, because while there are occasional revelations in it for me, I very much suspect that some of them would not have been revelations to him, and I really didn't want to know if that was the case or not -grins-

You see, the big gaping hole in my life, the thing that drives most of what I do, the big pressure behind many of my actions that seem irrational, is the need for friends who I can trust to stay friends. In theory, I'm OK. I have lots of friends, hundreds of acquaintances, and there are thousands of people I've worked briefly with, performed or demonstrated for, spoken to on the phone, people who in their own way felt they got to know me for a moment. What I don't have is the trust that any of my good friendships are strong enough.

You'd think that would be an automatic thing, but it isn't. I guess I got that lack of trust from having lost all my friends in one swoop, not once, but twice, simply for being who I was. I mean, sure, I moved several times, and had to make a whole new set of friends out of strangers. But that's not losing friends so much as gaining new ones. I really *did* lose all my friends, once because I was framed as a witch, and once because I was a girl. I wasn't happy about it either time. Problem is, I'm still a girl. And, I still have enough Otherlyness about me to trigger that unease in people, justified or not. I'd like to think that the friends I have now aren't going to be bothered by either, but they've also rarely had to see either characteristic in full force. They put up with me being a physicist, which is a good start, but I have trouble believing that it's ever enough.

There's an additional problem - in that I tend to hold a deep affection for my good friends. You wouldn't think this would be a problem. But it is to me, in that I'm always afraid that if I actually let someone know how much I like them they're going to run away as fast as they can. So I find myself acting like I love someone but don't want them to know about it, which is kinda silly, so I stop myself acting that way, and then start again. It scares me that people I really love would run away from me. I simply can't trust them to accept my affection for what it is.

So, basically, I don't trust anyone to stay my friend - but I desperately want to. There's a pretty good basis for contradictory behaviour right there.