Do you ever feel like people hold you at arm's length?

I'm someone who craves (and thrives) on intimacy and closeness. I'm never been afraid to be vulnerable (I'd actually had to learn that I shouldn't be vulnerable with everyone). I love it when someone is really passionate about something, even if that thing bores me to tears. I love hearing about peoples' hopes, fears, dreams, opinions...

But I often feel like people hold me at arm's length. Like they say, "OP, I like you, you're interesting, but stay right there."

And it doesn't seem like it's a matter of following the "relationship journey" either. It seems like eventually I hit a wall of someone not wanting me to come any closer. And it hurts.

Being neuroatypical I do realize I have an intense personality so people may not know how to interact with me. That may be part of it.

Anyone else experience this? How do you cope?

Nonameuser678 ,
@Nonameuser678@aussie.zone avatar

People have all kinds of personal reasons for keeping their distance from others, which are all valid of course. However as a neurodivergent person myself who also experiences this freezing out from others, I can't help but think it's linked to the fact that they've clocked me as different. Often people are motivated by building social capital and I don't have much of that so I feel like people think there's just no real benefit to connecting with me.

gwindli ,

some people do not thrive on intimacy and closeness. for some people, maintaining more than one or two deeply emotional relationships requires more energy than they can commit.

it sounds to me like you have a habit of running headlong into other people's boundaries without really considering their perspective. it may leave you feeling shut out, but it takes a lot of energy for people to set and enforce those boundaries and you'll be happier if you learn to respect them.

PlanetOfOrd OP ,

True, though part of me rushing in is that I'm trying to understand their perspective. I do try to respect boundaries, but I'm not a mind-reader. I guess most people can kind of read boundaries. For me, I need to be told.

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