In teaching I also learn, but there is darkness still.

[Neferata]

Fully investing myself into my tutoring work and my teaching studies, I have been shrugging off fatigue and pretending that by ignoring my personal crises they may somehow disappear the next time I look. Alas, recently I have been staring into that particular void and I did not find it wanting. There is much love in my life, the love of friends which means a great deal to me. There is the love of teaching, the love I have for my students and my great work with them, but I have little love for myself. What I lack is human companionship, the intimacy of the human creature.

This lonely state of mind is entirely self imposed and I pose the question to myself almost as an excuse: "How can I expect another life to love me if I cannot love myself?." How can I with good conscience enter into another live and introduce into it the myriad of identity crises I possess, my dark, vindictive yet ultimately confused mind, my sensitive sexuality, my frustrated identity and my nerdy, highly personal theatrics?

I have long been burying my personal desires underneath my work and now that they have been abruptly unearthed and let loose in my mind, I don't know what to do with them. I've prided myself on my cold, distant attitude toward sexual relations but it is increasingly hard to reconcile that pride with my loneliness and mental health. In an effort to be a messianic figure to my students, their spiritual guide through these dark and troubling times, I have ignored myself and my needs.

I have never been in a relationship and aged 25 there is a certain shame that comes with the acceptance that I've never been in a sexual relationship and my immediate reaction is to withdraw, but I cannot push this away for much longer. I am not a creature of casual relations, I am a creature which values permanence, predictability and sensitivity and none of those conditions are encouraged by modern match making. I enjoy meeting people in person but I am not a social flower, I don't "do" fun, I don't do parties, I don't dance, I don't drink, I don't club and I don't do things like tinder.

I am the uncompromising autocrat of my own realm but am I going to have to show a gesture of compromise to the cosmos in order to find new people?

[Croix]

Dear Neferata~

I'm not sure you are on the right track. You are taking a rather gloomy view of things.

Wanting a relationship is something most of us do, me included. It takes two, and one does not have to try to build it, or change oneself, all alone -that's one of the great things of two people getting together.

Instead of seeing love of self as a precondition, perhaps it might the the case that another can show you the good things about you that you ignore, or dismiss as being of little importance. Others do not see you though your eyes. Makng another happy is a great bulding block in coming to regard yurself wiht hapiness nad ocntentlemt.

[Croix]

I'm afraid the internet swallowed my post completely unassisted and dumped it here before I'd finished -ah well

Anyway, please disregard hte missing edits above and I"ll press on. All the things you value "permanence, predictability and sensitivity " are exactly what is needed for a serious relationship, though I'd have to add love and fun. Al the things you don't do also are just fine -though I'd be in two minds about the dancing.

Yoiu only have to meet one person, and that is not impossible.

[Croix]

I'm sorry, twice in a row my incomplete post has gone up, no idea why. I'll finish quickly before it happens again.

I'm not going to discuss ways and means, just try to instill in you the idea you would be exactly right for many - on a permanent basis.

Croix

[Neferata]

Thank you Croix, and no worries about the technical difficulties, they happen to us when we least expect it!

As I'm sure most people say in their defense, finding the time is really difficult!I keep putting up my workload and studyload as excuses alongside "oh I just have to get through uni (again) and then I'll have more time." I'm finally realising that those sorts of excuses will remain for the rest of my life if I don't rise above them.

I also keep going back to Erich Fromm's philosophy: to know, you must first know yourself and to love, you must love yourself. But you are right, Croix, I need to dip my feet in those murky waters and see what someone else sees in me.

Nef

[Croix]

Dear Nef~

Thank you for coming back and saying more, hopefully today I won't have the same posting difficulties today.

I do think you are right in saying that one can make one's life absolutely full of worthy tasks and thus exclude things one might be better off exploring. Often those worthy task have the benefits of familiarity and the safety of past successes.

I say exploring as relationships are not normally ventures one can go into with full preparation and ducks all lined up in a a row. Knowing and loving oneself is - at least for me - a lifetime's occupation, with no particular guarantee of success. I'd imagine for most waiting for that happy event would permanently prohibit any close emotional alliances.

They are messy with much scrambling, but answer a fundamental need and enrich both.

Croix (who made it thought the entire post wi

[Neferata]

An entire post without technical difficulties! Oh frabjous day!

Thank you for your wisdom, Croix, I've always either been the youngest in a group (the friends in my uni circle age between 30 and 60) or I've been the elder figure to my school friends. I've always been in a position of seeking wisdom or attempting to guide others with my own, especially now with my students. It's very comfortable for me to let those experiences fulfill me but with my fellow students of teaching who are mostly my own age and all they seem to talk about is sex, it's very strange to me.

This is why I believe you are correct in using the word exploration, and much like my geological exploration, life will often be an arduous and mind boggling affair. Although it was so many years ago, I don't remember any terror in geology exploration, although one might've said at the time there was certainly existential terror!

Nef