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?
I’m one of those people that holds most others at arm’s length, I’ve just learned not to let anyone get close, but mostly I’ve just always noticed that most other people do the same. The majority of the people I interact with on an average day are co-workers, so really I don’t want to be too open with any of them anyways, I try to set clear boundaries between myself and work. The other people I see on a regular basis are my kids, so it’s already a pretty open relationship there, there’s just no real middle ground between both worlds.