Blogstalkers welcome

Tonight a little after 8:00 I was feeling kind of sleepy, but I knew that if I slept for too long I wouldn't be able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour of night, so I just decided to nod off while sitting up for a bit. Then, at some point, I lay down, and didn't really regain consciousness until around 11:00. Don't tell my eye doctor, because I'm not supposed to sleep with my contacts in, and when I woke up they were covered with a cloudy film. Anyhoo, since it'll probably be a couple of hours until I go to bed for real, I guess I have plenty of time to write in my blog.

Today I found out that a long-time friend has been "blogstalking" me. Welcome! I hope that people are actually reading this blog. I don't know how interesting everything that I write on here is to people, and I still have some reservations about blogging (see my blog about it lol) but it looks like it's a part of my regular habits, at least for a while. I would actually really be happy to know that people are reading. So feel free to stalk, but also feel free to send me a comment or even an e-mail or a Facebook message to let me know that you read. If you're curious about some topic, I'm pretty verbose, so feel free to make suggestions...

I've kind of been thinking about how people act by doing sort of the opposite of whatever trait they feel they lack. That is, people who aren't sure of their smarts will sometimes use big words and tell a lot of stories to appear smarter. People who are insecure and feel inferior will often act big in an attempt to look confident. And, I often act really outgoing and friendly, because I sometimes feel alone. I think people would call me an outgoing person, and a lot of people at church, for example, tell me that I'm one of the first people in the ward who talked to them. I believe that quite a bit of my friendliness is motivated by the fact that I feel lonely and I want people to pay attention to me. It has worked quite well for me in the past -- I usually always find someone to sit by.

In a way this is one of the loneliest times in my life; of my three closest friends, two of them got married and the other moved to another state in 2007, so I don't have a lot of regular contact with my most intimate friends. It's been liberating for me to discover yet again that I'm okay, and that reading scripture and attending church brings so much comfort and such a calming influence into my life. Surely that's one of the manifestations of the Holy Ghost (Galatians 5:22-23). However, in my lonely moments it doesn't always occur to me to turn to the scriptures and I long to hold a trusted friend. I appreciate the people in my life who do fill up the emptiness in my arms temporarily, and those who have seen past my outgoing behavior to realize that I LOVE it when you come up to me and give me a hug.

I used to have a friend, actually, who understood this side of me very well. She, like me, was very comfortable with physical contact. We would often hold hands as we were sitting together in Sunday School or Relief Society, just because we both liked it. She moved on to other phases of her life about two years ago but I still miss her often. No one since has understood me on that level in the same way that she did.

I have learned that there are good reasons why many people don't want to be hugged or touched. I try not to come on too strong because it's counterproductive; it drives people away and it seems to me that it would be disrespecting people that I care about if they're not interested in that kind of attention. For others it sometimes just takes a longer time to warm up to people. As a result I won't often express a lot of physical affection toward people unless I know that they are comfortable with it, which often involves us having a discussion about it at some point. But in case you're wondering why I hold you close when you give me a hug or why I linger a little when you take my hand, now you know. Thank you.