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How can social interaction become enjoyable for us?

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RadioDog
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24 Jun 2020, 6:47 pm

Steve1963 wrote:
Mona Pereth wrote:
I must not have to mask.
Are there older members like myself who find it difficult to know where the mask ends and their true self begins? I've been masking for so long, the line is kind of blurred. I think I mask, or at least partially mask, all the time now.


Yes, I've spent so much of my life masking (though not always succeeding, still trying). Part of finding that better life has been finding times, places, and people where the mask isn't required and then learning how to let it go for a time so I can see myself.


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Gentleman Argentum
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25 Jun 2020, 2:59 am

Steve1963 wrote:
Mona Pereth wrote:
I must not have to mask.
Are there older members like myself who find it difficult to know where the mask ends and their true self begins? I've been masking for so long, the line is kind of blurred. I think I mask, or at least partially mask, all the time now.


Just saw this after RadioDog replied. I don't really know what the term means, it may be a younger generation's way of speaking, or therapist's. Never heard of it before coming to WP. Back in the day, we learned, slowly, but we learned, not to do/say certain things, to do/say other things. Mainly through the time-honored training regime of humiliation and punishment.

I do find social interaction among strangers in a dinner party, for instance, to be exhausting, and some people to be particularly draining. But on the job it is no big deal, I just focus completely on work and the self melts away to nothing. The main thing for me is have something, activity to focus on.


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Steve1963
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25 Jun 2020, 4:20 am

RadioDog wrote:
Yes, I've spent so much of my life masking (though not always succeeding, still trying). Part of finding that better life has been finding times, places, and people where the mask isn't required and then learning how to let it go for a time so I can see myself.

How does one learn how to let it go? I still do it around my kids and wife, not to the extent I would in a non-family social setting, but I still do it. I don't know how to drop my guard anymore.