I keep hoping I'll have a story like that.

P-C, your love story will be funny and charming and quirky and awesome. I can't imagine it any other way.

I was always afraid I'd be a parent like my parents. I come from a long line of crazy, and I thought it better to end the chain.

O HAI, my choice not to have kids. That said, I do think my brother will be a fantastic dad, assuming he can handle the ongoing not-drinking thing.

For most of my life, I couldn't express any anger toward my family without immediately "taking it back", excusing them with an explanation of their actions and understanding how *they* felt. It was so hard to just to say how I felt and not defend them from my awful, mean, disrespectful feelings. I was never allowed to express any feeling that might have upset someone.

That's pretty much exactly how I was raised, right down to the "disrespectful." Anything I expressed that my mom didn't like was "disrespectful." I imagine I was *actually* disrespectful from time to time, like normal human kids are, but I really don't think my life from age 1 to 30 was one long unbroken line of foul-mouthed thoughtless disregard for her. That's unpossible. Except in her eyes. t /raised by a narcissist

I also feel like I have to be cnstantly managing other peoples' emotional responses to me - to make them happy with me or at least make them benignly ignore me. I have to be invisible, or I have to be bright and cheery and clever and fun and pretty and happy-making. This is exhausting and I lose the ability to keep it up pretty quickly

This is a large part of why I can't handle medium-to-large groups any more. I feel like everyone WANTS something from my soul, like I'm responsible for their feelings and I'm obligated to entertain, or just to *be* however they want me to be. (And the goddamn hugging.)

I need to stop caring how they feel and whether they like me. (Which sounds callous, but I trust you know what I mean.)

Oh, yeah, this too. In fact, I suspect if I stopped worrying that I was hurting people's delicate baby feelings by declining a hug, I'd be 50% better with groups.

Did I mention here, I am not very huggy really, but I hugged Tom Scola in NYC last month and he is a truly excellent hugger. Like, it was really comforting to hug him, and I am not very huggy.

Karl is like that. But I would happily hug Scola and compare, if he would like. I don't always enjoy that kind of thing either, either because I'm not comfortable, or maybe some people aren't good at it?

Attending lots of SF conventions in the South in my youth has made me okay with the hugging. You wanna hug, I'll hug ya. You don' wanna hug, that's totally cool too. I will never be the one making the first move, though.

I am an impulsive hugger. I hug everyone. I try really hard to remember who, in the past, has said they are NOT huggers, but I don't always remember and then I spend a very long time beating myself up about hugging someone who doesn't like being hugged and how DARE I get into their space when they didn't want it and what kind of shitty, selfish person am I, anyway?

It's totally craxy.

Scola gives good hug. I can vouch for this.

Before I die (or before I have sex for the last time), I have to wander out into a shared space outside where we just had sex, wearing his button down shirt and smiling smugly.

If he lives alone, this might require picking up his mail, but whatever it takes. I have to live that cliche.

I'm pretty sure Scola tried to psych me out on hugging last time I saw him. Just because I'm not a hugger!

I am currently wearing a t-shirt I wore home from a guy's place. Many years ago.

My parents were good parents but their paternal grandmothers were total bitches.

Seriously the only thing I heard nice about either of them is that my dad's grandmother was a good cook. Mom didn't want to be called Mom because that's what everyone called her grandmother. And "Mom" didn't have nice connotations. For example my grandfather visited "Mom" every evening. No matter what, he'd always go over and make sure she was okay and spend some time with her.

Except sometimes he'd go over and she wouldn't be there. She'd take a cab to the hospital because she wasn't sure if he'd come to check on her and she felt sick and didn't want to die alone.

Dad's paternal grandmother was just mean and petty and she'd totter along, clinging to someone, barely able to walk, complaining while she did about how frail she was and how hard it was to walk, etc. And then if she saw something or someone that interested her she'd let go and walk briskly to whatever it was.

Then when she was bored to go back to her "woe is me, I'm practically a cripple" routine.

I'm with a shirt I got when hanging out with a guy, long time ago. It's not his shirt, but the restauranteur gave us one both.

I imagine he doesn't still have it. NSYNC, call me!