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February 22, 2016 at 3:43 pm #96817
MattyParticipantAnita,
From his point of view:
I guess there a many experiences, however it won’t translate through my words properly. It is mainly in his voice, and his choice of words and actions. Because his behavior is just normal to us, most of the time i just ignore him and go to my room. Nowadays we can go weeks without seeing him, so my memories are being squashed into one. Plus there is a lot of back story in order to understand why what happened occurred.Honestly, it’s not that i can’t answer your question, but that i, in essence don’t know how to. It’s difficult to describe the feeling someone gives you. My brother is no exception, because he doesn’t speak his mind and bottles his emotions a lot of the time we have to read between the lines. And if you fail at that, well he get’s annoyed at you, condescending or obnoxious sometimes all of the at once and all you hear is curse words at 100 decibels. The times i have tried to be brotherly and speak to him while he had a level head ended badly because he doesn’t want or need your advice. And he dislikes it when people try to help him. Plus the more i speak of my brother the more my mood changes. It’s not as if i hate him, i do love him, but the problem is it’s not reciprocal and i doubt it ever will be. It gets me down. I also dislike the fact that i also (in a paradoxical way) separate him from the family. By speaking about him like this i feel, in reflection that i’m also excluding him from the family, like he isn’t really related to me.
I don’t mind you asking questions Anita,you can ask anything, but sometimes i just don’t know HOW to answer them.
Matty
February 22, 2016 at 8:03 pm #96831
AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
Thank you for answering my questions as well as you have. I appreciate you trying when you had a difficult time with the latest. You have been very accommodating to me and I appreciate it.
I am going to stop asking questions for now. Throughout the thread my goal was to get to know you better and understand your struggle to fit in and connect (the title of the thread) while keeping in mind that you are quite content.
Would you like me to review our correspondence on this thread and tomorrow (with a hopefully fresh brain) come up with a couple of theories as to the title of the thread? That will be my personal thinking as to what, why etc, several explanations, perhaps? I do like to analyze and understand. In correspondence with you I don’t think I have anything definite but only possibilities.
Please let me know if you are interested, if that would be something you would like me to do. I will if you do, and I won’t if you don’t!
You are a good man, Matty! And this I know for sure. Absolutely with certainty, I know!
anita
February 22, 2016 at 9:54 pm #96859MattyParticipantAnita,
Yeah sure if you want to review the entire thread to give some possible explanations, i won’t stop you. Thank you for your understanding on the previous question too.
Thanks for listening and being interested in not only the thread buy my life in general. Your kind words mean a lot to me as our continually correspondence has as well.
Matty
February 23, 2016 at 9:53 am #96895AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
I thought about my challenge last evening, even part of the night when awake and this morning, with a fresh brain worked for two hours, patiently re-reading your posts on this thread, slowly and taking notes on Word. I got to your 2/20 8:52 AM post, processed part of it and am taking a break. I wrote above that I was going to stop asking you questions for now. But… now, i do have two questions so to limit the possibilities in my mind. If it is okay with you, will you answer these:
1. You wrote that you (and your brother) had do be honest at home. My question is about that honesty: what kind of honesty was required of you, can you give me 2-3 examples?
2. you wrote that your mum was/ is sarcastic, maybe both parents. Can you give me 2-3 examples of her/ dad’s sarcasm?
anita
February 24, 2016 at 12:23 am #97030MattyParticipantAnita,
You don’t have to go to that much trouble! I appreciate your interest in me, but you don’t have to spend that much time on me. I don’t want you to overload 🙂 I just hope when i read your overview that i’m not going to be shocked by anything 😉
1. I would say that our honesty wasn’t forced upon, we were given freedom and openness, so that’s what i mean by honesty.
a) not lying (“did you break this?”)
b) telling the truth (“This suit makes me look like a penguin right?”)
c) honest with your thoughts & being open (“Tell me what you are really thinking”)2. Sarcasm….Well our family is sarcastic a lot of the time. And then you have to understand that we are Australian so our sense of humor might be a little different. My close friends are both American’s and sometimes they thought i was offending them. But i wasn’t i just forgot about the culture differences:
a) In our responses (“Are you talking to me?” = “No i was talking to the brick wall you daft ******”)
b) Taking the piss/ the mickey out of someone (joking about someone at their expense (“Who told you that you have 20/20 vision, you couldn’t even see that you blind ******”)
c) In our tone [this is harder to give an example] (“That was a good one” [raising the intonation to sound skeptical/ not impressed)I hope this helps. I’m looking forward to our next correspondence.
MattyFebruary 24, 2016 at 7:28 am #97039AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
Your sarcasm examples made me smile, still smiling right now. Actually this smiles is only expanding, really funny, The Are you talking to me? No I was talking to a brick wall… I suppose unless this talk is directed to a person that is already very hurt, it could be funny. Very funny.
Anyway, I am digressing. Don’t worry about me spending my time on your posts here. Not only is it my choice, it also happens to be a rewarding choice, to me! As I wrote before, you are exceptional, unusual (and yes, not in a bad way in my experience!) so my curiosity has been ongoing. I think I am ready to come up with my analysis which may not be much and nothing, I believe, that will be troubling to you! But it will be my truth, in line with the a, b, c examples of what it means to be honest!
Will come back here after some more work on my part, a few hours, I think (I will answer others’ threads first).
anita
February 24, 2016 at 8:27 am #97043AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
I am ready and I am excited! I don’t have anything absolutely ready in my mind so this post will be work in progress following my few page Word document based on reading your posts on this thread only. I also read some of the comments you wrote in the past following other people’s posts as well as all the posts you wrote on others’ threads today/ yesterday. Your comments on others’ threads are very impressive to me: your awareness and wisdom are indeed impressive, for a 24/ 25 year old and for a person of any age.
As I wrote, my work-in-progress here, as I am typing, is based on this thread only, your posts here. First, my feelings about you and your family as I … kind of got to know you and your family members in the context of our correspondence here: I like them, your mother and father. As I imagined the different scenarios, I feel a liking to you all: your mother in her honesty and sarcasm, your father, you… and in regard to your brother, I don’t dislike him. I like him too although I see how hurtful he is to you. I have a strong feeling, a conviction, that you trying to reach out to him, trying to help him, trying to include him in the family (you, your parents) is a moot point and should not be attempted again, you should not attempt it, is my feeling. It hurt you before when you did and will hurt you again while such efforts, I believe, have zero probability of helping him or you or your parents. The last people who can help him and bring him closer to you and your parents (the close three Inner Circle/ Inner Community) are you, your mother and your father.
I will post this here and start a new post right after or very soon with more.
anita
February 24, 2016 at 8:46 am #97044AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
So this is my understanding, and it is only my understanding based on my processing of the information on this thread. Nothing more, nothing less.
Your Inner Circle, or Inner Community is Matty, mum and dad.
Your Outer Circle, or Outer Community is everyone else, at different distances from the Inner Circle: there in the Outer Circle is your brother, your closer (but geographically distanced) friends… farther away, perhaps, are the peers at school.Within the Inner Circle there is familiarity and trust, honesty and a strong sense of belonging and working well together.
Much of who Matty is, is the result of the interactions you have had with your mum and dad throughout your life, especially as a child, those Formative Years. We develop as individuals, as individual children, not in isolation but in the very context of interacting with those in out Inner Circle.
As is, you are very well adjusted and fitting with the unit of three, like three pieces of a puzzle, three pieces that fit almost perfectly.
And this is what is unusual in your case: it hardly is the case that there is such an almost perfect fitting between an older child/ an adult child and his parents!
Not that it is a bad thing. Rare though, in my experience and observations.
What makes you fit so well to the two individuals in your Inner Circle does not make you fit so well with individuals in the Outer Circle. This is because, for one, the Outer Circle, the world as it is, is so full of problems and dishonesty that lots and lots and… lots of people do not fit well with the outer circle (or with the inner circle). In addition to this fact, the much lesser effective fitting between you and individuals in the Outer Circle has to do with the different Rules of Engagement practiced in your Inner Circle compared to the Rules of Engagement practiced in the Outer Circle.
I will stop for now. And wait for you to let me know if you want me to proceed (this is work in progress for me as I don’t know what I am going to type until I do) or not. If you’d like to comment, please do, it is okay with me if you don’t. Mostly I don’t want to be overwhelming simply by the sheer length of my post and I also want to make sure that you would like me to continue, or if you’d like me to not continue.
Till your reply, take care:
anita
February 24, 2016 at 5:47 pm #97092MattyParticipantAnita,
By all means continue. What you say is correct. However it does make me feel vulnerable. Reading about my small inner circle makes me wonder whether or not this will prove an issue later on, when my parents move on from this world (as we all do), although i will not dwell on this matter, it does show that with content there is also great vulnerability. Maybe when that time has come i will be better at connecting with others, searching for missing pieces to form my puzzle.
I look forward to continued response.
Sincerely,
MattyFebruary 24, 2016 at 6:11 pm #97095AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
I thought about you on my walk this afternoon, about my further analysis if you invited it, that is. And you do. I am glad you let me know about your vulnerability. I will take it into great consideration in further writing to you. And while I do, I will write to you nothing but what I believe is honest. I know how much you value honesty, a value your inner circle very much stand for! Worry not, dear Matty. I will not hurt you! Will write to you more later on or tomorrow morning, depending on the … freshness of my brain.
anita
February 24, 2016 at 7:19 pm #97112AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
Following thinking about you during dinner as well, I figured I better write to you sooner than later. I am going over my Word doc. My input following my study of this thread is going to be of the practical kind, suggestions for you to consider, if you will. I will be writing it in a..Do and Do not form, but it is all for your consideration of course:
1. Regarding your brother: maintain the type of interactions with him that do not cause you distress. If he reaches out to you for help, that would be something for you to consider, but if he does not, do not offer him your input, your help. I don’t want you hurt. Do what needs to be done so he doesn’t hurt you! You are not responsible for his troubles and they are not for you to either fix or to endure.
2. You have tried in the past to change your image and abandoned those efforts because, as you stated and I concur: there is, indeed, nothing wrong with you. So don’t try to change you again. To thine own self .. remain true. You are one of the most honest, authentic, well articulated, intelligent and … humorous person I have come across. Change none of it!
3. You wrote that your mother wants you to meet a woman that will be your mate, your wife. And you have some motivation in that direction although far from a desperate motivation. You wrote in your last post to me that you are concerned about being without your parents in the future. If you would like to meet the woman who will be your wife, then I have suggestions:
It is not going to happen by connecting with strangers in school or even traveling because your future wife has to be a certain, very specific person. The puzzle piece that you are, the one that fits so well with mum and dad, that part cannot fit with a variety of other pieces out there (women)- it has to be a …specific piece that fits tightly with you. There cannot be much compromise. She has to be honest. Lies are never accepted. She has to be straightforward. She has to have a strong and good character. She has to be mature in attitude and philosophy of life. She has to be all those things you most value in your parents!
I would talk to your mum about it, maybe, since she is interested in you getting married.. talk with her about what kind of woman she needs to be. And how you could meet her. Maybe through a dating service, online or otherwise but come up with specific requirements that have to be filled.
It is not going to be about what woman wants you! It must be about what woman fits your criteria.
You will need to learn about the woman through correspondence, meetings. You can bring a candidate home to meet your parents. And I have a feeling their approval, especially mum’s, is going to be very important to you!
And most important, your future wife must love you as you are, exactly as you are. Her love for you must be trustworthy, something you can rely on, stable, not chaotic, but solid.
The woman has to be trusted and approved before she too enters the Inner Circle. And it will be: Matty, wife, mum and dad. A circle of four. You must be as comfortable, after a while, with your wife as you are with your mum and dad. She must a person that says what is on her mind and allows you, invites you to say what is on your mind, so the freedom that your mum gave you, to speak your mind, is continued for the rest of your life.
4. If and when you have children, please note: children are not born with an Australian Sarcasm Gene (ASG that would be) so no sarcasm with the children until they are mature enough to handle it!
* I think I covered everything. I have nothing else at this point.
Let me know, when you are ready, what you think. And we can continue to communicate (I am interested) for as long as you want to!
anita
February 25, 2016 at 2:21 am #97178MattyParticipantDear Anita,
Once again I agree with your assessment. I will definitely take up your suggestion about, aiding my brother when he wants me to, not before hand.
You are one of the most honest, authentic, well articulated, intelligent and … humorous person I have come across.
Thank you so much. Thank you for valuing me, when we have never met nor truly know each other. It means a lot to me to be appreciated by others. And i certainly don’t think i will change for others. Of course i will always learn new things about life and myself, so i can only hope i improve, but not change who i fundamentally am.
As for a partner, thank you for your suggestion. Personally i haven’t given my thought to how i would, when i’m ready find or pursue a relationship. I think i was reading on Tinybuddha about setting your criteria and waiting it out. I mean my standards, as you have outlined aren’t the biggest deals, just a couple of parent tests that’s all 😉 But seriously, i will consider your advice on the matter. I’m not like my peers, i don’t really feel the need to date every woman i meet, nor am i inclined to. I would definitely rather meet than date. As dating nowadays to me, seems to mean you’re already pursuing a relationship rather than a 10 question casual interview style. As you have said, i have to be comfortable with her as much as i am with my parents. Everything you have said on this matter has made the issue clearer to myself. It’s like for the first time i have a requirement/s or a set of criteria and at least have an inkling into what i’m looking for.
I really like your puzzle analogy, it helps me a lot visual who i am and who i am in relevance to others. Anita, thank you for taking a serious interest in myself. I often see you posting on others and always asking questions, genuinely interested in others well beings and compassionate about people’s situation. You have impacted my life profoundly, before i started this post, i was serious in my conviction to understand why i was the way i am. Instead, i have discovered, through you that i already understand myself well enough and can learn from myself an awful lot, which seems illogical if not a complete back flip. When do we truly sit down and decide to learn from ourselves and not others? Your assessment of me is correct, i see nothing that makes me want to curl up into the fetal position 😉 I’m going to be on tinybuddha for however long. I have used this site for many years, and now i want to give back. So i assume i will see you quite a lot throughout the forums.
As for wanting to communicate, if you still have an interest in me, i won’t stop it. I will communicate and answer your questions with happiness until you decide you have had enough.
I don’t wish to prudent or prying of you Anita, nor un-grateful, but why are you on tinybuddha? I haven’t seen you post a question or a start a thread (maybe you have, but i haven’t seen it, sorry), of course you aid and help others everywhere! So my picture of you is non-existent. I just wanted to know what your story was, it seems unfair of me, for someone like yourself, to listen to my life story and issues and for me not hold an interest in the helper. I guess…who are you, Anita? Of course you don’t have to answer this, your decision to do help others is completely your own business. And it is of course not my place to bite the hand that feeds.
I truly look forward to writing to you again.
Sincerely,
MattyFebruary 25, 2016 at 8:00 am #97189AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
You wrote: “… we have never met nor truly know each other”- this is the amazing thing, I believe: I got to know you Matty better than most get to know you by seeing you in person, those in the outer circle that is. People make lots of judgments by outer appearance, you said it yourself: seeing your very serious face gives them a certain impression different than what is true: You are a fun loving, funny guy but they miss it and will never see it because they think you are… oddly serious and are no longer open to see who you really are. Without seeing your face, your looks, I get to know you… more than most people in your outer circle!
It became clear to me that in attempting to “fit in and connect” (title of your thread) a change of approach is wise, which I wrote about in the previous post. Your future partner needs to be all those things plus she needs to welcome your parents, be motivated to be one of the four, circle of four and not be motivated to separate you from them! There will be some separation, a kind of intimacy special to you and her, but she has to be okay with you (and her) continuing to be close with your mum and dad! Your mum and dad, therefore, need to like her very much as well!
As to Who am I? I shared many personal details and struggles on tiny buddha throughout my months of participation here. I post so often here that those posts where I shared about me are lost in the … massive posting. They are all in record here if you go many pages back. I started sometime in 2015 to post here.
I started threads but not threads where I asked advice. I do learn from almost everyone, if not everyone with whom I communicate. But not through asking for advice. It is like Self Help books: I used to read them all hungrily and I used to ask anyone and everyone for advice but not anymore. I no longer find much use in self help books because so much in there is not correct. Regarding advice: I probably would be asking for advice in an area of work life… only I am not employed and am not looking for employment. Maybe I would be asking for a romantic kind of relationship advice if I had struggles with such but I am married and communicating a whole lot with my husband, so whatever problems I have with him, I talk with him and that works for me.
When I was your age, Matty, thirty years ago, I was in the state of mind that I had to ask people figuratively: Is it daytime now? I am not sure. Or: … what the hell is going on? I was clueless and I thought I was the only one. And I thought everyone else knew the answers. I know now this is not so and as I look for answers… well, I look for them with my own eyes and ears and .. brain. There is a lot in that brain of mine. I look there first.
And continue to communicate with me, sure and if you have a specific question or questions about me or would like to tell me more about your motivation in asking, please do.
anita
February 25, 2016 at 6:37 pm #97267MattyParticipantAnita,
Thanks once again for your reply! 🙂
You are right, even though i can’t see your face, i could paint an image of who you are based on what i have seen you post and write. You seem genuine, honest, thoughtful and show compassionate. And I guess that’s why i thank you for valuing and taking time to get to know me. Even though we are oceans away (i assume so) and across different cultures, it is cool to be understood and accepted.I was motivated to ask you, simply because it seems like for ages that we have been going back and forward. It felt like, you were a teacher or tutor i have. You’re wise and supportive of all the students in the class. And at the end of the semester everyone laughs and leaves the class, never really thanking the teacher for their contribution, never realizing that they aren’t drones but people with emotions and feelings. It only takes a couple of minutes to show appreciation. It’s always telling to meet a teacher who is not used to being praised or being thanked as they seem completely surprised by the recognition. It’s as if it’s their duty. I felt like i needed to give you the recognition you deserved by putting the focus on you. That’s all. Trying to understand why Anita would want to help me, considering the hurt other people have on this forum.
As you said, you have posted a lot to others, i know, i have seen it. How do you find the motivation to keep doing it? What inspires you to do it? Sometimes i read and answer back to people. But other nights it’s pretty hard. Especially when i read some of the posts, some have so much pain and suffering and all i want to do is give them a big hug and tell them it’s going to be okay. But i’m not an oracle and it feels like i’m just throwing hope left, right and center. Sometimes i struggle to sleep because i feel like i could do more, but can’t.
Yeah, i too have never seen the attraction of self-help books. Especially the ones by famous people who have made lots of money and have prestige. It’s not that it feels condescending, it’s more that it would be very hard to duplicate the same results, after all everyone is fundamentally different. Personally, i’m more of a ‘quote’ kind of person, myself. Plus I always feel that if a person duplicates or tries to duplicate another’s success will it truly be their own? Will you be happy being as successful as someone else. What is by definition, success?
Matty 🙂
February 25, 2016 at 9:24 pm #97290AnonymousGuestDear Matty:
I like your post. would like to re-read it tomorrow morning. Bed time for me now. We are oceans apart – i live in Washington State, USA. Good night Precious Matty, will reply to your latest post here tomorrow.
anita
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 