Shy Love

2 people

Well, we can't all be rock stars?!
Here's to looking at the carpet while being in the room with you.
It makes a difference -you being there. I like taking in your face with my eyes. Drinking it up.
The problems start when you open your mouth.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just have to think of something to say. Get it right, then you say something back and on and on it goes.
I'm EXHAUSTED just thinking about it.
If you're busy talking to someone and I'm over here reading a book then I can sneak a look, check what mood your in, then look away.
You can do the same. Our gaze can meet and we can smile and then get back to what we are doing. The smile is very important, that's where we shyly connect and don't feel lonely.
I like to keep my eye on the exits, see who's coming and going.

How close do you want to be?

My son's into shy love too, our favorite time was when he would be sitting on the floor near my feet, head down, doing his lego and I was sitting looking in the opposite direction focusing on my knitting.
Now, anyone walking into that scene would thing that it was rather tragic, but, I assure you, we were having a blast.

Wanna know my nightmare? Sitting opposite someone in a restaurant, about a metre away from their face. What the flip am I supposed to say? Where on earth do I look?

Usually in those situations I invoke FakeJollyMode and dream of escape. Love hanging out in the kitchen at school functions. Drinking doesn't help, just want to curl up and go to sleep.
So lets acknowledge Shy Love and it's legitimacy.
I hate being lonely, get caught up in my own head. Start thinking and analysing too much -it's like Alice down the rabbit hole "curiouser and curiouser".
When developing Betta Day, my psychological problem solving system, I wanted to boil down some of the key things we needed to understand about relationships. After all they are our interface with the world, one relationship transaction after another.
Did I mention I'm a shrink? -I'm a shrink, so I think a lot about this stuff.
Betta Day uses visual cues to problem solve in 5 domains of daily life:
Setting our path ( or goals- see last blog)
Managing our stress (see blog before that)
Managing our feelings (still to come)
Managing our story and what we believe about ourself...and...yes
Managing our relationships.
Ahh Relationships...

How do you come together?

Now in the psych world there's so many angles by which to understand relationships, from the perspective of attachment (I'll save that for another day, beyond saying I have an  Insecure Attachment, -avoidant or anxious or ambivalent style, well it's one of the a-words, I get confused. Anyway it's not Secure -you know, those confidant bastards that have it a lot more sorted. You and the rest of your smug 70% can all go out to dinner, I'm off to the pub to watch strangers)

Yes, I digress, as I was saying, in the psych world relationships are viewed from a perspective of  attachment, personality, trauma theory, psychoanalytical garbage, and lots, lots more. It's confusing to say the least.
So when in doubt phone a friend. Luckily one of my best mates is a family therapist.

"When you see couples and only have 20 minutes to sort everything, you know a typical day, what are the key landmarks you look for? I arx her, "because when I do relationship and family work, beyond stopping people belting each other and trying to explain what the plan is, not a lot of therapeutic work happens?"

And this is what she told me:

• I start the session by looking at where people sit in the room, who dominates and what kind of space do they take up.
• How did they get together and look at conscious and unconscious parts of the process
• What brings them to couple session?
• If it’s a quick session look at the process of being together rather than the content
• Look at proximity seeking, how they get close to each other.
• How they pull away.
• I explore alternative ways they can do this.
• When are they turning away and why are they turning away
• how they regulate their emotions

-and on she went with some more technical stuff.

How do you move apart?

It was the proximity and comfortable distance that caught my eye.
I say, it's legit to struggle. You don't have to hug everybody all the time like on telly. That's fine, things can still be OK. As a card holding member of the attachment B-Team, I'm not a dud. I can still have a life and manage, I just have to understand what's hard and take care of myself, -afford myself space and time to ease in to proximity and closeness. I can still have deep and rewarding relationships, I don't have to be lonely and I can also be a gutsy bird. The trick is tracking my anxiety and doing things that put me at ease so I can participate.

More of this another time...it's always interesting!

Viva Shy love, see you at the pub.

Betta Day

Above all, find your comfortable distance.