Solo Traveller

Do you find it very hard to open up to people? Why or why not? What are the benefits and disadvantages of being emotionally guarded?

This is a very difficult question in a sense. I suppose the immediately answer the first question is: yes I do find it very hard to open up to others. You could say I'm a shy person, but the fact is more that I'm not even open to myself, so I don't even know if I'm really opening up to others as I don't know if what I'm saying is genuinely myself or just saying something in reaction to others. There is not question of whether what I say feels like myself, as I don't really have any concept of what I feel like anyway. So for all I know I might be opening up to others and not knowing it, but as far as being able to do it conciously, I find it very hard. Maybe it's understandable, coming as I do from a culture where you're expected to keep schtum about your feelings for protection, but I'm blummin' fed up of it myself.

I suppose there might be a caveat in that I may be incorrectly summarising my situation: "just saying something in reaction to others" might in fact be me being "genuinely myself" rather than an opposing situation. Of course, if it is, I'm not aware of it, so I still have the problem of finding it very hard to open up consciously. Another might be that it doesn't really matter if I do it consciously as long as I do it. Of course this depends on the first caveat being right, but I like this one.

This doesn't mean I'm a total brick wall as far as talking to people is concerned. I can talk to people fine, and I've got many friends, who I am close to, and I'm grateful for. So no doubt I must be able to "open up" without noticing it. It's kinda hard to explain. Some people I can hit it off with immediately, others I don't so much, but there's no moment with the former when I'm either thinking at the time, or later, "Hey, that's one of those 'open-up' moments.", much less actually choose to initiate a moment. Not so much that I'm afraid, more than I simply have no idea of how or what. I mean, what do I say? I don't really have any specific knowledge about myself to share, and when I talk about something like this, it's in abstract terms, like I'm doing here.

I look at people opening up their feeling on blogs, chat, etc., and quite frankly I wonder if I've been asleep for the past 3 decades. It's not that they necessarily lead more exciting lives than mine. Sure, some do, some go skydiving and go to bazillions of parties, but others are just the same as me, or more mundane, and they can express so much out of the simplest thing. As far as I can see, opening up doesn't depends on how unusual your experience is, but how much you can express from it.

I'm now starting to be attracted to such people, as well as starting to notice the moments when people open up to each other in conversation. And it can be amazing, a peek into another way of looking at the world. Maybe I'm slowly changing in the way I express myself (ie from not much, to a little, to maybe more.) the way one's body changes over the years, and if you were to ask me this question a year or two later, you might get a very different answer.