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Hang With Friends

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Location: Earth
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Latest Activity: 2 hours ago

Come on in, pull up a chair!

Picture yourself spending some time with congenial friends, sharing your lives and pictures from your cell phones." They're curious about that cool game, song, movie, camping trip, art show, or other event that fascinated you. You talk about all kinds of stuff, poetry, styles, personal achievements, relationships, and bad days. You can share your inner child, and laugh together. They sympathetically listen to your feelings about serious topics like politics or climate change, even when they don't agree.

Personal validation comes from paying attention to one another, giving more than you get. Everyone respects you and themselves, despite our amazing range of personal tastes and interests. They'll tell you they don't agree with an idea or behavior without implying you're a bad person or somehow deficient. It's an "I'm OK, You're OK" kind of fellowship, where nobody tries to make himself look better by picking on somebody else.

Nobody here is into mind games. A discussion started with a loaded guilt-throwing question will be deleted.

This group is not intended to compete with other groups on topics they cover but to "fill in the cracks." Whenever a discussion dwells at length on a topic for which there's an existing group, we urge you to provide members a link to that group to continue along their tangent.

A comment is a shout-out, which will get lost in a few days, because the comment wall is just a random stack.

Please start a discussion to share stories, photos, and videos. Replies will pop up in your "latest activity" and a conversation can develop from the feelings and thoughts you contributed. Groups are built on discussions.

Discussion Forum

Tags: Aldrich Lloyd Talonding, child singing sensation

Carved shell jewelry

Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on Tuesday. 3 Replies 0 Likes

Browsing carved shell jewelry by Shinji Nakaba, I came upon this ring.LOL, "Kiss the ring" has a new meaning. They show how it's made.…Continue

Tags: carved shell rings

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Comment by Idaho Spud on August 5, 2012 at 12:27pm: Sk8eycat, that has to be tough, living with a JW. I like your respect comment.

Comment by booklover on August 5, 2012 at 8:42am: sk8eycat, Love your ending to your business cards! :) I wish I had the nerve to do it!~ Melinda

Comment by Chris Breman on August 5, 2012 at 1:17am: Thanks Sk8eycat, for the aspie description - yes, classical behaviour. My brother-in-law is another, diagnosed himself at 50 years old from the internet. No friends, no contacts except his brother and me. Is now doing a training for aspies because he wants to study astronomy - I won't ask when (he's only 56 now). But the combination aspie-religion strikes me as unusual; the aspies I've met are all very rational and dismiss all fairytales and other unprovable things.

Comment by Joan Denoo on August 5, 2012 at 12:05am: dr kellie, thanks for the correction about sk8eycat's sister. I am quite embarrassed I read so carelessly. Do you have insights you can offer me regarding my neighbor boy? I would like to be prepared for ... whatever.
I love your way of dealing with door bell proselytizers. That must get them off subject really quickly.
I had larger breasts than most girls but at 76 years old, they are not very pleasant to look at.

Comment by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 11:58pm: sk8eycat, Thanks for being willing to share your experience caring for an Aspie. Not knowing about the condition, and experiencing her "peculiarities", how old was she before there was a "diagnosis", even if she didn't go for medical care. What were the presenting symptoms? Is she good natured, or difficult, and what strategies do you use.

A new little boy moved into our neighborhood this summer and he has Aspies. He seems to enjoy being with the other kids in my back yard but sometimes he gets rough with them verbally, never physically. My response is to sit with him until he settles down and then talk about what he is feeling. I really like the boy and need to know how to respond to him in positive and healthy ways. The other kids are great, and they seem to get along with him, even as he is blunt.

Comment by sk8eycat on August 4, 2012 at 11:50pm: booklover, I just had another idea about the "business cards." after the line, "...BUT I DO NOT HAVE TO RESPECT WHAT YOU BELIEVE.!" I should add, "AND I DON'T!" Maybe with or at the end of the line. Or underneath the last line.

They didn't call me "La Bruja del Hielo" fer nuttin'!

Comment by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 11:46pm: sk8eycat, I misread your sentence on Aspie, and am sorry I read it so carelessly. However, I am interested in how it is for you.
OH! You have already responded. I shall get back to you after I read your comment.

Comment by sk8eycat on August 4, 2012 at 11:38pm: Joan...my sister has never been able to drive a car, work outside the home (except to peddle Watchtowers), control her temper, form any lasting relationships except with a small number of people in her congregation. Has never been on a date with anyone of any sex.

As an infant and toddler, she didn't like being held, she'd push Mother away when given a hug.

She does love our cats, and the neighbors' dogs, has a memory like a steel trap. Doesn't "nurse" a grudge, she cherishes them; she still talks about a first grade teacher who was "mean" to her. I have told her and told her that I had the same teacher 5 years before she did, and she was "mean" (strict) with everybody. Doesn't register; she loves feeling victimized. For a long time her hobby was Musical Doctors...every time some new condition would be in the news, she thought she had it, got a checkup, and when her doctor told her she didn't have...chronic fatigue syndrome, or fibromyalgia, or whatever, she'd pitch a fir and go shopping for a new doctor.

And during all this time NObody in the USA had ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome, even though it was first described in 1944...the year she was born. But Dr. Asperger was in Austria, and "there was a war on."

She's never been diagnosed because JWs don't go in for things like neuropsychiatry, but MY doctor an MY therapist have told me her behavior is "classic."

Too late to do anything about it now except accept that that is the way she is, and try to live with it. I was pretty much on my own from 1957 till the mid-'80s when our parents started needing help, and I moved back in the house.

When dad had a catastrophic stroke, and the EMTs were wheeling him out of the house for the last time, she went in her room and closed the door. He lived another 3 months, but she never visited him in the hospital. Didn't ever visit Mother all the times she was hospitalized, either.

But she knows a hell of a lot about astronomy.... [shrugs]

Comment by dr kellie on August 4, 2012 at 10:38pm: Joan, her sister is an Aspie. My brother was, too.

My resonse to the door bell ringers is to go to the door topless. They really run off. I might have to stop when I get older and don't like going topless. I think I have a few more years:)

Comment by Joan Denoo on August 4, 2012 at 10:32pm: sk8eycat, I had to look up, "Aspie" and read a couple of articles suggested by Google. Can you, if you want to, describe what Aspie means to you, how you experience it, does stress cause you problems, other than usual. Do you experience unusual giftedness in some area of your life? How has it held you back, and how has it put you forward? I hope these aren't too personal. If so, just tell me to mind my own business.
I like your business card idea, as well.
Someone suggested a response to a religious person, "I respect you too much to not tell you I disagree with your statement."