First of all, sorry for not responding to this for almost a month. I started writing an exhaustive reply not long after you wrote this, but I didn't finish it and I lost it and I got annoyed by it so left the whole thing back, I wasn't in the mood to write, but I always had a reply in mind, as what you wrote there includes many useful remarks that are really worthy of mention.
This perfection-seeking really needs some soul searching... so I'll just write down what's on my mind.
What I essentially do is I shun my mistakes, I'd rather not confront myself with them and I want to pretend to myself and others that I have no weaknesses, which is of course not true, but at the same time I put huge pressure on myself by heightening my mistakes and playing down my strengths. I guess this is a family thing, my dad has a massive expectations, but he's never really satisfied or for not long, which is a huge factor in his unhappiness if you ask me. But I'm trying to acknowledge my positives as well, it's just something that changes so slowly... it really takes incredible effort to change your basic principles in life. But I want to, because I see that those who have a positive attitude are generally happier in life, regardless of actually how "successful" (whatever this word actually implies to one) they are in their lives. And this is the notion what I need to come to terms with, that I'm not perfect, I'm not a supermodel, I'm not a genious, I'm not a perfect character... I'm just what I am.
I perceive that I encounter great difficulties when getting together with people and being honest and outspoken about myself. One factor might be the fact that I am kind of shy and timid when I am with people who don't belong to my circle of acquaintances. It takes me a great deal of effort to "force" myself to be honest and usually it takes a lot of time even then for me to feel comfortable with telling them personal matters about myself. It's probably because I've never really been close, like really close to others (relationships and sorts) and it's still so alien to me that I feel a bit repulsed by it. On the other hand, I slowly realise that I miss those people in my life who I can be very very close to. Because I'm not much of a social person, if I get together with a few friends and we spend the night together, I'm fine with that, it's worth a lot more to me than e.g. go out to some place where there's noise and I can't converse with others or just be there for each other. I'm also not much of a small talker, so if I get out there and I don't feel fully comfortable, I might stay silent for long minutes and I'd be wondering what I'm doing wrong.
To cut it short (well, in fact it's already long, whatever), I need such people, I desire more of those, even though I have some, but everyone is usually busy doing all sorts of duties and that will never change. Sure, I have my mother with whom I have an amazing relationship, the biggest problem is that we're too interdependent on each other, because she's the only person who's always closest and I can share anything, I mean, really anything with and vice versa, which is probably not healthy in the long run, because despite me being 23 years of age, I think I would die in two weeks if I lost her.
Anyway, I don't think I will start worrying too much about wanting to start a relationship, I don't think it would be a wise thing to do to sort of succumb under the pressure of society that by XY age you need to be married and have X children etc. I know myself too well that I simply mature late in everything. And as much as I love my parents, I really wouldn't want to get together with someone I don't really know well enough, let alone get married (like they did). I respect my mum a lot for having swallowed all that bullying my dad put her up to, because my dad is one hell of a difficult person to live along with. I have no idea how she managed 34 years (and counting) next to him, and she tells me how much pain he still causes her and to me as well (psychically, not physically meaning), but I am in the fortunate position of having probably the best part of my life still in front of me, while she's 57, that's an entirely different phase already. She's been thinking of moving away from him, because now he's become a pensioner and he's home all day and he has a really hard time finding his place at home, because as I think I've mentioned before (in my previous post) he only values work that is financially compensated, so if he was consequent, he wouldn't value himself at all either, which is why he's angry and annoyed most of the time for not having much to do. Eventually, it is my mum and I who are punished for this by severe verbal abuse which is 1. absolutely unfair, 2. incredibly painful. So again, she's been thinking of moving away to another place, but at the same time we know very well that if we left my dad, he would completely lose it and would probably drink himself to death or something. Unfortunately, he gets into rows with all of his acquaintances, family members and so on, so it's really only the two of us who still stand by him, even though without too much enthusiasm to be honest, which I don't think is very surprising after what he does to us. I just usually ignore him (so does he), because I know we can't get on too well, but my mum is another kettle of fish, she often tries to be nice to my dad and he is completely repulsed by her niceness and sends her the hell away and then she's massively disappointed and who would blame her for that (even though I usually foresee these cases, but she's naive and she tries and tries and tries, mostly in vain). I'm not sure why my dad has turned away from humanity, probably his unfulfilled dreams are troubling him too much. You see, this is what I DON'T want to become. Even though there are a couple of traits I really appreciate in my dad, in many ways he's still a negative role model to me, as much as it hurts to write that down, this is what I honestly think.
Ah, [Poor language removed] me I'm exhausted and I still have to wash the dishes, but I want to write down this one more story that I experienced lately.
I'm so glad that I attend this German class, I love the German language and culture and there are so many wonderful people there who I met and I love the fact that I got acquainted with so many different people from totally different walks of life, but we still get along so well. We have an amazing Polish teacher who teaches so amazingly well, I want to be as good as he is.
That's a tough ask, because he's brilliant. Anyway, this is not really the main point of my story, it's actually just quite an irrelevant side line, but I wanted to emphasise this, because it's one of the bright spots of my week when I am fortunate enough to go to this group and learn interesting things together, expand our knowledge together, get to know each other and still have a great time. I take so much inspiration from them, from their positive approach and on top of that they seem to be successful too (e.g. lawyer, dentist, IT worker, engineer etc.), so they must be doing things the right way.
Anyway, what I want to say is that I've been reading a fan fiction in German that primarily dealt with gayness. I actually live in a country where people don't tolerate gay people too well. Maybe with women it's somewhat better but I'd definitely discourage a male gay couple to go hand in hand on the streets, because that would be quite a big threat to their physical security, to put it nicely. Chances are, they would get beaten the [Poor language removed] out of. And, as a matter of fact, I kind of share these sentiments, I mean hatred towards gay people. Well, initially I did at least. I can't really decide if I still do. Probably I've softened somewhat now, although I still can't really say that I wouldn't stare at a gay couple on the streets. I just really slowly accept things like that, things that I initially reject, it takes a huge effort from others, and, well, from myself as well, or at least it wouldn't work if I wasn't at least a bit willing to let myself be convinced. So, one thing is that there will be this gay pride demonstration tomorrow and I've got no idea whether this is a coincidence or God has controlled my hand when I randomly chose a new story to start reading, but this one describes all the huge difficulties that a teenager gay boy has to face before "coming out". At many parts I felt that deep in my heart I was repulsed by the sheer gayness, at many times I was half-shouting "[Poor language removed] you!!!!!" and was swearing out loud at the authoress for writing down things that I am disgusted by, such as detailedly describing the beautiful construction of a male body from another male's perspective. On the other hand, in spite of all what I've described so far, I am thankful for the authoress for writing this story and me reading it right until the end, because even though it's a fictitious, made up story, it deals with matters that probably all gay people have to face in their lives, which are really, really harsh and at some point I was shedding tears due to feeling sorry for them for having to be in such a harsh position as well as hating myself for being hateful towards them. I'm not saying that I know everything about gay people now and that I would be able to handle them as fully equal people, because I am simply not used to being with such people and I would probably act strangely, but this was a big step for myself in fighting my homophobia, this is literally an internal fight, I was feeling sometimes during the story that I was trembling because of anger, pity, remorse etc. I have so many stereotypes about people and I find it funny to joke about these things, but now that I was dealing with this seriously is that I realise how brutally hard it is to defeat your stereotypes. I'm just glad that now I can view these people from a different perspective and have more sympathy for them. In a sense, I needed to have a "personal" experience, if only at a metalevel, because I really felt being there and watching it over, but I couldn't help the main character and I felt so sorry for him for not being able to get the love of his life because he was just too afraid to reveal his gayness and that feels so wrong.
Anyone who's read so far, you have my deepest gratitude.
I'm not reading it through once more, so sorry for the occasional typo.
Also, I wanted to say that should I hurt anybody's feelings with what I wrote in the latter part, I do apologise, but these are my sincere thoughts.
