For the large majority of my long life I've just been a zipped-up, quiet, reclusive, introverted, non-communicative, blank kind of person. It didn't occur to me until the past several years that there might be benefits to relaxing and "letting it all hang out," i.e., just being me and letting people know who I am and what I care about. I think that's what other people do, but I'm not sure.

So I joined several of these websites like Experience Project where you're encouraged to talk/write about yourself. And I did. At first my writings (stories, experiences, letters, etc.) seemed to bring me friends, seemed to attract people who wanted to know more about me. So I told them. For a while, everything went fine, on ALL the websites. Then people stopped writing to me or exchanging letters with me. On ALL the websites. Nobody has volunteered to me why this might be so on any particular site. And I have no idea why this happened.

The same thing has happened in my professional life. I suffer from a terrible dearth of work. I'm dependent on lawyers to hire me to mediate. Last month I faxed out my calendar and rate sheet to 150 lawyers I know here. I didn't get one phone call. Not even a friendly phone call. And I don't know why. At all.

Even in the distant past I remember people getting angry at me and my absolute incomprehension of why they were angry.

Does this ring any bells with any of you? I simply have no insight into what goes on in other people's heads. Which, of course, makes my working as a mediator a joke. Nor do I understand what in my behavior or writings would turn people off to the point that they won't even upbraid me or say anything at all to me.

It's not like I was some evil or offensive guy. No violence. No flames. No rants. Married once and still married. Polite. Helpful. Caring (I think). Self-absorbed, true. Love cats. Grew up in a family where nobody talked to anybody else. Take a shower every day. Wear clean clothes. Not wildly ugly. Like people (I think). Reasonably intelligent.

I really don't understand what's wrong with me.