Not everyone provided it doesn't go past the acquaintance stage. I can work in public and blend in, be the chameleon. I haven't allowed anyone to try to be a "friend" in over 15 years however. He was the first "friend" I had. Very, very long story. If you really want it, I actually started a thread in the emotions thread and put it. It's one of my early threads from when I first started here. I didn't even realize I was doing it, but when I reached a certain level of closeness, my mind would basically say "no more" and push away and that would be that. It was early enough that I had no remorse and I pushed away hard enough that the other person wouldn't try again. But since then, I've been desperate for friendships. I haven't made any other real life friendships, but my mind makes no distinctions and has begun to do it with virtual friends now.....sigh.

I have no friends except for the virtual ones. I have no close friends. I am married but I can't talk to my husband about a lot of things....I just realized that within the last year or so as well, and I am invalidated when I try. I was raised to not talk to anyone. "Don't tell anyone our personal problems", I was told over and over again, and I was punished with being totally, completely ignored when I broke it for as much as a week at a time. This "friend" that caused me all the problems last year was the first person I've ever really talked to....

A lot of this realization is hindsight. I didn't realize what I was doing at the time....