You know, Darkness, that it takes a long time and a great deal of effort to get to know another person even slightly. My husband and I have been married over 40 years and we will never know everything about each other. Through years of dealing with life together we have come to love each other far more than we did when we got together, probably for selfish reasons

So I think I know what you mean about the people on the forum “pretending to care”. They can’t possibly know you well enough to “love” you in the traditional way. But they can love you enough to have compassion for you, take the time to read your posts, and to think out and send a response

I certainly don’t expect the people on the forum to love me in an intimate way, but we are all part of a larger community who struggle with certain issues in common and try to help each other get through

personally shy as I am I have already gotten a great deal of satisfaction from reading and interacting with the people all over the world who have a certain amount of faith in this forum.

Ive followed a number of your posts and have the impression you are quite artistic. I imagine that provides some satisfaction for you, as we are not all that talented.

As to relating better with other people, I imagine you could get some pretty good advice on this forum especially if you were a little more specific about when and where things go wrong

I certainly wish well and I hope you don’t go away discouraged. 😐