Hello CottonCandyLocks --

I have been struggling with this, too. For a time this summer, the Forums was my lifeline -- literally. I don't know what might have happened to me without the kind and generous people here.

They seem very real to me, too. Of course, we are real. It isn't a fantasy life. Not really. We are all quite real human beings, even though we can't reach out and touch each other in 3D reality.

I, too, need to make more efforts to increase my social contacts. Well, I started circling the kind of New Age things I like to do and writing them into my datebook. Sooner or later, I will go to one. I've still got a lot on my plate to get my new apt in order and find work. All things in time.

Your intention to change will make it so. You'll see. It will be so for both of us.