“I’m not sure what you’re work environment will be like, but if it’s some kind of office job or require interaction with others on a daily basis. Do you believe you might eventually come across another person you’ll cling to anxiously like the person you mentioned of having previously interact with?”
Thanks a lot for sharing your kind words and asking me this question. My answer to that is both yes and no. This person (whom I met on plane 3 years ago) challenged my worldview of preconceived assumptions I had about American women and those from the state of Virginia in particular. This could be why I still vividly remember our conversation and I got accused of being deluded and even “creepy” multiple times because of it. I guess rightfully so, since almost no one tries to find a stranger few years later for a plane conversation. People who know me in real life would say that I am anything but creepy but it is really difficult not to come off as a stalker weirdo when you’re trying to do something like this, and I will share that I did find this woman on the very platonic LinkedIn site but she (rightfully?) blocked me. I am not complaining and in fact am glad that I got the closure that I needed but part of me does wish I could have had at least a brief conversation with her but it is what it is.
Mentally, I can see myself slowly getting back to the normal state now that I can start my career and not be desperate about finding that missed connection. But this has been an utterly uncomfortable experience that on the bright side exposed the trauma that has affected me for a long time. I have always been affected by the tides and what happened recently would perhaps be a tsunami. In Buddha Dhamma, we talk a lot about sensory pleasures and how the craving for them shall be removed in stages. But I wonder if and how this applies to the issue of loneliness. It is easy for someone without this issue to trivialize it as “just hormones/mental fabrication…” but that is inadequate to the person suffering from it. I still have this issue so yes, I think I can say that in my tech job where I will be interacting with a lot of people, I could be attached to someone else but I like to think that interacting with them in person would help me “humanize” them and not put them on a pedestal. Another tide would feel normal but hopefully there won’t be another tsunami because I absolutely don’t want to go through that again. My employment benefits include Health Insurance which I plan to use for visiting a Psychiatrist, and I really hope that they will provide useful prescriptions.
And yes, I agree with your comments on the unique nature of people with affinity towards Buddha Dhamma / similar teachings. I think one has to be utterly thoughtful to get here and I can feel the “aura” of these individuals that make me comfortable to share my personal feelings and thoughts. Yesterday was World Mental Health Day and I too would love to be of help to worldly beings by first working on my own mental health. If one is suffering from a mental turmoil, being able to give them support to get out of that would be such a beautiful thing to do.
