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Home LifeI got married at the age of 19 to an extremely introverted man. We had lots of friends in common and he was the only person in my life when I was a teen who was a member of two of my social circles: We went to the same high school and we were both role playing gamers. We belonged to the same gaming group and this was a particularly "hardcore" gaming group which met Friday night, all day Saturday, and a few of us would also get together on Sunday. We sometimes arranged games for Wednesday night. A bunch of us would get together to go see a movie together, like when the latest Star Wars film came out. When I married him, I imagined we would always have a wonderful social life with lots of friends. It seemed logical, given the way we lived at the time. But that isn't how things worked out.See, introverts like their space and don't like people invading it. We gamed at my home and at the homes of other friends and sometimes at other places (such as a gaming shop in the back room). But we never gamed at his home when we were teens. Of course, this was supposedly because his parents wouldn't approve but I now have no idea if that was really the case. After we were married, he had people over fairly often but if any of my friends were there when he got home from work, they made sure to never make that mistake again. It wasn't that he was intentionally being rude. He just needed quiet time after work and was not good at hiding the fact that these people were invading his space -- his home was sacrosanct and they were messing the whole thing up by being there. Then we had kids and both kids are also introverts. Both of my sons and their father seemed to ascribe to the following rule: "It's fine if I have friends over, but don't go bringing your friends over. You're invading my space." Over time, this led to all of us learning to mostly go elsewhere to hang with friends. Our home became an increasingly private space. For many years, this bothered me. I was often lonely and I felt this was why. I felt very isolated. I felt cheated of the social life I had envisioned having -- envisioned because my childhood was also fairly lonely. I had a large-ish, fairly social family and it wasn't unusual for there to be twenty or more people there for Thanksgiving or Christmas. But I never seemed to fit in at school...etc. I felt lonely quite a lot as a kid and I had fantasies that I would grow up and surround myself with lots of social activity and then I would stop being lonely. Then that didn't happen. I didn't stop feeling lonely until I got divorced. My view of what causes a sense of loneliness has changed dramatically post-divorce. For the first time in my life, I don't feel lonely these days. Yet, we never have anyone come over socially. The only people who come to my apartment are repair people. If I want to socialize, I go meet someone elsewhere. I also have a rich online life, running websites and participating in lots of email lists and forums. I have basically concluded that most conventional friendships are pretty shallow and I am better off without them. This gets discussed on CF lists: How common it is for your friends to abandon and reject you when you need them the most. I think most Americans are "Good Time Charlies". I have no need of such so-called friends. They are certainly not worth being sick over. I have one relative whose work exposes them to germs and chemicals all day. I used to go visit them. But it meant throwing my clothes out afterwards and showering and taking lots of supplements ...etc. At some point, I explained the situation to them and that I could no longer do that. We keep in touch by phone these days and I sometimes drop them a note card in the mail. (But I have asked that this person not mail me anything because even handling mail from this person makes me ill.) They have been surprisingly cooperative and understanding -- though I did have to gently repeat some things a few times before it really sank in for them, they did eventually get it. So this is part of how we are able to keep our home adequately clean for two people with cystic fibrosis to stay healthy and off drugs: We don't bring people home. When someone does come in to our home (like a repair person), we clean like crazy after they leave. I know that's hard for a lot of Americans to imagine. I have read somewhere that Americans tend to bring people home to socialize a lot more than Europeans tend to do. This is probably part of why Americans feel the need for such large homes: Where else will you socialize if you don't have a big living space? But Europeans apparently live more like I live and do not hesitate to go out with friends rather than entertaining them at home. If you want to get well, you may have to rethink your social life. For me, this process evolved very naturally over a long period of time. It's now just how I live. Other things we do to keep the outside world out and make our home a haven:
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