Night fights for hidden portals

How to not date an introvert. 2013 - 2015, Aschaffenburg (Germany)

A friend told me: If someone does not click with you, there's nothing you can do.

But her world view tended to be too simple. Too pessimistic. People have their own pace of opening up to someone, of making a connection. Of feeling enough at ease to even start talking. It can be a slow pace you don't understand, because you can never more than guess their way of thinking and their struggles. Being respectful and giving them the space they need... wouldn't that be something you, in fact, can do?

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There was no sign at the door. The old village house had visibly lived over its best days. On the street front, the window blinds were closed.

Verdammt. This was supposed be the place... and time was getting short.

In 2013 I was studying Digital Media but had not arrived in the age of smart phones yet, so I needed to, clumsily, mess around with an actual mobile phone. Or people passing by.

"Sorry... I'm searching this address. There should be a company here where I have a job interview."

The man seemed surprised. "I haven't seen anything here for a long time. There used to be shoemaker back in the days, but now...?"

He led me over a sideway to the back side of the house. A backyard with full trash bins. We stood there cluelessly for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, a voice came from inside: "Come in. I've seen you lingering at the front already."

So I was granted the favour to see that sacred place which was reserved to a few chosen people. These few chosen people were 4. My boss residing in the upper levels and two people sitting crookedly in front their screens behind the closed blind in the lower level. I renounce giving a description of that place in mere lack of words for the splendor incomprehensible to mortal minds. ...hmh? 4, I said? Yeah. One had seen long ago that he was not worthy of these favours, thus he had settled to fulfill his duties from a place more humble (and probably less cluttered).

I eventually managed to establish contact with the two people at the screen. One was, beneath the coat of rejection she was wearing at work, a loveable and withdrawn person who liked cats and animes. During the following weeks, she became the best friend I've had in ages.

The other one was a quiet guy with a timid smile, probably somewhat older than me. On the first day we found out that we were both into electronic music, using the same audio production software and the same community website.

With meeting them, the idea of spending the student semester vacation in an internship (mandatory back then for my course) started to feel way less dull than I had imagined. In fact I loved coming here. The company used to produce fantasy audio dramas (a niche market in Germany), but since the last person in charge had left under mysterious conditions, things were progressing slowly and a dozen projects had been left behind unfinished. I found a dusty RME audio interface in the leftovers, a field recorder and two Røde microphones. Equipping the useful gear, I took the younger interns to the forest to level up and make some sound recordings for the scene we were working on: Brush cracking, wood falling, leaves rustling, steps, body falling on grass, forest ambience. I also cleaned the kitchen of my boss, not going into detail here, but some things are a question of survival. My two colleagues had a strange expression, seeing so much involvement. I thought it was scaring them for some reason, but it wasn't that. It was more like... pity.

Let me tell you the cookie legend. According to my friend, there was a cookie lying on the floor in a corner. No one knows how it got there, but it lay there for a long time. But one day it disappeared. Having a closer look, you could see the shape in the dust where it had lain. Looking even closer, you could see the trace of little steps leading to the cookie shape. There is some speculation about what might have happened, but the true passing of events is lost to time forever.

Things were somewhat curious with my colleague. The rhythm of a planet rotating in 24 hours seemed not to match with the rhythm of his planet which seemed to be rotating in 27. Sometimes he appeared in the evening when everyone else was leaving. Sometimes he didn't appear at all. And sometimes, when the patterns happened to align, he would be there with us. If there were other things to do than audio production he would put music on the speakers in the evening, an online radio station playing something dreamy and relaxed with an electronic beat. It was no big deal for him but, for me, sharing music which I enjoy was so rare and special that I was sitting there on a cloud, unable to comprehend my luck to have stumbled into this place.

One nice sunny day I got the absurd idea to open the window blind to the street. For the first time in history, sunlight flooded the eerie roomscape.

"Hey, you have green eyes", he realized.

"You as well", I responded, smiling.

Magical phenomena appearing in reality. A circle of guardians, doing research and protecting the people from demons. The Simfae, fairies transforming into cats or humans, able to switch between the worlds. The fog sickness. Someone gets lost in the In-Between...

3 months passed quickly. My friend left the company after having been stuck in a situation for too long, but we kept contact. I needed to return to university, with some resistance - mostly heading directly to the train to neighbour town after the lecture. Ideas and scenes came rushing to my mind and I spent the train rides taking notes hastily, trying to catch up with them. Then I jumped back into what I thought was reality, stepped into the pedals of my bike, rushing over the autumn leaves covering the way, in eager anticipation to continue cutting dialogues in that trash cave. And maybe, if I was lucky, to hear my colleague rustle his feet under his chair while we were working.

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Why not. Why the hell not. Is it my looks? My face? It's my skin, right?

Dummerchen. You want to know why not?

Hallo Teufelchen... Not sure if I want to hear your view on things.

Well... you're out of your comfort zone in this moment. Having an exciting time, being full of hope and visions. He isn't. He is doing the same work in that stinky place since many years. There's nothing exciting happening in his life.

But how shall I get him out of there when he doesn't want to meet me?

Maybe you're just not the right person. Maybe it's your skin.

Ah, shut up.

Finally I could no longer ignore the signs. I pulled out my hair over the obvious fact that this dear person I seemed to have such a rare connection with would rather spend his free time flying helicopters over the battlefield than dedicating just one precious afternoon to meeting me. I was not ready yet to give up, but I was making him uneasy with my questions and things were not evolving in a good way. I felt that there was one right thing to do and I didn't like it. I needed to change direction, and pray that it wasn't too late.

May I have a word? :3

Hello cat... yes, please.

You want to see a person to share your music passion with. But he does not have this passion. Not anymore. Or why would someone prefer to spend their energy playing games when they could be making music instead?

Because that job broke him down. Staring on a screen for 8 hours a day, for years, I guess this kills your energy to be creative when you come home…

Playing games is easier. Giving quick rewards while investing less energy.

Why? Why do I have this passion for making music, this deep desire to share... but others haven't? While making great music themselves...

... years in the past. People are not made for you, Sophie. They are not what you want to see in them. They are made for themselves. They have their own rhythm. Their own struggles and needs. Their own idea of purpose. Which may be very different from yours. One is not more worthwhile than the other, or less. Learning to respect that... will be an important step. For stopping to project your needs on others. For stopping to get stuck on them, and to destroy the connections that matter most to you.

---------- Dark months ----------

... disappear for a while...

... take enough distance to find back balance with myself...

... to be nice and easy to have around again...

... not needing to push for anything...

... so he can feel at ease again...

... and, until then, use the time to work on myself...

... become a better version of myself...

... that's the chance I have...

... does this sound like a quest?

Interesting. I know exactly what you need.

Huh? Who are you?

Someone you want to be.

Are you sure you're not one of these ads promising happiness?

And if so? Maybe I'm just a lie. Maybe I'm just a nice distraction.

What do you want from me?

Share my wisdom with you.

...and take money for that?

You have been hurt. I see it in your eyes. You don't get the key to a man's heart by making art and music, you know.

Well it keeps working a bit too well the other way round for some reason...

Hihihi because you're a hopeless case. But things don't work this way for others.

How else then? Do you have that key?

I don't need a key.

What are you talking about?

There are other ways to ask for the attention you want.

What makes you think he would like your ways?

Just a feeling. Call it ... female intuition. Come. Let me show you something you know miserably little about. Let me show you... how women do things. All about the world. All about history. 70% of women trying My Ways™ get a better partner then before. At some point in their lives.

... What about the other 30%?

Old cat ladies. With old cats.

Okay okay. Teach me. I just need to get a few hours of sleep before.

So, with 23 and heartache I caught up with some make-up tutorials I had skipped as a teenager. Maybe for the first time, I thought about what look I wanted for my real life character. I invested my savings into a cosmetic counseling for my skin and started an acid treatment that would take months before I would be able to step into the sunlight again. I exchanged the jeans and sneakers in my wardrobe for a black skirt and high heels and combed a chemical into my hair that smelled like you don't even want to get near that stuff. Aside from these excursions, I did not really leave my room for the following months. The spring sun threw lines of glowing spots through the closed blind before my window, which felt inappropriate to me. I struggled to find sleep. I spent way too much time remote-working on the project for the company. It was easier than starting this bachelor thesis I was supposed to be working on - and did not know how to approach. Staying at home in the shared flat now escalated a problem with a room mate, so my home was not a recharge place anymore. With a sigh, I concluded that I needed to find a new flat. And never would move into a shared flat again.

I made the first fantasy soundtracks during this time (fantasy production music was the topic I had chosen for my bachelor project / thesis), at moments in a beautiful and painful flash of inspiration, but in long periods I felt drained by the weight of needing to come up with something. It was an important experience about doing something because you want to do it or because you should do it, about turning a passion into an obligation, which made me realize that this common dream of making music your profession might not lead on a desirable path.

A few times I visited my friend. This felt incredibly good to sit here with her on the floor of her rooftop flat, munching sweets, cuddling cats, binge-watching anime. Talking about my pain. I was far from feeling at ease, being terribly afraid to be annoying and to scare her away, but it was a blessing to have someone to talk to. Finally she said:

"There are people out there who appreciate you, Sophie. And who will show you that."

In late spring I went to the warming party for the new office. He did not bother to show up of course, but the boss found some reason to drop by at his place. I stayed in the car, but then, with a sting in my chest, I saw my person of interest jumping down the stairs. It was just a short moment of hello and a hug, but there was something comforting in this moment. Just an idea of "we're fine with each other". Which meant a lot after the hell and fear I had been through.

--------- Liberation ------------

[Evening at the river, Niedernberg]

Smartphone-age got me at last, which meant that, following human nature, I put some effort into finding the most ridiculous sounds in my sound archive which I could assign to the different apps. Then I threw myself onto the carpet in the middle of my new flat, foolishly giggling while waiting for the laughing of the messenger. I was chatting with a guy I had met on a dating website. I was falling into the first contact trap. Someone sharing activities, showing interest in you, bringing something new to your life. Fortunately it did not lead further than a few visits and a bit of geocaching. It hurt a bit and made me continue the journey a bit more cautiously.

My new home place was at the edge of a village at the river. Here I finally had a place for myself, where I did not need to defend for going to the bathroom, for being awake at night or for living my life in whatever way. I could take long walks to the old village structures at the river or ride my bike to the lake close by and dive into the matte, turquoise water. My work situation was still unclear in a financial way and I knew that this company was not a place for eternity. But at the moment it was the only path I could hold on.

The inhabitants of Aschaffenburg (where I was working) claimed that it was the best town in the world. They surely would know. Of course many people tend to say that about different places, but I never heard someone say it about Darmstadt (where I had lived during my studies) and maybe there is a reason. So I was confident to have made some improvement. Walking the streets of Aschaffenburg was walking on clouds. It was your town that contained your roots and memories and I was proud to experience daily life here now. To have a new chance to let a connection evolve, in a more cautious, more respectful way.

Finally I got my boss to understand that I could not keep eating my savings to work for free. Feeling that I made good work but was lacking confidence to discuss my own value, he found a trick solution allowing to employ people under wage floor for 2 years to secure the situation. With that I was technically on full-time work for 920€ / month. Welcome to media industry in Germany.

"Nice hair. With your cool photoshop gradient!"

"Thank you :)"

Now that I met other guys and had other stories to get frustrated with, things became more relaxed at the office. But in fact I was still hoping for the sound of the key in the door during long and tiring office days. Then we could distract each other when things got too boring - by shooting rubber guns at each other, for example.

He was curious about the music I was working on. I watched him nervously as he took the headphones. Finally he stated: "There's music which is cool and music which is beautiful. Your music is just beautiful."

I laughed. I got what he meant.

During the following months I learned to keep the door to my life open for him, to keep inviting him for activities occasionally but not to push him and not to take it personally that he didn't come. I tried to get him into trading cards, but he kept resisting. "I could never be as good as my friend", he said. "He even plays tournaments. This would be really frustrating for me. I'm too competitive."

One day, the boss walked into the office, showing around a guest. That used to happen and I tried to pretend to focus on work, but... wait. That was that trading card friend.

I got nervous, realizing that I should talk to him if I ever wanted to get out of that soul crushing loneliness, but how...?

The boss rushed out the door and the guest was about to follow.

Now or never.

"Hey!"

This is how I got to know someone who was very different and very special. A bit faster than I could follow we had made a close connection, and before I even could learn to trust in it I had already tangled myself up in concepts about how things were supposed to work - but didn't. Before summer we had broke up, but it took months to accept that and to let go of this short dream of shared interests, warmth and intimacy.

At some point my colleague actually came to my village. He came 9 km by bike, went for a swim with us and, very embarrassed, tried to avoid watching "a gay couple" having fun in the woods.

This summer he asked me if I wanted to try out a new kind of game with him: A GPS game - this is an app for your phone, following your location to allow you to visit, in person, certain places in your home town where you can perform actions: get items, build structures or attack enemy structures.

- How do I move? -

- Get your lazy ass off the sofa, get on your legs… -

- No, seriously. How do I walk in this game? -

- Haha hopeless nerd. Get on your legs and walk out of your door. -

To me, one occasion to go exploring graveyards in the middle of the night together sounded as good as any other one. The summer days were too hot to enjoy time outside in the traffic, but when temperature went down in the night, the game got both of us cellar dwellers into taking extended walks or bike-rides out on the silent streets - mostly each on their own, on rare occasions together. On one of these occasions he invited me to see his place. I did not need to push for anything anymore. I had learned to leave him his space and was deeply grateful for the balance of the connection we had found.

If I had known back then that we would meet like this, I would have been very happy.

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How to live with Introverts

by CAPTAIN-CAPSLOCK-PHD on Deviantart