Emotionally Slutty

Yesterday,  this NY times article came up in my facebook feed, and with a subheading of "36 Questions that Lead to Love" how could I not read it!?!  The questions were surprisingly everyday, just met you questions for me to ask.  Oh, who the hell am I kidding, I don't ask anybody questions, they were surprisingly everyday questions for me to volunteer.  You see I'm an early discloser, I guess you could call me emotionally slutty.

Sometimes this works for my benefit, like in the case of my husband, or best friend.  My emotional sluttiness ingratiates me to some people, they find it endearing, and when I find them endearing too, it can lead to fast and long relationships.  By fast I mean, that I get emotionally close to people extremely quickly, and by long I mean that I am able to maintain a good deal of these relationships for long periods of time.

However, there are instances when my verbal looseness causes me much grief.

Kristyn, (my bff of over 15 years), calls it my "stray kitty complex".  You see that's the rub about emotional sluttiness, by slutty, I mean it's indiscriminate.  I am an early discloser to people I don't intend on having fast or long relationships with.  Almost anyone I meet will get the best friend treatment from me, and for this reason, people who are not good at boundary following often think I'm their best friend.

These are the stray kitties.  The people who I don't really have anything in common with.  People I don't share interests or morals with, often people who's character I find reprehensible.

These people have sometimes experienced a lot of rejection, and oft times for good reason.  However, I am unable to show them the cold shoulder that others readily toss their way.

I'm the woman at the party who, when cornered with the person updating everyone on the pyramid scheme, makes eye contact, smiles, nods her head, and probably offers an antidote or two.

I have spent hours pondering why I do this, and I know it's my humanity.  I can't stand for someone to be left out.

This never ends well.  These stray kitties almost always follow me home, and I leave out the proverbial milk, by accepting their invitations (I don't want them to feel bad), watching their children (they had no where else to go), and in many ways, enabling their dysfunction.  That is, until I can't take it anymore, which becomes inevitable.

At that point I either blow up or stop answering their calls, which is much harder to do, and much more emotionally damaging for all involved than simply  turning that shoulder to them in the first place.

The irony is that I attract these boundary hopping stray kitties, because as an emotional slut, I'm not good at setting the boundary.  God, (or the Universe if you will), keeps giving me these lessons, and at some point I'll learn from them, but until then I'll enjoy the way my early disclosing makes other people feel.  Like they belong.