Attached (part II)

A reader updates us on whether he was forming genuine emotional attachments to things and people:

I wrote to you a year ago about my efforts to resume a prior persona. I questioned whether vigorous application of myself to my reality would result in forming the same kinds of emotional connections that empaths form.  You wondered if I just grew attached to these people like I would a good pair of tennis shoes.  After a year of having resumed this life, I have to confess that you were right.  Just like I prefer to hang certain pieces of art in my living room, I prefer to adorn my life and surroundings with a certain group of people.  I've lost some of them this year already through social attrition and even death, and honestly, aside from the initial sense of disruption, I haven't been moved much by those losses.  At the end of the day, I just prefer how these people, this location, this life, accessorizes me.

The greatest surprise that I faced was assuming that the relationships would have existed in a kind of stasis.  I walked back into this life with bridges that I left fairly unsinged, and was met with varying levels of resistance--from passive aggressiveness or social avoidance to outright anger.  Conversations that were run of the mill the last time I was here were met with hostility or annoyance.  All because I had transitioned to a different place in life.  It actually was kind of funny, the ego-stroking and strategically timed "emotional conversations" that were necessary to resume my place in the social pecking order of these groups.

My efforts at resuming this life, and the long route I took reminded me of a past conversation.  Right around the time I was making this transition, I was talking to a friend who's clearly like me (whether she realizes exactly what she is or not).  I told her that she and I are like canines while most people are sheep.  But we have a choice.  We can be wolves or sheep dogs.  My transition back into this life, with its surprises about people's emotional buttons, certainly tested my resolve as to which role I wanted to fill--whether to rampantly exploit emotional buttons to get what I wanted through the shortest path possible, or to take the difficult and more patience-testing path of simply allowing them to come around on their own with only gentle nudging.

I wish I could say that I did it because it would have felt wrong to take the shortcut.  The power I feel when I push emotional buttons actually would've felt better in the short-term.  But I like to keep my pets happy.  Makes life more interesting that way, and helps me "attune" myself to more prosocial behaviors so that my act is seamless.  But I have to admit to myself now that if I lost any of these people I'd just find a replacement.  But at least I'd water it and feed it and if it came down to it, kill any wolves that wanted to eat it.