I dreamed last night about a ferret and a domesticated skunk (i.e. a skunk that has had the glands that make foul smells taken out). They were horrible little creatures. Three of my friends lived in this tiny little room with them, in the middle of the city (which city? It was a dream city.) All of us, all 10 or 12 of my close friends (including The Dolphin) would get together in this tiny room to smoke this new semi-legal drug called "Metal," that looked like a black cigarette with a silver colored filter. When we would start smoking the drug, everyone would get rather excited, and the ferret and the skunk would get all kinds of agitated. The ferret would start biting us mercilously with his tiny teeth, and the skunk would start scratching at us all with the sharp claws on his powerful hind-legs. It drove me nuts! I did not enjoy being attacked, but when I would try to leave my friends would light up more metal, which was a highly addcitive substance, and I would not feel able to leave. Eventually the ferret and the skunk were thrown into a tiny little cage, much too small for the both of them, or for even one of them. They cuddled down with each other and looked happy enough, but I knew it was just a matter of time before they were at each other's throats again.

So obviously this dream is about me and The Social Worker, who I've been dating lately. I'm not going to speculate as to which was the ferret and which was the skunk, because I hate both animals equally. In fact, I would have to say that of all the domesticated animals out there, the ferret and the skunk are my absolute least favorites, closely followed by guinea pigs. But I don't hate The Social Worker. What I hate, yet am irrationally addicted to, is the stifling intimacy that friendships and relationships bring. The theme of being too close to other creatures was repeated twice in this dream: with the animals in their tiny cage, and with 12 people all jammed packed into a tiny little room. It reminded me of when I was a teenager, and me and my group of close friends (8-12 of us usually) would all cram into someone's tiny bedroom and smoke pot. After about 15 minutes of fun, we would start to come down, and being in such close quarters with so many other people would start to feel very uncomfortable. After about a year of this, I realized that I hated all these people, that their unconscious heterosexism was subtly underming my self-esteem, that I was losing my sense of who I was. I left them behind (an action I totally do not regret in any way) and I haven't been able to enjoy being a part of a group since.

So I push people away, because the feelings that being close to someone brings are just a little too intense for me. But once I am alone, and have had my fill of that, I realize that I'm missing something, that there is something that you can get from intimacy with another human being, something essential to a happy, well-rounded existance, that you can't get any other way.

But it's just too much. I would like a weaker dose of intimacy. Perhaps The Social Worker is a good match for me then. He seems a little distant, a little bit in his own world. This worries me, because I wonder if he's losing interest in me, or something. Actually, I have no idea why it worries me. And perhaps there's no reason why it should worry me. Maybe being very close to someone who always keeps me a little bit at arm's length is actually just what I need.