I do feel jealous, but not of things to have, posessions, i mean, more of someone appearing to have made a connection with someone else that I havent been able to do. Sometimes when i see the camaraderie between colleagues I will feel jealous because I struggle to make friends and I struggle to keep them- but to others it is something that just seems to happen, like breathing! But its not that I dont want them to have the friend... I dont want to take anything from them at all.
Intimacy... sure. I was sitting on the couch this morning with my son (we are off work and school with colds) passing the tissues back and forth and sputtering away and just the togetherness of that was kinda nice- in an odd way!! So was this morning when Alex came out of bed saying in a worried voice 'Mummy? Where is Mummy' and then beamed when he found me in the bathroom.
Hmmm, from looking at the translations envy is like you envy somebody for something, and being jealous has to do with a person.
You can feel envy for the money someone earns and feel jealous for his or her feelings for someone else...
That's not very clear, I think, I'm sorry.
Sib
(feels I have my "bad English" day today
)
Some people like to use the word "intimacy" as an euphenism (?spellings) for sexually activity with each other.
As for the more dictionary meaning, sure, I have felt intimate in a nonsexual way with several friends and my husband. Trust has a big part in this feeling because we feel we can share our thoughts, feelings and experiences and enjoy them with another person without fear of being judged or betrayed or hurt by someone. I am not so worried about the judgement of others but I am concerned about the betrayals. Some people can really hurt you if they know your secrets and feel that you trust them. Some people will rob or take advantage of someone who trusts them.
Off the top of my head, and not having read others' definitions, to me I'd say envy has more positive connotations than jealousy, it's not as destructive as jealousy.
I guess I might say I'm envious of a friend's linguistic talents, she's fluent in four languages and speaks a little of two others. I guess it's kind of like appreciation, but with some desire mixed in, like I appreciate her aptitude and ability and wish I could be like that. She's also very beautiful, very serene and dignified. An amazing person. But I don't begrudge her those things, like I said, I have quite positive feelings about her, her talents and assets.
I might also be envious of someone's beautiful clothes, or their singing voice, for example.
Whereas I think jealousy is a much more negative emotion. It's not even appreciation really, I don't think, it's a covetousness, it's seeing that someone else has something, and you don't appreciate their having it, whether it's a loved one, or an ability or skill or something, you don't wish you had it as well, you wish they didn't have it, you'd want to take it away from them, you begrudge them what they have.
That's the difference I think of when I'm using those two words. I think jealousy is such an ugly emotion, whereas I don't think envy is harmful.
Now I'm going to go back and read the other definitions... :lol:
I wish i could talk to my husband about having Asperger' syndrome. I am still afraid that if I tell him that he will stop loving me and want a divorce.
He knows I am "weird". It is just that really knowing what has caused me to have such problems getting work and keeping jobs might make him reconsider our relationship. There is always pressure on him from other people to "tell your wife to go out and get a job" and our parents with the constant nagging "when are you going to buy a house?"
It is a really big thing with our minister that he will not marry people who do not disclose their "mental illness" before marrying someone. At the time, I really did not really get that I had AS. It is the problem with everyone's prejudices. That being married to someone who does not bring in an income is such a burden. So why would anyone want to be intimate with someone who has no hope for the future like we do not have any worthwhile goals because they are not career or financial ones. Unfortunately, we can not have any children. So people just keep asking him why does your wife stay home when you have no children. I don't stay home for my children, I stay home for my husband. My job is being a housewife and my husband is just spoiled by me.
If people do not fit into the plan: get an education, get a career, get married, buy a house, have 2 children and then work toward retiring in comfort then their life is not worth living. That is why people will abort their babies because they will never grow up to do that. Maybe if someone does not fit into that plan no one will want to be intimate with them. I believe there is more to life than that. More to success.
I think I was born in the wrong century!
Initmacy is about sharing, about sharing your life and experiences.
I have a friend with cerebral palsy who would like to have a boyfriend, get married. People just do not expect her to get married or even have a boyfriend like they think she has no right to unless he had some similar disability. At college, there was this couple. The woman had a motorized wheelchair and short legs. She had a boyfriend who was "normal". He used to ride around on the back of her chair. They were always together. They ended up getting married. Alot people just thought he was crazy to want "that freak" they would say. How could he want to have sex with her they would ask?
It is like anyone who is different or disabled, normals seem to think that we should have no desires for our lives expect maybe to receive a pension or some token job. Having any other life goals or wanting to have marriage and children is just like obscene to them.
This is a great topic. For me, the biggest disappointment with my boyfriend is that occasionally, his moral or ethical sensitivity does not seem to have a lot of depth. On the one hand, he is himself very kind, and perhaps overly considerate to others (at the expense of himself even). But he does not seem keen on evaluating behavior within an ethical framework, or in terms of character development. He sees a lot of things as harmless that I see as detrimental or harmful..... I think the asperger's is partly to blame for these issues. Asperger's has kept my boyfriend apart from other people socially. In the absence of extensive social relationships, I do not think emotional maturity or ethical sensitivity develops too well.
I have noticed that some people with addiction problems will socialize with just about anybody just so that they do not have to drink,smoke, shoot or whatever they do all alone. I do not think that some people need people to socialize with just because they enjoy the company or want to help others - they have other motives. They want something from those people.
"I have no idea how socializing is supposed to make a person more ethical." I am more ethical because I do not socialize with everyone and anyone. I still want to help others but I might prefer to do it indirectly since directly interacting with these characters puts me into danger. I am speaking from experience.
Lili Marlene, you are probably right. Sometimes in an effort to understand the puzzling fact that my boyfriend is oblivious to things that seem obvious to me..... I attribute his "cluelessness" to AS. That's not a smart thing for me to do. In truth, there are tons of people everywhere who are oblivious to what seems obvious to me. People's inability, reluctance, or refusal to SEE what is there can be attributed to many factors, and AS would be only one. In Dave's case, if he persists in the notion that some behaviour is acceptable when it obviously causes harm.... it could be because of many reasons other than AS.
LM,
I am speaking of a woman we both know who repeatedly gets sexually involved with married, engaged, or otherwise attached men. When men are nice to her, she finds that a turn-off. This is an example of a person who on the surface says she "prefers" something that, when examined rationally, is clearly self-destructive and also harmful to others.
I was not thrilled to hear she is interested in spending time with my boyfriend. I think her character is flawed in a way that invites trouble into her life and the lives of the men she relates with. Dave thought it's pretty harmless. I have to admit, it's not so uncommon for women at any age to disrespect themselves, and to be unaware of How, Exactly, to bring healthy, fulfilling sexual/intimate relationships into their lives. So it's not like this woman is irreversibly flawed.... I just wished Dave would agree that her character is weak (morally).
LM, thank you for your thoughtful approach. I look at human behavior from a psychoanalytic framework and am barely more than a novice interpreter of people's conduct. I think that people who behave like this woman does may do so because true intimacy is too threatening to their egos. With Dave, the establishment of trust has been the core work of our relationship. Trust seems to be at the heart of intimacy. To bare one's self, one's thoughts, feelings, body, ie., to share all these private things with another person, is a healthy activity only insofar as the other is accepting, non-judgmental, and embracing. I am not always all of these things, but I am striving to be more accepting and less judgmental of my partner, and all people. I want my boyfriend to be perfectly comfortable with himself when he is with me.
LM, I disagree with you on many points. Psychotherapy has proven to be extremely valuable as a therapeutic modality for countless individuals who are suffering from a wide range of emotional disturbances. Regarding Freud, Jung, and the schools of thought that have emerged from their writing, clinical research has been conducted using the same rigorous standards adopted by practitioners of so-called "hard" sciences like biology, chemistry, and physics. Those "hard" sciences, themselves, are rightfully interpreted as "value-laden". By this I mean that the Western scientific notion of objectivity itself is highly questionable. I respect your choice to reject psychotherapy as a bunch of falsehoods parading as a science. I also respect my choice to reject conventional medical practice, notwithstanding the chemistry and biology and pharmacology propping it up, as riddled with falsehoods and corrupted by a capitalist and profit-motivated agenda.
I also think that intimacy is not an arbitrary experience. It takes more than two people "believing" themselves to be intimate for them to actually BE intimate. Self-deceit is an essential aspect of human consciousness. Sex and love and the heady feelings created by one or both only exacerbate the human mind's capacity for denial. Intensity and intimacy are not the same thing, and while many experiences are intense, especially sexual experiences, this intensity is not intimacy.
Some autistics have problems recognising their emotions, or actually have fewer emotions, such as not feeling jealousy (true for me).
Lucky you, that's one emotion I could benifit without.