Touch Repulsed, Wanting Platonic Life Partner

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

NO idea how to go about finding that person. I have a mission in life I’m passionate about, but I need a life partner who is just as committed to that goal as I am and who can complement my strengths so we can tag team accomplishing important things.

I’m so confused about even starting finding this person. Anybody have ideas on how to do that? I talk too much in person, but never about anything REAL. I am best understood and experienced online. 🙁

Anyway, it’s probably silly asking this sort of thing at all. Thanks for listening! (OH! I’m 42. Definitely not a hip young thing! LOL)

[Kai]

I have a mission in life I’m passionate about, but I need a life partner who is just as committed to that goal as I am and who can complement my strengths so we can tag team accomplishing important things.

Omg that’s Me to a T. Like, why can’t it be simple to have that without all the expectations for sex and romance and things…… like I don’t get why it matters or how it’s related 🙁

So what’s your goal?

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

Hi Kai. School, homes with independent living skills training, trauma recovery, etc. for rejected LGBTQIA young people. Particularly transkids.

I was never able to be me for most of my life. I’m still not fully there. I need to prevent as much trauma for kids as possible and help equip them with lifeskills that will establish them with healthy interpersonal skills (those not really modeled in abusive homes), living skills (budgeting, bills, managing all that sort of thing) as well as making sure they graduate high school and have a shot at university if they want, or vocational school if they choose. Oh! and how to keep house! Cook healthy food!

Where I am there is NO real support for these children. I cannot abide that.

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

oh, My proper acceptable names are Walosi or Toad (they mean the same thing).

[Kai]

Ahh, so not Maria, right? 🙂

I can get behind your goals. I’ve been thinking A LOT about the disadvantages that I’ve received as a result of not having family support in life. Very practical, measurable, concrete disadvantages. Mainstream discourse talks a lot about the emotional effects but not nearly enough about the practical effects, which dare I argue is much more damaging… perhaps, because doing so requires taking a close, critical look at the way our society is structured, and how it is plotted against people like us to the core.

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

Yeah, Kai.

What blows my mind is that we do not have many practical advantages EVEN WITH familial support. Many of us in supposedly healthy life situations never learn the skills of HOME KEEPING, HOME MAINTENANCE, MANAGING HOME BUDGETS, FOOD COLLECTION, STORAGE , COOKING FOR NUTRITION, Managing bills, taxes, ETC. It angers me that most of us IN GOOD SITUATIONS don’t know basic ‘adulting’ or EMOTION REGULATION skills. How much worse off are our young friends WITHOUT THE SUPPOSED SUPPORT OF FAMILY?

My project (should it get off the ground, I missed my window to contact my possible mentor AGAIN) would include an onsite trauma specialist and PE class would not be PE but SELF DEFENSE (martial art of your choice, black belt acquisition needed to graduated HIGH SCHOOL — I want all my young friends to be able to protect themselves and others with no chance of being disarmed and killed with the weapon they carry). LIFE SKILLS classes include distress tolerance and how to know if you’re asking REASONABLE thINGS of your self and others, housekeeping skills (like old fashioned home economics — but EVERYBODY TAKES THEM __ no gender based separation). and also Shop is included int he same LIFE SKILLS thing to help folks know how to fix stuff to save money.

In addition, obviously, to whatever legally required other subjects there are. My goal is to help folks BECOME FUNCTIONAL ADULTS who can THINK CRITICALLY and ADULT WELL and CONTRIBUTE to CREATING A BETTER WORLD INTELLIGENTLY.

However, a lot of people think I’m nuts, so, there you go! 😀

<3

[Kai]

Yeah, there was a thread on a different site that I was following for a while, debating whether or not schools should teach “life skills” like the ones you mentioned above. My overwhelming opinion is YES. Some naysayers argued that parents should be the ones doing that work, and I just…. clearly, that’s the expectation that’s been assumed so far, and that really doesn’t work out well for everyone. If it works out for you, or if you haven’t seen anyone for whom it really hasn’t worked out, that’s just a reflection of your own privilege.

Although I don’t know if the standardized education system (which I don’t believe in anyway) should be where it’s taught. It could be some separate kind of system / organization, like a school, but where any young person can access without charge. Like, what you’re envisioning!

It’s great that you have a mentor to help you get started. Going back to your original point about tag-teaming; I think I’d feel a lot more confident about my own ideas if I had a mentor, but unfortunately I don’t, and it doesn’t seem like I’ll find one any time soon. I need that person to understand my background too and the deprivation I come from, not just the fun ideas that I have for the future, you know?

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

I don’t have a mentor YET! I keep missing my opportunities to talk with her and develop that relationship.

I am a huge advocate of homeschooling, BUT NOT IN THE ISOLATIONIST EVANGELICAL “CHRISTIAN” model. When i did homeschool my former stepchild, we mixed with many diverse groups of many ages, opinions, religions, education levels, etc.

Parents/families cannot teach ANY of the things they formerly used to do NATURALLY due to the paring down to the NUCLEAR FAMILY since the Industrial Revolution (18-1900s) and then the economic disasters post World War II have caused a dramatic need for those tiny nuclear families to have first both parents working, and then increasingly laws came into play discouraging guys from staying with women, or marrying them, which then creates EVEN SMALLER PRACTICAL FAMILY GROUPS in which the nurturing adult cannot DO ANY NURTURING becuase they are too busy PROVIDING SHELTER AND FOOD to TEACH which is the job of BOTH ADULTS according to nature. But when you cannot secure SHELTER adn FOOD without working more hours int he week than THERE ARE PHYSICALLY AVAILAVBLE. The children don’t learn ANYTHING except at school. And even then, because the family base is GONE they don’t know how to LEARN WHAT IS BEING TAUGHT AT SCHOOL.

The ideal situation for HUMANS is to live in extended family groups. When we stop doing that, our cultures break down. It does not mean we have to structure our ‘family groups’ along DNA lines. There is archaeological evidence of at least ONE human society where the extended family groupings were based on VOCATIONAL SKILLS. So a whole city in which UNRELATED PEOPLE OF ALL AGES LIVED TOGETHER BASED ON THE JOBS THEY DID AS THOUGH IN A FAMILY HOME.

So, Kai, what is your background? What are your dreams? What fuels them?

[Kai]

Yeah, I believe in the community as the foundation / atom of society, and also for these communities to be fluid enough that people can go where they are most needed, where they are the best fit. Actually, this would be very cool to study – historical societies where this was the case.

You ask me about my dreams; my vision is a world without rigid, violent barriers to human mobility. Of course, that is a lofty goal and I don’t expect to see it within my lifetime. I am not yet sure what specific little contribution to the larger cause could be. I haven’t even done enough healing of my own such that I’m ready to start any of that yet. And I wish I could work with someone on them on a committed and intimate basis, too. That would really change the parameters of the game for me, because combined intellect and combined resources — that is huge.

In some sense, open migration is like the freedom to choose who your family is, on the largest scale. Of course, a large number of modern migrants aren’t moving out of a sense of being drawn to another geographical and cultural space but rather as economic and political refugees to a smaller or larger extent. I believe that open borders (arising out of a homeostasis in migration flow) will be a natural consequence of an equal distribution of resources, and so it’s in the latter that direct work can be done. As I’ve spoken to countless people over the years I’ve moved around excessively, I’ve come to learn that the vast majority of people really don’t have much interest in migrating, even most in “poor” countries would prefer to stay until they had absolutely no choice.

For some reason I am not like that; as a child I was dragged around between countries and cultures, and as an adult I find anything short of a global perspective towards every issue, incomprehensible. I migrate out of a genuine love for and desire to contribute to other place and cultures, because all of it belongs to the Earth, which is the only thing that I feel comfortable calling home. And I’m constantly aware of how much of a privilege it is, having been subject to systematic discrimination at customs and border crossings – much more so in the past, although the fear and anticipation is now permanently etched into my consciousness. I feel the pain of those in distant regions of the world even though I’ve never been there; it feel just like it was happening in my own backyard. I can’t restrict my field of concern to just one geographical space, no matter how hard I try.

ah, but now I must stop babbling and return to my day job. I could go on forever; I’m sure you know the feeling.

[M.T. “Toad” Noah]

I also grew up overseas. Having a global concern is a hallmark of 3rd culture kids (aka global nomads) like us.

For open migration to be doable you first need to shift the human tendency to believe that only people IN A PLACE ALREADY have sole rights to the resources in that area. War begins with the acceptance of the illusion of RIGHTS TO PEOPLE, THINGS, ETC. and OCCURS when we choose to FIGHT TO PROTECT THAT ILLUSION.

Wow I’m really tired today. I enjoyed your response. Will reply further later on. (Passes you a cup of lovely Pakistani chai and a beautiful rice pudding with vanilla, cinnamon and flower essences)

[Kai]

That sounds delightful. 🙂

Can you send PMs? I might forget to check this space. 😛

[Author]

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