Just to point out the good news, that I have managed to be able to get my friendship back. But now, I'm cooling it with the obsessiveness (even she said I tend to "control the discussions" as another person I was having deep online conversations had said).
In the months since last summer, I've been studying up on the Jungian concepts I've learned about through the related Type theory, to try to figure out why exactly I was acting/reacting like that, on top of a whole bunch of other stuff I've been going through.
I know a big part of it is "midlife crisis", and for me, it's made worse by the lifelong AS problems, which prevented me from having a normal social and especially dating life. (Hence, losing a friendship like that was very hard).
Here, I discuss what I've been pondering, and some of the books I've been reading:
?Solar? vs ?Lunar? in Gender Dynamics, Integrity and Individuation
Key points:
John Beebe,
Integrity in Depth (Texas A & M University Press, 1992) mentioned the virginity mythos in relation to ?integrity?, and another concept I noticed was ?
sola? and ?
luna", meaning of course, ?sun? and ?moon?, and which had often been linked to masculinity and femininity.
But actually,
both genders have both solar and lunar aspects. "By solar, [Jung] means
active and aggressive and by lunar,
receptive and responsive."
All of this helps put a name on something that?s always been hard to describe, and also explain stuff I?ve been going through. I was attracted more to "lunar" females, because of my mother (which is what shapes what Jung called the "anima", which then becomes the model of the ideal female partner), but now, more "solar" women become interesting.
My wife and I could never fully understand or explain the admitted appeal of a stronger, less ?safe? woman (such as a ?street girl?) to me and many other men. But it?s connected with what Jungian author Robert Johnson calls ?
the unlived life", and is made worse by my entering midlife, and moving away from the ?safety? of the lunar ?mother? aspects of the anima; so the more ?dangerous? solar aspects become more of a curiosity.
Someone like Suze Orman is totally "solar", and I had noticed could never carry the ?virginal integrity? archetype I thought someone like her could qualify for, from being a ?gold-star lesbian?, meaning never been with a man. She?s just too ?rough?, ?cold? and ?aggressive?. It goes well with the whole ?unconquered? sense that?s apart of the "madonna" projections, but for me, there must be some evident lunar characteristics present, to carry this. (To have someone ?carry? something, in Jungian terms, is basically about projection; especially the anima).
There is a whole ?ironic? appeal of both ?technical virginity? (in the hetero community) as well as ?gold-star lesbianism?, which leads to much debate in online culture. (The friend is also very solar, but has some lunar aspects as well, including a similar sexual orientation).
Beebe pointed out (p.53) that the whole appeal of a state like is that ?
libido is free to flow, yet stays contained". He discusses the Roman myth of Tuccia the Vestal Virgin, who proved her questioned virginity with a sieve that was able to contain water; ?defying all the laws of nature?. The water was believed to represent ?libido?, and a container representing the continence or virtue of a woman, suffering no puncture or crack).
This really explains everything. By not being with or going all the way with a man, they have in fact ?contained? something, even though they are clearly and fully sexual; allowing some amount of libido to flow.
?Libido? is basically ?life-giving energy". It is usually associated with sex drive, but that is really just one part of it. (Its opposite is ?mortido?, which is a ?death instinct?). Things that are new become tarnished with normal usage, which accompanies the flow of what we call ?life? (even for inanimate objects). For them not to become tarnished or worn would run counter to nature.
Yet that is an ideal state, representing ?
Eden". All of this is emblazoned on our ?collective unconscious", which are archetypal images shared by all of us. (When archetypes become personalized, they are ?complexes?, which we project onto others).
So Beebe says (p.76) that men are often ?projecting their own need for anima integrity onto them as a wholesale demand for literal virginity and chastity; women were forced into embodying wholeness and continuity in their concrete physical lives, living out the anima ideal in ways that were stultifying for their individuation?.
This is what I'm trying to figure out, as to what I should do now, in trying to find out how to stop projecting ?gold? onto women. ("Gold" is what Johnson calls the good stuff we see in others, but not in ourselves). They?re really not supposed to carry it; not even the one you?re married to, ultimately (it will create expectations they cannot live up to, and thus disappointments). Anima integrity seemed to be embodied in a ?strong? and ?untouched? woman; covering both solar and lunar aspects.
I?ve always felt that my solar masculinity never had the chance to fully develop, through life circumstances, especially with a condition such as AS, with all the problems it causes with people. Yet since life seemed, by the process of elimination, to be forcing me into a lunar role, which I saw as ?weak? and ?feminine?, I?ve resisted that as well. (So what does that leave me with? Just trying to gain some sense of solar power in the way most possible; from behind a computer screen, like in arguing Christian doctrine and politics online for years; but it just leads to burnout).
So my "anima integrity" has taken a terrible beating throughout my life.
So I need to find my own ?gold? to own, but I just don?t know quite how to do it at this point. My wife suggests my writing (like this), but it seems to have only limited interest (as it?s long and over a lot of people?s heads, right?)
Anyone understand any of this? I can tell, that if one's Aspie drive doesn't lead one to study up on Jung, his concepts are particularly hard to digest! But it has been helping me understand/explain some of my obsessions.
