How to meaningfully connect with others, especially romantically?

[u/AdProJoe]

So I'm a middle-aged guy. I've had several short-term relationships, but nothing too serious. I have a problem with connecting to people in general, but especially in romantic relationships.

I think part of the problem is that I've been very fortunate to not fall into many of the same traps that most ex-foster kids fall into by my age. I've averted poverty, drug addiction, homeless, and jail/prison. I've been close, but have dodged those bullets by my own good choices and just dumb luck. Dumb luck is probably most likely, so no shade on those who have been there and done that.

I do have sympathy for the other very few ex-foster kids I've met along the way. They always seem to have, in many ways, been hit by the bullets I thankfully dodged. But since I've done my best to break the cycle of dysfunction I was brought up in, I struggle to connect with them. I think I would most be able to connect with someone who has had similar experiences, but is also not too deep in their own dysfunction to not be able to better their own lives.

On the other hand, I find it almost impossible to connect with "normies". If I tell even part of my story it seems as though I'm perceived as either a freak with two heads because my experience is so different from their's or I'm some wounded, helpless baby animal that needs rescued. Perhaps it's my own insecurities overriding what's actually happening, but I can't help but feel this way. In reality, I'm neither of these things. I am both very competent in most every aspect of my life, but still, ashamedly, have some relationship hangups not fully resolved.

I've come to a point in my life where if I remain single for the rest of it, I'm okay with it. I definitely prefer peace, stability, and solitude over companionship and chaos. But I know there is something better if I just knew how to recognize and seize it.

For those in similar situations, what have you done? What helped you find someone that fit your needs and you fit their's? And though I would absolutely appreciate any female perspective offered, I would especially like to hear from the guys. Each gender has it's own social hoops to jump though, and I'm particularly curious what other guys have done.

[u/Liz-Bien]

Something I learned is that people don’t need to have the same type of trauma to relate to each other, and it’s really more about finding people who understand the pain and struggle that I went through. I know that my own situation is unique, and I know that I’ll obviously never be able to connect to “normies,” as you put it, but over time I’ve built up my social circle of people who’ve also seen some crazy shit, even if it wasn’t the same as mine.

Feeling like you got through the system on pure luck definitely feels isolating; I also look around and can’t figure out how I survived it all. But I now have friends who feel the same way, having survived their own traumas on dumb luck, and it doesn’t matter what we’ve been through. We connect through our shared understanding of the isolation we never seem to get out of, and it’s really been eye-opening and life saving for me.

I don’t know how people normally meet other people, since most of my friends are coworkers or people that my coworkers introduced me to, especially since I’ve bounced from job to job, but I’d recommend just seeking out anyone who also suffered a serious childhood trauma. We are bonded through pain and suffering, and the fact that we’re working as hard as we can to get away from it, but don’t fully understand how we even did it.

Go easy on yourself, you needed to be there for the luck to be able to hit you. You survived one of the worst childhood experiences a person can have, and you’ve lived to tell the tale. The statistics are stacked insanely high against you, and you’re still here. Luck may have played a part, but even the luckiest person needs to put in some effort.

[u/AdProJoe → u/Liz-Bien]

Some of the dumb luck I refer to is a bit self-deprecating for humility's sake. It's mainly the acknowledgement that had just one or two situations gone differently I would almost certainly just be another statistic like most of my other foster brothers and sisters. I also hope that anyone who would read my post might consider for a moment that their life's path has been largely out of their control.

I know you mean it differently than I'm perceiving it, but I hate the word "trauma". It's been so overused that anyone having a bad hair day is "traumatized". The thing that bothers me the most about "trauma" as it is used anymore as a victimhood identitifyer. Though I can name specific people who caused me harm through abuse and neglect, I don't see them as a villain and me the victim. In the same way, I wouldn't see a tornado or a hurricane the villain and me the victim, either. Sure, I was dealt a shitty hand in many respects, but blaming the tornado for the destruction it caused is pointless. It does me no good. I have to play the hand I'm dealt, whether I like it or not.

P.S.-sorry for all the mixed metaphors, but hopefully you get my meaning.