Orchid.
I answer you in black ink. Yes, I have had a FEW real friends who would take me through life no matter what happened. They are very, very attractive people with brains. I never got to know a person who was just attractive, as everyone is to me. I try, and it does not work. They put me in a box and label me every single time. I get excited when a "normal," person likes me, and many do, but they are full of questions about my life and I can never create that bond.
I have a close friend who is a golf professional.
I have another who is a good friend but cannot even have coffee with me because of "how it will look."
I have a very, very good friend who is very busy, he was a model for a long time and is a dancer as well.
I have one sister in law who is a phone friend who used to haved a problem when we lived in the same city with hwo I look.

that's it. Those are my friends. Everyone else is an acquaintance. I have many people who respect me and will take my calls without blinking. They are not friends though. I have people who want to be my friend until they try it and act out so I have to move away a bit from being a real friend to them.
It's really sad.
This is one of my painful points in my life and I am confessing more than I usually do EVER.
I have a LOT of people who admire me and my work. I know a LOT of people who admire me, period.

I wish they had gotten to know me.

Thank you for this outlet, Orchid. It may hurt, but seeing the truth is something I like.

My one friend who cannot have coffee with me is a psychiatrist. He trained at Mt. Sinai, (sp,) in New York and is 6'7" and attractive so he can be my friend, I suppose.
He told me that my life was about truth, art and beauty after analyzing me as shrink friends do. He also told me that he spent the first three years of our friendship trying to find a "deep flaw," in my character and could not find one. Imagine. He thought someone like me HAD to have something inherently wrong with them.

Thanks for the chance to vent!

dancer9