Other people in general

Dealing with other people can be somewhat of a challenge mostly because they are not you. Not that dealing with yourself is easy; you're a huge damn mess. But it's just a familiar and constant mess. For you, wondering and worrying about other people and their emotions and hangups and neuroses and fears and inadequacies is kind of like trying to read a Jane Austen novel in the middle of a terrorist attack. Or maybe like playing Where's Waldo? while you have a bad case of crabs. It might be interesting and ultimately worthwhile, but you'll probably find it a little hard to concentrate.

So the best thing to do is stay inside. Or if you really crave personal contact, be sure your relationships have very specific definitions so that you can easily categorize them in your mind. Person A is the person I talk to about work problems. Person B is the person I have casual sex with. Person C is the person I get drunk with (and may or may not have casual sex with). 

If you feel that someone in your life is trying to complicate his or her relationship with you by erasing or redefining their category, you may be tempted to let this happen and see if the relationship can grow. Good luck with this, because pretty soon they're going to find out who you really are. You see, by pigeon-holing them in the first place, you were shielding them from the parts of you that suck the most. If they seem to be angling toward having a bigger role in your life, then it's going to become impossible to block out all the really shitty things about you. They're going to see it all. And you're going to feel naked and ashamed. This is probably not an entirely new sensation, but the outcome is not quite exactly the same as disrobing. After all, being laid bare physically usually leads to sex or at least a hernia exam.