Dear Masood Khan:

There is no simple answer to your question. What I understand about your situation is this:

Your parents immigrated to the U.S., Texas, from another country, a conservative country. They were afraid that kids your age in Texas will get you into alcohol and drugs and girls, so they kept you inside the house. You were almost like a prisoner, alone in the house. They were probably working a lot and you had nothing to do at home. You watched a lot of TV and played games, over and over again. All along you very much wanted to have friends. You craved friends. You wished you could have friends over in your house and that you can visit friends in their house. But you couldn’t.

After spending so much time alone, when you became old enough and your parents relaxed their fears some, and allowed you to have friends, you went all out with friends: finally you could have what you always wanted. You are thrilled having friends, it is the best thing ever!

But when your time with friends is over and you are back in the house, the old loneliness comes back, that lonely kid that you were is back and you don’t like it. You get desperate and look forward to the next time you will be with friends.

Maybe you want to move to New York or Tokyo because you don’t want to be home anymore, but you are afraid not to have the friends you so desperately need.

So you want to know how you can do it, how you can move away from the home of your lonely childhood. Am I correct so far?

anita