I have no problem making friends on a one on one basis. I'll meet someone at school or at a social event, and we'll hit it off just fine, until they try to include me in their group, then I pool inward because I don't know how to be social with more than one person at a time. Parties are the worst. I never ever go to parties without a really enticing incentive. This is what usually happens: I'll arrive to the party, snack on some muchies for ten minutes, engage in awkward conversation with the people I know, then I think to myself, "I hate everybody!" Then I go home when I can't take it anymore.
This makes making friends really difficult for me. I have one best friend named Ammon.
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| The guy with the camera is Ammon. |
The main reason why we're besties is because he's pretty much me if I were born a guy. He understands how my introverted mind works, and he's one of the few people who appreciate my odd personality. He's also one of the few people in existence to have ever seen what I'm really like in my comfort zone. There are very few people out there who have ever seen how I'm really like, because it takes me a while to warm up to people and comfortably be who I really am. And it's a process you guys! It took me 3 full months for me to warm up to Ammon after we became friends. Usually I lose friends as I'm in the middle of warming up to them. What usually happens is that I'll try to get to know them, which involves a lot of awkward conversations that include questions of the job interview/dating variety. Then I'll try to go out of my way to spend more time with my new found friend so that I can speed up the warming up process to make this new person one of my besties. This stage in the new friend making process is the most anxiety and stress inducing experience I face on a day to day basis. I'll end up spending a lot of time with one person, then I'll begin to wonder if I'm smothering this person by spending too much time with them. I'll then try to put distance between me and this person to give them space. All my current friends out there, if it seems like I'm pushing you away, that is the opposite of what I'm doing, okay? I'm giving you space so that you won't push me away!!! Okay???
Trying to become friends with a guy is even more stress inducing because my intentions are usually misinterpreted. If I try to become really good friends with a guy, then what usually happens is that they think that I have a crush on them, and that makes things awkward. There are some guys who I have a really good connection with who I just don't want to date. If I meet a guy I like, but I'm not interested in him, then I'll still want to hang out with him. Even if I meet someone I'm interested in, but if he's not interested in me, or if it just doesn't work out, then I'll just get over it and want to hang out with the guy as though he were like any of my other friends.
Guys, it's really not that weird for a girl to want to hang out with other guys without wanting to date them. It doesn't make me a lesbian either. I don't swing that way in the least bit. I like to date guys very, very much, okay? And there's nothing wrong with going out on a date with another girl as a friend without any intention to get serious. It's all about having positive human interaction. This is what I crave in life. I had a childhood not really having any friends until I was about in middle school/high school. I was constantly shot down by my family, and the other kids I went to elementary school with didn't want anything to do with me. Now, all I really want is to reach out and be close to people. The problem is that I don't really know how.
This isn't supposed to be a cry for help, or whatever. I just want others to have some sort of understanding of what is kind of going on in my noggin'. I don't know if any of you can relate to what I'm trying to say. I just hope that you readers out there can sort of see where I'm coming from as a frustrated introvert living in a world that places importance on extroverts. Thank you for reading this rant.
I remember when we met, I thought you we're a bit curious but funny. It's a very Utah thing to misunderstand how dating works and how to just be friends with people. There are a lot of folks that are look for specifically one sort of dating and relationship, and lack proper social skills to attain anything else with the opposite gender.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the writing.
It's a bit of an awkward process for me when I try to get to know new people. I have these walls up, so I only show so much of my personality when I meet someone new, so they'll only see certain aspects of me, but very few people ever really see the bigger picture of my personality and who I really am as a person. I try not to show too much initially because I have this fear of scaring people away if they don't really like what they see. Sometimes I end up embarrassing myself when I do that. I'll tell someone I don't know very well something about myself, but there will be little things that I'm not quite ready to tell them yet, so in that moment I'll catch myself from going into certain details, which often makes me appear like some bumbling idiot.
ReplyDeleteIt's really frustrating when it comes down to that sort of interaction with the opposite sex. I've met quite a few guys in Utah believe that people can't be "just friends" with the opposite sex. It frustrates me just how common that is here. I've talked about my best friend, Ammon to some of my friends, and a lot of them think that we're dating because I talk about him so much. But it's the exact opposite. I talk about him a lot because Ammon has had a huge presence in my life for the past few years, so the majority of my recent stories involve him. Also, because we're so alike and because we get along so well as friends, we share an emotional intimacy that transcends any sort of infatuation. It's like a blood bond that we share. This is the sort of connection that I want with more and more people. I want to accept people into my life like how I have accepted Ammon as a part of my own family. I hunger for a sort of emotional intimacy with people that I've lacked for so long. I wish that more people could understand that and accept that.