The Friendship Struggle
Nov. 6th, 2022 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avrenymSo I’ve been struggling with friendships lately. Well this actually feels like my whole life thanks to poor self esteem among other issues like anxiety and being generally shy.
It’ll sound strange but im both quick and slow to make friends. Quick in that sometimes it just clicks right away and the friendship exists as if it always was for millennia. However I’ve also been burnt and hurt by people saying they are my friends, so more recently I’ve put up walls and have kept folks at arms length so that I’m a bit more protected from the inevitable hurt that will happen.
When I make a friend I try to make them a life long one. I have a handful of friends that I’ve known for 20 years. These can be the easy friendships. The ones where we check in on each other, the conversation doesn’t have to sound… so formal. Like an out of the blue meme texted because it made them think of you. We might not have chatted in weeks but it’s never awkward. We both get the “life gets busy sometimes” mantra.
There are however a few people I know that I even wonder if we are friends. I hold onto the remnants of what once was. Clinging to the hope we can return to how it use to be. It’s currently like this with a “friend”.
When we first met it was because they were reaching out over social media looking for an email pen pal. I never had any grand expectations and even said as much when we started emailing. Mostly because I tend to be horrible at replying consistently. However we hit it off pretty well and eventually moved to texting. We texted very regularly, sometimes daily. Never more than 3 days would go by and we would be sharing what happened that day even if it was the most mundane thing. It’s been an 8 year friendship. Though the last 3-4 have been rocky. I personally feel I can pinpoint the turn in the relationship. It wasn’t anything I would have considered deal breaking, but there was a serious shift on their side and eventually spaces between texting or voice chats became further and further apart.
I grew really depressed over the entire thing. I still haven’t er let go either. As I’ve been writing this, I looked over past texts, emails and DM’s on the bird platform. I’m crying over all of it again. I’m not sure why I have such a hard time letting go of this friendship, even though I’ve tried.
It’s been some rough ups and downs trying to navigate these kinds of relationships. I can only hope to learn and grow and cherish the friends that stick around through my own bullshit.
It’ll sound strange but im both quick and slow to make friends. Quick in that sometimes it just clicks right away and the friendship exists as if it always was for millennia. However I’ve also been burnt and hurt by people saying they are my friends, so more recently I’ve put up walls and have kept folks at arms length so that I’m a bit more protected from the inevitable hurt that will happen.
When I make a friend I try to make them a life long one. I have a handful of friends that I’ve known for 20 years. These can be the easy friendships. The ones where we check in on each other, the conversation doesn’t have to sound… so formal. Like an out of the blue meme texted because it made them think of you. We might not have chatted in weeks but it’s never awkward. We both get the “life gets busy sometimes” mantra.
There are however a few people I know that I even wonder if we are friends. I hold onto the remnants of what once was. Clinging to the hope we can return to how it use to be. It’s currently like this with a “friend”.
When we first met it was because they were reaching out over social media looking for an email pen pal. I never had any grand expectations and even said as much when we started emailing. Mostly because I tend to be horrible at replying consistently. However we hit it off pretty well and eventually moved to texting. We texted very regularly, sometimes daily. Never more than 3 days would go by and we would be sharing what happened that day even if it was the most mundane thing. It’s been an 8 year friendship. Though the last 3-4 have been rocky. I personally feel I can pinpoint the turn in the relationship. It wasn’t anything I would have considered deal breaking, but there was a serious shift on their side and eventually spaces between texting or voice chats became further and further apart.
I grew really depressed over the entire thing. I still haven’t er let go either. As I’ve been writing this, I looked over past texts, emails and DM’s on the bird platform. I’m crying over all of it again. I’m not sure why I have such a hard time letting go of this friendship, even though I’ve tried.
It’s been some rough ups and downs trying to navigate these kinds of relationships. I can only hope to learn and grow and cherish the friends that stick around through my own bullshit.
