notes on friendship pt. i

Growing up, I always felt intimidated and left out when in the vicinity of people with big full families and lots of childhood friends. From birth on it was really just me and my mom for the most part. My mom and her biological mom were estranged, but she died the year I was born, and my grandfather died the year before. My mother and biological father weren’t together, so I was raised just me and my mom until I was eight when she married. For the better part of my childhood I was a loner, even though I had friends that my mom attempted to pair me up with. I did draw close to some of my moms friends and companions who became like second mothers and grandmothers to me, which was really great. But when it came to my peers, I felt like we were galaxies apart.

Due to that experience I was super insecure and awkward when it would come to meeting and starting friendships with people my age, even into my teens. I could barely look people that I didn’t know well in the eye, for fear that they would make fun of me. That was my experience at school, and those I’d meet at events my mom took me too, so I assumed that would just be the overall experience. This experience colored my overall view of relationship building and during that time, I developed a number of assumptions about what kind of relationships I need to be in for them to be successful. To get friends, I figured:

1. I had to make myself likeable – be whatever others wanted me to be
2. Be a listener and be super interested in everything about them with little input about myself
3. Befriend the friendless
4. Make myself needed
5. Be open, accessible, easy to get to know

While those “rules” aren’t terrible in principle, and could be applied in one-off situations, they definitely aren’t law and they don’t need to apply to every situation. But the aching desire to be more accepted, to be a part of society and to really actually walk among my contemporaries was super strong. So I forged ahead into the world of making friends with not a worry.

The journey was exciting at first. Revamping myself and actually putting my foot forward came with its challenges but there was also a rush of adrenaline in these new environments, knowing that I was actually mentally open to the idea of interacting and engaging with other young humans. Each potential social setting, although anxiety inducing, was also a chance to make an impression and add a building block to potential relationships. I was so pressed!

Sadly though, this excitement was short lived. The teen years are short, and the realities of life soon set in when varying factors shake the table of loyalty, and other things that tie people together. Ten plus years, and many relationships later, I’ve actually learned that those rules to good relationships and friendships were actually inapplicable and even dangerous for me to live by.

Changing myself only made myself seem like a flunky. Not talking about myself and only listening only made people feel like I nor my story mattered. Befriending people who didn’t have friends or anybody, only set my own self to be taken advantage of. Making myself be the person who people needed, only reduced my value and the foundation of the friendship to just that… usage.. and need. Being open and accessible gave people the impression that I wasn’t worth anything. Although having friends was and has been a lovely experience, I feel like the true friends that I have would have come without my doing all the other stuff.

One lesson I did learn is to pour love into those who love. Who know how to love and who are loving. The ones who it is harder to be friends with, are often worth being friends with in the end. And just because someone comes from a sad background or loveless life, doesn’t mean that you have to be the cure to that. Nor that you can. Often the loveless will only gulp up all the love you have and then be thirsty for more.

The one thing I didn’t try on the path, as a means to attracting people was being myself. Sure I became myself over time, and in some of those, I was accepted. But what if, from the very beginning I had tried to make friends based on myself and my own interests and qualities? I guess we’ll never know.