You are all strange and exhausting… (or, why I suck at friendships)

I am not really a people person. That may surprise those of you that don’t know me really well, but I’m not. I was re-writing my blog bio the other day and the one sentence I kept the same was: “finds people confusing and wonderful and terrifying” because that sums it up pretty well.

I *like* you, mostly, a lot (hence the ‘wonderful’ bit) but I don’t get you. And, more than anything, I find you all completely and utterly exhausting, and this has made friendships, my whole life long, intensely difficult at times. It’s not the social bit, I’m good at that, generally confident and good at conversation and, (if I do say so myself), pretty excellent company. I form connections with people quickly and fairly effortlessly. But the relationship bit? The bit where we actually go beyond talking to forming some kind of sustainable friendship? I suck at that.

I’m not a very good friend, I’m going to say that straight up. I try, I really, really try, but so often I just don’t seem to be what people need, or expect from a close friend and I’m usually left with the general sense that I have fallen short some how.

I worry sometimes it’s a sign that I am horribly self-absorbed, and that’s probably true in some respects. For me it so often seems to be about available energy. I’m an introvert and relationships seem to TAKE so much from me. I’m not a naturally very good listener and have to really concentrate to give someone the attention they deserve, which I do – if you were to talk to me you’d probably think I was a fairly good listener, people seem to like talking to me, anyway, but the truth is I’m having to pour everything I have into the process.

And you’re all so STRANGE! You have moods that I don’t understand, you seem to see things entirely differently. Sometimes I feel like I’m just wading through bullshit I can’t relate to, other times I’m left feeling it must be ME that’s the bullshitter, the self-deluded one. I over-think, over-analyse. People generally make me quite paranoid as I try to figure them out, usually, probably wrongly, coming to the conclusion that the reason it doesn’t ‘work’ is because there is something wrong with me and that everyone knows it, too. In my head everyone is judging me.

I come away from social encounters and conversations drained and exhausted, and at times in my life when I am drained and exhausted already, it tends to mean I end up retreating from friendships as a sort of survival tactic. Well, that’s how I would see it. You are allowed to label it ‘selfish’ because it probably is.

It’s almost like I have a limited supply of emotional energy – if my own life is using too much of it, I find there’s none left for other people.

Actually, that’s exactly what it’s like.

Last year when my marriage started to break down, so did many of my friendships. I was barely functioning at times and it took all my available energy to try and keep going, keep my relationship with my husband semi-functional, and, of course, feed the emotional vortex that is Kai. I find motherhood INTENSELY emotionally tiring – that alone is sometimes enough to use up my ‘supply’ for a time. Even blog-reading and answering emails became too much. So many people’s lives and situations. I ran out of words.

And so friends began to drop out of my life, or move to the periphery at least, and I felt guilt and hurt but there wasn’t an awful lot I could do. I didn’t have it in me to do anything but keep my head down and keep going. And I’m still as bad now. I find myself at a point in my life where I’m almost desperate for friendship and social contact, but, ironically, without the energy to cope with them.

What makes it harder is that so many people are a good friend to ME. So many people that take the time to reach out, and every single time it means the world to me. And these are people with their own problems, their own taxes on their emotional energy. But I just can’t seem to reciprocate in kind, and honestly, the guilt is one of the hardest things I’m finding to live with at the moment. Because people get hurt, don’t they? If people they care about don’t seem to want to bother with them?

The few very close friends I have are still there because they get it. They allow me my hedgehog mentality of curling up into a ball when the world gets too much and they don’t take it personally. They just wait, patiently, or give me a very gentle prod (of which I need many), and I am eternally grateful for them. But I can’t expect that of everyone. And I think people get bored, to be honest. If you can’t be the life and soul of the party all the time, sustain energy and enthusiasm and positivity, then the shiny person sitting next to you becomes far more appealing. It has always been an extroverts world, and always will be.

I know I’m doing my best. And I can’t be everyone’s best friend. But I wish I could do better. I wish I could be what the many kind people in my life deserve.

I am trying. And if I’m your friend, then please know I’m doing my best. Know that the gestures I do make come from my heart, and if I retreat for a bit it’s not because of you or because I’ve stopped caring. It is never, ever because I’ve stop caring.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say really. But there, it’s out.

Thanks for not going away.

Image credit: spacecookypk

Related posts: