I feel like I have a knack for making friends and then “moving on.” I make a friend, and before long, I stop being friends with him/her because of something that really begins to grate on my nerves. In general, I have a knack for letting small things and annoyances get in the way of potential long-term friendships. I go through periods when I would REALLY try to be a good friend, when I would go out of my way to be nice, to look people up from the past, to call them, and to catch up. Then I go through periods when I just would rather not call or talk or hang out with those same people because I see it as a burden to do so.
For example, there is a high school friend with whom I have tried to rekindle our friendship during the past couple of years. She is getting married two weeks from now, and I am choosing not to go. I am busy; I am too broke to buy a plane ticket; I am stressed out, but perhaps more importantly, I just really don’t want to make the effort. In another example, a college friend called me about a month ago, and I deleted the message and never called back. Just last week, I finally replied to an email from a friend who emailed weeks ago to catch up, and my email just basically said “sorry, life’s kinda rough. I’ll talk to you when I get a chance.”
What really got me thinking about all of this was a friend who called me out tonight for being “always too busy.” She told me “if you don’t make time to hang out with me now, you’ll never have time because you’ll just get busier.” She then went on to say something to the effect of “I’m really disappointed. When will we ever get to hang out?” Wow, can I be a worse friend?
Yes I feel bad, but not even THAT bad, which does make me a worse friend. In a way, I also feel angry. I feel like I have enough worries/issues in my life right now to not have to deal with friendship problems. If anything, my friends should be sympathetic to my cause, to my problems, and just let me be. The problem is that I don’t tell many people my problems, not even the people whom I call friends. So maybe in the end, they can’t even be sympathetic for me because they have no idea that I’m even having such a rough time.
I’m not sure why I keep problems/issues to myself. More than anything, I just feel like I have hit one of those “I’m not gonna take any crap from anybody” stages. I tell it as it is, hurting people in the process. I choose not to call people back because I really don’t care for their company. I screen my calls because I have such a mental block toward talking to most people. I look at my ringing phone a lot lately and just say “Uggghh” and press ignore.
I don’t even want to start talking about the people whom I semi-pretend to be friends with. Those people are completely on the back burner now. I don’t have the energy for girly pretenses of happiness when I see them. I never answer their calls; sometimes I even pretend that I don’t see them walking by in the hallway. I certainly don’t initiate any contact with them. I’m happy when I have legitimate excuses for not going to their parties.
So then the question is … is this temporary? Or is this the true self that I hide when I’m having better times? Am I an emotionally ugly person? Am I a transient friend who only calls when I need a favor? Or is this all because I just need some personal time and space right now?