Musing About Friendship

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I'm not sure if this wouldn't be better off in the Haven really.

In recent times I've been rather spoiled by having a very good friendship. But for reasons beyond my control, I only have sporadic and unsatisfying contact with them now, and I don't know if it will improve or not in the future. I miss them. I feel pretty lucky to have had any friendship at all though, I can go decades without having anyone in my life who I feel really able to connect with and has time for me.

I feel a bit at the mercy of fate when it comes to friends. I can do certain things to relate well with people or not, but there's a big difference between friendly relations, and having a 'friendship'. Having a good friendship seems like something that happens to me by accident, and it's not something I can consciously create or cook up from scratch.

I seem to be very very fussy about socialising, I guess because I find it difficult and tiring and I have such specific parameters about what I find gratifying about socialising. Even with the internet at my disposal, even through websites like WP, I can't seem to connect with people who have the correct mixture of qualities and interests that I seem to require of a friend.

Likewise, I think that I give a very specific kind of 'relational energy' in return, and I often feel that I'm not a great friend for most people. I just don't give out anything they want. I don't resonate with other people's concerns, interests, tastes, ideas, style of relating etc. etc. I guess that's autism then, yes?

Anyway, ramble end. Maybe you'd like to add some thoughts to mine, or examine your own relationship with friendship, positive or negative.

I have been spoiled with friends, myself. I have one friend who I have known since I was what... twelve? She and I have twenty years of pretty consistent friendship. She and I just seem to click... we are both odd individuals, and I think I am lucky to have her. She is like my sister who is sometimes my girlfriend. It is unconventional but it works.

I have another guy that found me years ago... he kind of adopted me as his little sister. He is an internet friend I have spoken with for maybe ten years now? I do not know if it has been that long. I am bad with time. How he found me was funny... we had myspace pages and were both friends with this crazy subgenius, pope perro page. He liked my user name and sent me this insane email about taking me on a tour of his town in a shopping cart and from then on we were cool. He disappears on me though. I have no room to complain because I am notorious for disappearing on others. I really miss him when he hides or when I hide. Right now he is on hide mode. I want my big brother back. Not a lot of people know me, get me, or understand me. For some reason, the man does. My husband once told me that guy is my soul mate. I agree, the best friendships happen accidentally... like you fall bassackwards into them.

But yeah, I am not always a great friend. I fail to consistently respond to emails, I hate going out or talking on the phone. I need so much alone time that I push people away due to self induced isolation. I can only be around others for so long before I hide. I am very interested in what I am interested in and not at all into what I am not into. Being female, people often expect that I will be nurturing and empathic, which I am not. I suck when it comes to dealing with the emotional, 'I need to cry on your shoulder' part of friendship. I freak out when people cry and fight the urge to shove kleenex at people and yell while running away, "Tell the tissue, the tissue knows and the tissue understands!". I imagine I do not have much to offer to start with... I have even less to give that people actually want to receive. And then if they want what I have to offer, I will freak out on them in time and run away from them. I only have certain times in my life where I really care to interact with others and can do so without being all stressed out. I am like the anti friend. Heh. Oh and I scare people as well. I think I am just too weird for most people.

Sorry you are missing your friendship. I hope things change for the better in your near future.

I'm sorry about your friendship also. Is there any hope it'll revive sometime in the future?

I have friendships of two kinds.

1) The kind where the other person due to being really outgoing/nice pretty much did all the work of forming the friendship and stays in touch with me.

2) Friendships where I actually made an equal effort. Closest friendships I've had. However I usually can't sustain this effort due to the thing telling me "you're boring, you're annoying, stop wasting their time."

some people have to learn how to become their own best friends.

*echoes those who are sorry about you missing your friendship*

However... in my experience, friendships go through lulls and quiet periods. Most of my friendships consist mainly of that downtime, but there is almost always an implicit assumption that the friendship remains even if there's been barely any contact for months.

If you find socialising difficult and tiring, then breaks from it, even if they do make you miss people, are probably a good thing, as sustaining anything difficult for too long, particularly if you aren't really enjoying it, is a fast path to burnout.

This

I can very much relate to your post.

For me, I'm quite sure that I don't know how to be a good friend. Maybe it's impossible for me to have what it takes, no matter how much energy I put into it. People always seem to expect me to know what to do, and I don't.

I think that for most people I'm too much of a cipher, a blank person-shaped space to which they can't really relate in a way that's meaningful for themselves. That said, I think all of my current friendships have had lulls and then reconnections because it was natural for the time. I find that relationships of any sort that involve me tend to end when either side runs out of things to learn about the other.

It took a while for me to learn that I don't particularly like relationships that don't work for both sides; I can't find the energy in myself to sustain enthusiasm on my side when the other side's not interested. And it seems that in very short order, the other side discovers that if I've got no enthusiasm for them, there's nothing for them at all.