The Trouble with Friends

You've heard me blog (too much I think) these past few months about friendship troubles.  The good news is that I don't have anything specific drama to talk about (Whew!), but I read a recent blog post by the magnificent Mockingbird, Don't Write entitled At Least My Mama Loves Me.

Of course, our stories and such are different, but she so eloquently writes the thoughts in my head I often struggle with in regard to friendships, especially female friendships.  Don't get me wrong, I have a handful of very dear friends with whom I trust all my venting, happy ranting, and disappointments - and vice versa - but that number has been desperately dwindling the past few years as life pulls them away, both figuratively and geographically. 

The hard part, for me, is making new friends.  Not acquaintances, I have lots of those!  And I love our time spent together.  Sometimes I wish it could be more, but even if we both would like to be better friends, it is hard as an adult to do that when you have SO MANY obligations and priorities. 

Anyway, without further ado, I want to give you the excerpts of the blog that are worded so well I couldn't even try to explain it any better:

"I often feel like making friends will always be my greatest challenge. It has been for as long as I can remember, and despite dalliances into friendships along life’s dusty trails I’ve found only a few people with whom I share my intimate self with, and even they tend to fade off into the background after only a few, short years of contact. I’m not sure if I’m a bad friend or if I just have bad taste. I can easily assume it’s a fair balance of both. And though I really like me, and really think I’m a barrel of monkeys, I totally get why others might not share my enthusiasm for myself, and toe the line between friend and acquaintance, *just in case* I’m mentally unstable. "

"Nonetheless, when a friendship sours before it’s had the chance to ripen on the vine, my heart hurts a bit and I wonder, “Is it me?” And it probably is me, in some small way or another. For I have made the same conscious decisions not to aggressively pursue friendships with certain other women, for various and sundry reasons, so I too understand that these things just happen. But when it happens over, and over again, you get a little down on yourself, and you smile at yourself a little less when you look in the mirror, and you crack fewer jokes for a few weeks, and you sleep a little more restlessly than usual."

"[...]You gave it your all. But your all wasn’t good enough. Because you really just had no idea what I’d gone through before you got me. [...]You don’t know. And it ain’t your fault. You never got the Cliff Notes on [me], and it’s not your fault. It really isn’t your fault."

"But it is what it is. And I am what I am. And tonight I’m sad that I can’t seem to make friends, despite my attempts at normalcy and approachability. I don’t even blame people when they scootch back anymore. It’s more a ho-hum it was good while it lasted kinda feeling, and an eye-balling nod your direction as you slip out the door, your own eyes glued to the floor. It’s okay. You gave it all you had. You just never got the reference book, and no one can blame you for that."