Discovering friends & surviving loneliness
I am going out on a limb here and being vulnerable so please go easy on me. I see memes with words like the one above making the rounds from time to time, they were much more prominent a decade ago.
This morning I had a dream where I made a new friend just days before leaving here, and that reminded me of how I have on occasion spent 5-6 hours having an amazing conversation with someone, come away feeling elated, only to never hear from them again? (I usually give my contact details, instead of asking for theirs). I thought we got on like a house on fire – how did I get it so completely wrong?
But get this, I want friends. Everyone want friends. If we as a species haven’t learned anything else from this last year, it is that we need each other, and we all want community in some shape or form.
I haven’t made any friends in C’cun, (and it’s not from lack of trying, except these last 18 months I simply have not bothered). There. I said it. The thing I am the most ashamed of having failed at in my life. Why is that? Why is it shameful to move somewhere and fail at making new friends locally?
I realize I am in an extreme situation here, but I want friends, wherever I eventually end up, not just acquaintances or drinking buddies etc. Introvert friends, to do introverted things with.
I’ve never been good at making friends, and now…talk about out of practice. But *I want to know where I’m going wrong*, because everywhere I go – I will be bringing myself, my insecurities etc. It’s been very lonely years here. I don’t want the rest of my life to be too. And my experience simply is not like the meme above, and I want it to be.
I think it is almost impossible for someone who attracts new friends with ease wherever they go to understand what it is like on the other end of the spectrum. And how absolutely excruciating the experience is to feel rejected by the world. You hear about people making friends absolutely everywhere and anywhere so why not me? What am I doing wrong?
Cats and dogs like me so I can’t be all bad?
Catpaws Cafe 