Something's Missing

I have a confession. I don't know how to make friends. I mean, it's easy in theory, right? You find someone with whom you have something in common, and you pursue friendship. You exchange phone numbers, make arrangements to hang out, share things you like... and if you're lucky the other person will be into it too.

Here's the thing though. I don't know if I've ever really had a true friend. Maybe when I was a kid, but as an adult? I feel like most of the people that I've let in and thought were my friends have all eventually let me down. Either something big happened that ended the friendship, or I realized that it was very one sided, or both. I'm kind of lonely.

Aw hell. Now I'm crying like a fool. I suck.

I guess I'm just feeling down lately. I've been having the feeling that I want to entertain lately. That was a big part of the reason why I wanted out of the apartment; there was really no space there to have people over. The thing is though that I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I invite people over they will say no. Or even worse, they'll say yes then cancel at the last minute. Did you know that is one of the things that I hate worst on this Earth? I don't want to invite people over too far in advance of a certain date, because I don't want them to have time to have something better come up, and cancel on me at the last minute after I've already spent time and energy preparing for them. I also don't want to invite them too close to a certain date because they may already have plans. I certainly don't want to make that certain date an Important Date, such as a holiday, because sure someone else will have something more fun/exciting going on than I will and people would rather go to that.

No one is going to want to come to my party because I don't have a pool, I don't have a grill, I don't have lawn games, I don't have and can't afford large amounts of alcohol...

I do have "friends." Those people who I've known for years, who I worked with, who I hang out with during football season on Sundays. The people who come to my kid's birthday party. The people with whom I've rung in countless New Years. They're just not the people who I would call to chat for no reason, and they wouldn't just drop by my house on any random day for a visit though.

You know what I would be happy with? Just one good friend. One who not only I can call without worry whenever, wherever, but one who will call me too. And not just when they want to bitch about something, or everything, but just to hang out and spend time together for no reason at all. Someone who I can tell anything, and they can tell me anything. A real and true best friend.

I thought I had a best friend. I thought I had someone like that. Looking back, I didn't. I couldn't call her whenever, because she was always too busy, or had to clean her house, or do school work, or was with her boyfriend. If she called me, it was to complain about her job, her mom (she lived with her), her relationship. My problems were insignificant and unimportant compared to hers. On the rare occasions we spent time together, just the two of us, she spent the entire time on her Blackberry, texting her boyfriend, her mom, her friends from work.

More often than not, she was too busy to spend time with me. I lived too far out of her way, even though she drove past my house to see her boyfriend and stay the night with him four or five nights a week. If I invited her over for dinner, she was always too tired, or had plans, or was on some weird diet and couldn't eat my cooking. A couple of times, when I asked if she wanted to hang out, she told me she wanted to see if her work friends were doing anything "fun" and she'd get back to me. I always had to call her, I had to be the one to go see her, I had to be the one to do the work if I wanted the privilege of being her friend.

I've spent a lifetime feeling like a bother. I was a bother to my mother, to my teachers, to the other kids at school who were always older and cooler than me because I had skipped a grade. I've always felt like an afterthought, someone to be squeezed in at the last minute, someone to be pitied because I wasn't as cool, or as pretty, or as fun as the other girls. Someone who people hung out with because their moms made them. I was too young, too nerdy, not ever good enough.

After I had Bubba I joined a playgroup so that I could get to meet other moms. I thought that if I found a group of women that were of a similar age and station of life that I was it would increase the odds of friendships being formed. In the two years that I've belonged to the group, I've seen that my initial thought was correct - friendships have been formed, just not with me. All my life that is the story. Friendships are always formed, but not with me. I always walk home alone.

I know a lot of it is my own fault. I'm afraid to reach out. When I do, and I fail, it feels like that failure just gets added to that lifetime heap of other failures and it makes me want to retreat all over again. I had my first play date here a few weeks back. The day before it happened there were seven people and two maybes scheduled to show. I was so excited! Then only two showed up. I was grateful for the two, but still, I felt like a failure. It's like I'm five and no one wanted to come to my party and even though I'm 33 going on 34 it still freaking hurts.

I've told people to let me know when they want to get together, that I'll come to their house if they want, call me if you need anything, just let me know! Do you know how often the words "I'm always home" are typed or spoken by me? Yet, no one calls, no one asks, and so I drop it.

I'm lonely. I just want one friend, just one true friend. I don't think I'm asking for too much. I kills me that I was in the hospital for over a week last fall and when I got home, I had three, count them THREE notifications on Facebook. THREE, after an entire week. Not one was anybody asking what had happened to me, or where I was. Not one person missed me.

I'm scared to call people, because I don't want to bother them. I can't call during the day because they're at work. I can't call after work, because they need a chance to unwind. I can't call in the early evening, because they may be eating dinner. I can't call after dinner, because they may be trying to watch their favorite tv show. I can't call later because they'll probably be in bed because they have to work tomorrow. In my mind, everyone else has more important lives, more important jobs, less free time, more people who are priority above me, and better things to do. I'm so scared to be a bother, to the point it paralyzes me sometimes. I just don't call. Therefore, no one calls me either. I know it goes both ways.

I know that nobody wants to read a whiny "woe is me" type missive as they go through their daily blog reading. Unfortunately, when the blog is a journal that's what you get sometimes. I just have been thinking so much about this lately and I had to get it off my chest. I'm supposed to have a support system in place but right now, it starts and ends with my husband. That makes me sad.