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How often do you feel like your relationships with people is 'so close, yet so far?'
Today's post is, literally, a literal baring of my heart on my struggles. I contemplated this post for a while, but in the end I knew I needed to come clean if aiming for WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) transparency in character.
Prescript: In the post below, 'you' is a general implication for more than one person, as I have to admit that many, many of my friendships are like what I'm describing below. I just want to tell people this because I really feel that I owe my friends something that I'd held back for a long time, some since I was quite young.
If you* are one of those (many such) friends of mine who I talk freely online or other non-confrontational means, or that I've known since young but seldom talked to you, but either don't talk with or maintain very low profile conversations with you when I see you face to face on a regular basis, hear me out here.
I don't know about you (perhaps you prefer befriending me like this or have no problem with it) but I actually am not content at all with this kind of friendship that I'm showing you. I admit that I was keeping my distance from you, not because I don't like you or don't want to get to know you - in fact normally it's the other way round - but it is a struggle for me to open up to people, especially if I really do like you and show interest in your life (like in the friendship sort of way I mean, I'm using this word in that sense throughout this post) because I'm afraid that you won't like me even though I like you. I doubt that you actually know how much I'm interested in your life.
I see your life as way more interesting than mine, and that I'm not worthy of being a good friend. I hear voices in my head pretty often that tell me that I don't meet the standard to be a good friend to anyone because I'm shy, talk softly, am extremely afraid of being laughed at for being silly or showing imperfections (which is why you won't see me listing (or playing) my favorite songs in front of you or in the shower.), and can't make interesting conversations as I don't 'get' stuff fast (for example, say what about that kid you saw yesterday?). You can see this as a list of personal struggles that haunts me, constantly.
If you know me, I come across as aloof, cool, 'little miss perfect' and almost unapproachable and unfriendly (I try to make up for that once I get to know you though...) I don't make friends fast, and not in huge numbers, and that's always been a source of disappointment to me. I know that I'm actually not fully an introvert - somewhere in between would be more accurate, but that's how many people see me. (Not that introversion is a bad thing, it's natural for many people actually, however I also know when I'm really being myself I'm not a full introvert...!)
Many times I do have a full list of questions that I want to ask you when I see you - the reason I use Facebook, blogs and other social media is mainly to find out what's going on in your life so that I have things that I can talk to you about when I see you. It's hard for me to just come up to you and say 'Hey, what's up' when I see you - I want to do it but at the same time feel these kinds of formalities as an obligation - 'if I don't say hi to that person they'll think 'she's stuck up', so I'd better say it' but then I also chicken out because, what if you don't feel happy when I greet you? I'd better be genuine than force it out. Even better, I'd joke to you about the cute cat I saw yesterday.
In a nutshell, I don't know how to open up to you, and for my weakness, I want to apologize for robbing you of much of my friendship.
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What I really want is being able to sit beside you or spend time with you and just casually talk about life - I'd ask you, for example, about that guy/girl you like, how you feel about your studies, or something that you are involved in, but how exactly do I do it? Butt in and just start talking? In the same way after that, ideally you'd also reciprocate by asking and show interest in my life, for example how I'm coping with school, about my writing, my future plans, etc. No reservations, no holding back.
That, for me, would be a big step - no, a leap in growing up.
Images taken from here and here.
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