Worried you have no friends?
I wish life were a fantasy. It would then be easy for us to just change everything because fantasies have an easy way of going about things, like from having zero to many close friends.
Unfortunately this is real life. And in real life things are different. They take time. Decisions have consequences. Every action has a reaction.
I’ve got a lot that needs changing in my life. I worry that there are somethings messed up too much, it is hard to see what would be sufficient as a way out. On the top of that list for me, is my relationships. I worry I have alienated myself too much from people. I worry that I have too many acquaintances, but very few if any lifers- you know- people I can truly do life with- and I worry that I it may be too late. I wonder if anyone relates to this kind of situation… Surrounded by people but no people in your life?
Honestly, someone should have at least told us how difficult adulting is. I wish I had realized sooner just what it practically looks like for “decisions have consequences” where relationships are concerned. That you cannot spend you own time alone too much just because you like it that way, and have great relationships with people at the same time.
Relationships are transactional at their core, time in time out, honor in honor out. You spend time with people, you have people in your life, you spend your time by yourself, you have yourself in your life.
Anyhow no one told me, or at least when it was said I didn’t get it, so here we are, where I am presently walking in the consequences of my choices. I have liked “my own space” too much, now I mostly have only me in my space, and it is not a funny place to be at. I actually doubt if this article even sounds coherent at all. Perhaps I should just get to the point, then may be I may hope to make some sense at the end of it.
I feel like I have no friends, but I can blame no one but myself. I also know it is a fact that there are many in their twenties who feel the same way, we may just have arrived at the same feeling differently. Personally, I have slowly been ghosting and isolating people from my life over the years until the present status of being actually almost fully friendless. See, it’s not like I do not have people in my life, for the most part I have just not involved them in my life. It is not as if I haven’t had people try to stay connected with me, I have just been in my “own world” way too much for anyone to get in. I have also just happened to stay in this world of mine for way too long, that by the time I am coming back to reality, the world has moved on a lot. I heard this scary statement, you know how much you matter or not by when your absence means something, because it means your presence counts. Sadly, I seem to have been on a trajectory where neither my absence or presence makes a difference except with my family, I never want to be in such a space again.
I may be an introvert( this is a twist because I have considered myself an extrovert most of my life) but deep down I know I like being with people. So imagine what it is like to be half way through through my twenties and realize I potentially may need to start at zero where true good and meaningful relationships are concerned in my life?
Anyhow, so, friends.
I must sound like a broken record with all this potentially very sad confession. It is mostly not as bad as it sounds. It is just a sobering realization, one that has me concerned but grateful. I know you could be thinking, “Why not just privately journal about this if you are so concerned how it may come across?’
Well, my thoughts too, but I have a small curse of needing completion of processes a certain way. I happen to process things better by writing. I only hope the upside to my curse is that people who go through things they think are too shameful or private to talk about find their voice in my public TMI(too much information) moments.
There is a time earlier this year I was struggling to feel like I belong anywhere, and I think as a result no space I was in felt enough. I did not find or feel belonging in school, or church, or work, or anywhere really, and I worried I may have been going crazy, so I went to therapy. I have journaled about this and even talked to a life coach about it, it has just not been enough, but here when I write about it It finally feels complete and enough. Perhaps it is because one cannot truly process their state of being connected to other humans with an inanimate journal that cannot really talk back, correct, advise or encourage. Whatever the reason, like consuming a drug is to an addict, horrible an analogy as that is, writing is the part of my process that helps me find completion, so bear with me. And perhaps in the process, find out what makes your own process of dealing with things complete.
Anyhow, if you have stayed on reading this, you truly are a legend, because how else can I explain you putting up with my apparent self-centeredness? Haha, I like to consider myself a millennial because I am a first born, but I think it is inescapable to have gen-z tendencies of too much focus on self just because I am a first born. Worry not though dear reader, I am doing some internal work I see resulting in a more whole some approach to life that focus on just myself.
Anyhow, if I may come back to the article, I think anyone who is in their twenties or has ever been in their twenties has had times when they felt like their life was just a collections of errors. You know those times when it feels like the rag is being pulled from under your feet and you mostly are clueless what you should do about it. I will take back the part where I think it’s everyone who has felt like that, I think it is just me and a few more around the world who’ve not figured out their lives like other twenty-year old's around us seem to have. I am low key laughing at this last statement given that I am the one who also recently wrote an article about what a tragedy it is to compare ourselves with others. But how can we not compare ourselves when social media is so up and loud in our faces, and “everyone” you know is just posting about how fabulous their lives are, and how they are having the best times of their life? It is difficult to even process anything one could be going through because it almost feels like there are things everyone is doing right that one isn’t. And then how can you talk about or post about going through a hard time, when it seems like “everyone else” is at the peak of their lives?
To be honest, what I am saying in all this is that I am not writing for everyone. It is impossible to because we are all at such different stages in our lives, whether we are of the same age or not, and the factors influencing our lives are also so different for us to be in a position to tell the same story.
I am writing this for someone going through a hard time in this “cheerful” season who feels like they cannot talk about what they are going through, because they perhaps feel like they would be being weird, or odd, or no one relates. Trust me, if you are any such person as I wish to reach, you are not going through an isolated experience.
I do feel like there is someone going through a hard time this Christmas season, but given the ‘positivity’ surrounding us, it almost feels like there is something wrong with them, and so they cannot talk about it. It is feeling like you are not even permitted to feel like you do, like some switch is all wrong in your soul, for you to also not be giving happy reports in a season such as this. I am here to hopefully comfort someone. It is Christmas yes, but my reflection about this year has me worried about many things, my relationships being at the center of it. I know there are some people in family reunions they wish they could disappear from right now, others are in their local villages facing shame over not having as much money as they wish they had or as much as their relatives expect them to have; or may be it is none of that, Christmas just happens to not be a cheerful season for you. Then there are others like me whose minds have switched to 2023, because they have been reflecting over their year.
But given that I had only aimed to focus on relationships in this article, here is how I wish to conclude. An honest assessment of my decisions this year has me facing the reality that I could have done better where my relationships were concerned this year. There are many spaces I did not show up, commitments I selfishly cancelled, many times I picked my “own space” over other people, and as much as I hate to admit it, there are many people I have dishonored this year. I have dishonored people by failure to show up, and I believe that how much time we sacrificially invest in others either shows how much we value them or not, words or good intentions do not mean much.
Part of my work at therapy has had me realize that I have continued doing my adult relationships avoidantly as I did as a child. We have all grown up different, and whether we like it or not, how we grew up does affect how we relate with others. Mine was a peculiar home and village that I can only discuss sufficiently in a book. The summary of it though was that mine was not a home or village of forming friendships, or collaborating with others, or having best friends. However, while this may have been the case, I cannot afford walking down that same path, I am not a child any more. A person I look up to a lot often says that “Leadership is not for children”, and this is true even for how we relate with others.
We all do relationships differently. Some of us are more lonely than others, and some of us are having lives fuller than others. But either way relationships do play a huge role in how we feel, how we experience life. It is also true that some of us do relationships better than others. Some of us have faced traumas in our lives that make it hard to let people in, we do not even realize when we have isolated ourselves and iced people out until it is or feels too late.
Here’s the thing though, the world cares little for the things we have gone through. Yes our traumas may have affected us in such a way that we so easily alienate people from our lives. But our traumas do not exempt us from being held to the same standards. If it takes having people actively involved in our lives for us to a full life experience, then no amount of trauma we have gone through that causes us to naturally isolate will exempt us from needing people. Our traumas will also not exempt us from being expected to reciprocate respect and honor to others if we want to have fulfilling relationships. Our traumas just mean that we have more to do, so that we can have fuller life experiences. It is good to know your trauma because it does affect you, but be careful that it does not became a clutch and excuse for not doing better.
My work for 2023 is clearly cut out for me, I want to honor the people I have in my life, on every level.
The truth is that we each know our souls, and so you can somehow tell what is missing in your soul to feel complete. And because this was about relationships, and was not written for everyone, but for those who may relate to wanting more people in their lives, for those who do feel like they have no friends, I pose a question: if you relate to this, what do you need to do more in 2023?
I wish you a good time as you reflect, lets run 2023.
Happy holidays and a happy new year.
