Surprisingly, despite being a huge geek and a huge asshole, I've never actually had that big of a problem making friends. When I think about my time in school, I was actually friends with quite a few people, even my bullies at different times. Yet I'm not really so good at communications.
Although I'm really quiet at times and really loquacious at other times and get angry too quickly and hold grudges for like ever, until I forget why I'm angry, those actually don't feel like my biggest problem. Ironically, my biggest problem, in my opinion, is that I really just suck at using communication tools and keeping contact with people.
Sometimes it feels like I have no friends...and yet...if I were to actually think about it, I actually have a ton of friends...that I never talk to. So, are they really friends?
Is it all my fault or partially there's?
Probably mostly my fault. But maybe a little their's too.
But I know I suck at keeping up communication. Yet I still have a problem with it. I think about certain people all the time and think about calling them or writing an e-mail.
And yet, I still don't.
But when I do, it's like we never lost contact. We're just friends again like nothing happened.
Then we lose contact again.
I guess I'm a bad friend.
But I'm not really a bad friend. If they need me I'll be there. I just really suck at maintaining lines of communication. Then I get anxiety about the fact that I haven't contacted them in so long and worry if they hate me or if I was a horrible person or whatever.
Yeah...anxiety is a thing.
The weird this is that often I feel alone like I have no friends...and yet I could probably call an old friend or drop an email at any time. I could probably drop them a line and sleep on their couch or in their guest room if I was in their area and felt like I needed to.
I wish I didn't suck at communication so badly though, so I could still talk to my old friends that are spread all over the world.
Part of that could probably be fixed by just installing a multi-protocol IM client and figuring out some service that they all might be willing to use to stay in touch. Of course, that might mean I'll have to have it connected to Facebook. But this isn't the 90's or 00's where everyone uses messengers. Now everyone uses like text messaging, which sucks, because typing on a touch screen sucks.
But it's only partially technology's fault. Most of it's mine. It's not email's fault that I don't like writing emails or replying to them. I don't ever know what to say and have anxiety about it. It's also not the fault of MSN and AIM that everyone stopped using them. No...wait...it is totally their faults, because they didn't keep them up to date and bug free. But it's not their fault that people moved to phones and started using texting and different apps.
I could have tried harder. I could have found ways to keep in touch. I just suck and have anxiety and don't spend the time maintaining those relationships.
I suck.
Losing friends by emily792872 June 29, 2008 CC BY 2.0 (source)