Hindsight

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I'm always so naïve when it comes to friendships. When I was in elementary school, I thought I had friends but they would come and go and inviting me was an afterthought. In middle school in the throes of puberty, I had someone I considered a friend but they were incredibly toxic and made me more depressed. High school was horrible. People who I thought were my friends but were really just using me to cheat on tests and do group projects for them. Now in college, I have people I talk to, but no one I would call my best friend and certainly no one who's calling me theirs. I have one friend from high school that I love and feel confident telling anything but we're on opposite sides of the country and don't talk as much because life gets in the way.

I'm so incredibly lonely. I meet people and want to be friends with them so I make plans to hang out and then I come off too strong. I don't push it and then I'm an antisocial b***h. When I finally think I've found a friend, they turn out not to be as nice as I thought. Are my standards too high? Is part of having a friend not liking them all that much?

My boyfriend says that people would love to be my friend and that they ask about me when they see him. I think that's just part of the pleasantries some people do. And if they wanted to be my friend so bad, why aren't they reaching out? There are people from class I want to get along with but hanging out outside of class is awkward. Why am I so bad at this?

This is long and more of a diary entry than anything else. I just know you guys will understand.

It's hardly just you and in a lot of cases people are so crappy that simply extending what should be bare minimum courtesy is taken as something significant. People really suck sometimes.

Honestly, I wouldn't really bother. Just find some activity that you like that other people engage in and do that. If you don't wind up making friends, then at least you've had some fun in the process. And it's certainly possible that you'll make friends if you're treating people with respect.

I've seen this before, sadly I don't have an explanation. Is it possible they're waiting for you to make an invitation? I know that in the situations I've seen, the person that feels excluded doesn't initiate interaction. Initiating isn't easy, so sometimes people just leave it to others.