Case
Well-known member
I don't want acquaintances. I don't want superficiality. I want real friends who'll listen, who'll emote, and who'll see me as kindred in some way.
At some point in my life, I made a conscious decision to choose only those friends who were open to sharing deep emotions with me. It's like I wanted people I could vent to, open up to, spill my guts to, without judgment, and I'm not sure that was a healthy decision.
Why? Because choosing only the friends who I can share my deepest feelings with limits my options. It limits my friends into two categories: Actual friends, and near strangers. With me, there seems to be no middle ground. Either you emote with me, either you tell me your darkest secrets and listen to mine, or you fall into the periphery of my world. I am suddenly wondering if this is wise. I am wondering if this isn't the biggest mistake I am currently making.
I can count only three people in my life (not counting here) who are willing to listen to my BS, my sad-sack stories of loneliness, my stories of the attempts to change this. I have a certain number of Facebook friends, and I can maybe name ten of them who I actually care about. (I don't mean that I wish the others harm, only that the others are not close enough to me to know my birthday, know the name of my family members, or have my phone number.) Anyway, about those three, as we all know, no one likes being around someone who isn't happy. No one chooses to be friends with a burden, and I fear losing what little support I have.
It's become clear to me that many people are too busy or afraid to emote this deeply, so these barriers make it increasingly difficult to make real friends. For many, it's too painful to open up like I wish. And so they drop away, out of my preferred circle.
So, is the answer not emoting and being superficial to people? I wish I could be the kind of guy who enjoyed small-talk with these peripheral people, the ones who'll never be truly close to me. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone. And even though I'd have superficial contact with these people, superficial contact is better than no contact at all.
Deep connections still matter to me, and I try to make them whenever I can, but if my standards for friendship are so specific that I refuse to be a part of someone's life who won't show me their inner selves, what am I but an emotional elitist? What am I but someone who demands friends who pass my silly tests for expressing emotion?
Wouldn't it me better to make tons of meaningless, superficial friends? Or, should I just be thankful that I have the three intermittent friends that allow me to be real with them when they have the time for me?
Have you attempted to cultivate more superficial friends for the same reasons?
At some point in my life, I made a conscious decision to choose only those friends who were open to sharing deep emotions with me. It's like I wanted people I could vent to, open up to, spill my guts to, without judgment, and I'm not sure that was a healthy decision.
Why? Because choosing only the friends who I can share my deepest feelings with limits my options. It limits my friends into two categories: Actual friends, and near strangers. With me, there seems to be no middle ground. Either you emote with me, either you tell me your darkest secrets and listen to mine, or you fall into the periphery of my world. I am suddenly wondering if this is wise. I am wondering if this isn't the biggest mistake I am currently making.
I can count only three people in my life (not counting here) who are willing to listen to my BS, my sad-sack stories of loneliness, my stories of the attempts to change this. I have a certain number of Facebook friends, and I can maybe name ten of them who I actually care about. (I don't mean that I wish the others harm, only that the others are not close enough to me to know my birthday, know the name of my family members, or have my phone number.) Anyway, about those three, as we all know, no one likes being around someone who isn't happy. No one chooses to be friends with a burden, and I fear losing what little support I have.
It's become clear to me that many people are too busy or afraid to emote this deeply, so these barriers make it increasingly difficult to make real friends. For many, it's too painful to open up like I wish. And so they drop away, out of my preferred circle.
So, is the answer not emoting and being superficial to people? I wish I could be the kind of guy who enjoyed small-talk with these peripheral people, the ones who'll never be truly close to me. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone. And even though I'd have superficial contact with these people, superficial contact is better than no contact at all.
Deep connections still matter to me, and I try to make them whenever I can, but if my standards for friendship are so specific that I refuse to be a part of someone's life who won't show me their inner selves, what am I but an emotional elitist? What am I but someone who demands friends who pass my silly tests for expressing emotion?
Wouldn't it me better to make tons of meaningless, superficial friends? Or, should I just be thankful that I have the three intermittent friends that allow me to be real with them when they have the time for me?
Have you attempted to cultivate more superficial friends for the same reasons?