2firstnaymz
Member
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2012
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
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Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to meet you. As I wrote in the intro thread, I googled 'why can't I keep friends' and landed here. This is my first post. I'll try to explain the reason I joined in as few words as possible because I get too wordy (a blessing and a curse). But I also want to avoid both repeating myself, and also saying the same things over again at a later date (though I cannot guarantee that will happen).
I am going to write way too much. I can just feel it. Maybe I'll even get banned.
My personality-related history in summary:
- I was "the new kid" at school in several different cities during the most critical time of one's childhood (preteen to most of high school); thus, always an outsider, bullied, with a few back-stabbing friends. (Some of this I brought on myself, but was - and possibly still am - unable to control the impulse to self-sabotage in this manner.) I believe piano lessons and love for all things music saved my life during this time period. These experiences, I believe, shaped me into one who possesses a self-deprecating sense of humor. During the moments I am actually maintaining a friendship, I am described as 'generous', 'thoughtful', 'cool', 'talented', 'funny', 'sensitive', 'eccentric' (I think it's the pink hair), 'emotional'. I see myself perhaps with a few of those qualities; but also 'lazy', 'gossipy', 'chubby', 'moody', 'somewhat self-centered', 'trying too hard', 'one who has zero fashion sense', 'paranoid' (perfect example: this post may very quickly become very heavily edited, or may even self-destruct completely within the next 48 hours).
- I am not close to my family emotionally, and as of the late 90s geographically, either. However, when I was younger, I was very close to my mother. She was killed in a car accident when I was in my early 20s (20 years ago). This was a severely devastating experience from which I will never recover. It has made an everlasting emotional impact on me and my outlook on life.
- I am a former addict (clean since 2001). I am also bipolar (which really comes in handy for maintaining lasting friendships! NOT) and have been involuntarily hospitalized once within the past five years. I am grateful that I am able to maintain stability really well with medication and without therapy.
- I am gainfully unemployed, somehow manage to lead a pretty low-stress life compared to many, and have been happily married for almost a decade. We have no children by choice (as yet, and it may be too late to have any biologically anyway.) I personally do not like children, frankly, but can fake it rather well. My pets are my children.
OK, enough of that. Told you I'm wordy!
What brought me here (at least the back story):
Two years ago I cut off my one long-term (13-year) friendship, which was psychologically abusive. (Not to mention the fact she was present at the beginning of my addiction, enabled it, did nothing to help, and didn't seem to really care that I got clean.) We met when I moved to this state. She was the only friend I had. She pulled many things over the years, but I stuck it out, because she did have a few good qualities. She got very, very sick, and I was there for her (thankfully she healed). But as I was becoming increasingly tired of her narcissism (and my letting her treat me like crap), the dealbreaker finally occured. It had been brewing for several months and finally boiled over. She decided she did not want to discuss a certain part of a subject she herself brought up often, and yelled at me over it. This happened several times over this particular subject, which is important to me - and that she had seemed to support overall, so the yelling made no sense to me. As I tried in vain to get her to just let me get the words out of my mouth, she would drown me out, leaving me frustrated, hurt, and even embarrassed. It was the last straw with us, in my mind. So I stopped talking to her after she cut me off and raised her voice for the last time. She didn't care enough to even ask why I stopped talking to her, or to even check to see if I was still among the living. At this point I concentrated on cultivating a friendship with a girl I once worked with. Well, last year this friend took a jokey comment the wrong way, and after blasting me about it via email after a few days of silence (no response to my 'you seemed quiet by the end of the night; you OK?') she stopped talking to me, even after I apologized and explained what I meant. What was really odd is that any normal person would have not found the comment to be so terrible. Eye-rolling, yes; goofy, perhaps; but definitely not something to get so angry about. That was my first taste of dumpness, which kinda surprised me, but we didn't have much in common and I probably tried too hard anyway. I definitely carried most of the weight in the relationship. Oh well, right? I'll check myself harder next time. I had made new friends to work with only months earlier, so I was already involved in a new project.
(Oy. I am trying to quickly wind this down. Would you believe I'm typing on a phone?)
So as I stated, just a few months before that fell apart, I placed an online ad for friendships. I hit it off with three women. Two dumped me within as many months, very recently. Overall, the first one wasn't that much of a loss, considering that over a 2-year period we probably hung out a half a dozen times. I admit it still left a ding in my self-esteem, because she was BRUTAL. I royally ticked her off; and since she was going through a very unfortunate time, I apologized for not being there the moment she "needed" me. I messed up. But not only did she reject my sincere apology and dismiss the times I tried to get in touch with her because she hadn't responded to me at all in weeks (even prior to what happened), she continued to scold me. More like deeply insult and disrespect me, to be truthful. She said some pretty cruel things - even about my mother! - and was completely out of line. *Then* she dumped me.
The trigger that brought me here is I just discovered I was dumped in a silent, yet very loud way. I do not know exactly when, I have absolutely no idea why, and how it was done was the biggest shock of all. Not even 24 hours have passed and I am actually now finding the "how" rather comical. For 2 reasons: it's so unexpected for her personality - and so unbelievably cliche: I was blocked from her stupid Facebook! I never look at the **** thing, let alone participate (paranoia). Less than 3 weeks ago, we went out for drinks, had a nice time. Few days later she sent me a Youtube video she liked; in turn I asked how she was doing, and shared this stupid medical ailment I was experiencing. Over the following couple weeks, I emailed her some benign things of interest. It then occurred to me yesterday I hadn't heard back from her since she sent the video, so I texted her to see if everything was alright. No response. Odd. Called, left a message. Nothing. Perhaps she posted some goings-on on Facebook. Wait...where are all her comments that were once on my wall?! Disappeared. And...I only had access to her profile. Maybe she did something accidentally with her settings. I texted her: 'I just checked FB to see if you posted recently and am blocked What happened?' She invited me a few months ago to follow her on Twitter, so I opened an account just so I can read her musings. Well, seems I'm no longer 'following' her! Immediately texted her again: 'And Twitter, too. :-( Wow.'
The kicker: She had gone through two major life changes since we met, both of which I had experienced, so I was her support system. I thought this brought us close and made our friendship unique, giving it the potential to last quite a long time. Did she get out of this friendship what she needed and quietly close the door? Kinda lame if that's the case, but if she would tell me the relationship had run its course, at least she's answering my question. I can accept that and move on; I'm a big girl. Or, did I screw up somehow *once again*? Either way...even though I am asking her outright for an explanation, I can't help but wonder if she will just refuse to respond, unfairly leaving me hanging with all my insecurities. Abruptly blocking online communication without giving a reason feels pretty bad and seems rather harsh in this situation. I can imagine she had been rolling her eyes for days, wondering when I will finally look at Facebook so I'd get the hint and would stop wasting her time with my emails. It makes me cringe, and I feel really dumb for being so clueless. Even the girl who dumped me over saying something stupid still allows me to read her posts!
I now have one friend left. Once I lose her, I will have reached Master Level in the game of Friend Loserness. It's only a matter of time. I am already bracing myself for a giant letdown.
That is all. Sorry for taking up so much of your time and letting me wallow in self-pity. I sincerely appreciate your reading all this, though.
I am going to write way too much. I can just feel it. Maybe I'll even get banned.
My personality-related history in summary:
- I was "the new kid" at school in several different cities during the most critical time of one's childhood (preteen to most of high school); thus, always an outsider, bullied, with a few back-stabbing friends. (Some of this I brought on myself, but was - and possibly still am - unable to control the impulse to self-sabotage in this manner.) I believe piano lessons and love for all things music saved my life during this time period. These experiences, I believe, shaped me into one who possesses a self-deprecating sense of humor. During the moments I am actually maintaining a friendship, I am described as 'generous', 'thoughtful', 'cool', 'talented', 'funny', 'sensitive', 'eccentric' (I think it's the pink hair), 'emotional'. I see myself perhaps with a few of those qualities; but also 'lazy', 'gossipy', 'chubby', 'moody', 'somewhat self-centered', 'trying too hard', 'one who has zero fashion sense', 'paranoid' (perfect example: this post may very quickly become very heavily edited, or may even self-destruct completely within the next 48 hours).
- I am not close to my family emotionally, and as of the late 90s geographically, either. However, when I was younger, I was very close to my mother. She was killed in a car accident when I was in my early 20s (20 years ago). This was a severely devastating experience from which I will never recover. It has made an everlasting emotional impact on me and my outlook on life.
- I am a former addict (clean since 2001). I am also bipolar (which really comes in handy for maintaining lasting friendships! NOT) and have been involuntarily hospitalized once within the past five years. I am grateful that I am able to maintain stability really well with medication and without therapy.
- I am gainfully unemployed, somehow manage to lead a pretty low-stress life compared to many, and have been happily married for almost a decade. We have no children by choice (as yet, and it may be too late to have any biologically anyway.) I personally do not like children, frankly, but can fake it rather well. My pets are my children.
OK, enough of that. Told you I'm wordy!
What brought me here (at least the back story):
Two years ago I cut off my one long-term (13-year) friendship, which was psychologically abusive. (Not to mention the fact she was present at the beginning of my addiction, enabled it, did nothing to help, and didn't seem to really care that I got clean.) We met when I moved to this state. She was the only friend I had. She pulled many things over the years, but I stuck it out, because she did have a few good qualities. She got very, very sick, and I was there for her (thankfully she healed). But as I was becoming increasingly tired of her narcissism (and my letting her treat me like crap), the dealbreaker finally occured. It had been brewing for several months and finally boiled over. She decided she did not want to discuss a certain part of a subject she herself brought up often, and yelled at me over it. This happened several times over this particular subject, which is important to me - and that she had seemed to support overall, so the yelling made no sense to me. As I tried in vain to get her to just let me get the words out of my mouth, she would drown me out, leaving me frustrated, hurt, and even embarrassed. It was the last straw with us, in my mind. So I stopped talking to her after she cut me off and raised her voice for the last time. She didn't care enough to even ask why I stopped talking to her, or to even check to see if I was still among the living. At this point I concentrated on cultivating a friendship with a girl I once worked with. Well, last year this friend took a jokey comment the wrong way, and after blasting me about it via email after a few days of silence (no response to my 'you seemed quiet by the end of the night; you OK?') she stopped talking to me, even after I apologized and explained what I meant. What was really odd is that any normal person would have not found the comment to be so terrible. Eye-rolling, yes; goofy, perhaps; but definitely not something to get so angry about. That was my first taste of dumpness, which kinda surprised me, but we didn't have much in common and I probably tried too hard anyway. I definitely carried most of the weight in the relationship. Oh well, right? I'll check myself harder next time. I had made new friends to work with only months earlier, so I was already involved in a new project.
(Oy. I am trying to quickly wind this down. Would you believe I'm typing on a phone?)
So as I stated, just a few months before that fell apart, I placed an online ad for friendships. I hit it off with three women. Two dumped me within as many months, very recently. Overall, the first one wasn't that much of a loss, considering that over a 2-year period we probably hung out a half a dozen times. I admit it still left a ding in my self-esteem, because she was BRUTAL. I royally ticked her off; and since she was going through a very unfortunate time, I apologized for not being there the moment she "needed" me. I messed up. But not only did she reject my sincere apology and dismiss the times I tried to get in touch with her because she hadn't responded to me at all in weeks (even prior to what happened), she continued to scold me. More like deeply insult and disrespect me, to be truthful. She said some pretty cruel things - even about my mother! - and was completely out of line. *Then* she dumped me.
The trigger that brought me here is I just discovered I was dumped in a silent, yet very loud way. I do not know exactly when, I have absolutely no idea why, and how it was done was the biggest shock of all. Not even 24 hours have passed and I am actually now finding the "how" rather comical. For 2 reasons: it's so unexpected for her personality - and so unbelievably cliche: I was blocked from her stupid Facebook! I never look at the **** thing, let alone participate (paranoia). Less than 3 weeks ago, we went out for drinks, had a nice time. Few days later she sent me a Youtube video she liked; in turn I asked how she was doing, and shared this stupid medical ailment I was experiencing. Over the following couple weeks, I emailed her some benign things of interest. It then occurred to me yesterday I hadn't heard back from her since she sent the video, so I texted her to see if everything was alright. No response. Odd. Called, left a message. Nothing. Perhaps she posted some goings-on on Facebook. Wait...where are all her comments that were once on my wall?! Disappeared. And...I only had access to her profile. Maybe she did something accidentally with her settings. I texted her: 'I just checked FB to see if you posted recently and am blocked What happened?' She invited me a few months ago to follow her on Twitter, so I opened an account just so I can read her musings. Well, seems I'm no longer 'following' her! Immediately texted her again: 'And Twitter, too. :-( Wow.'
The kicker: She had gone through two major life changes since we met, both of which I had experienced, so I was her support system. I thought this brought us close and made our friendship unique, giving it the potential to last quite a long time. Did she get out of this friendship what she needed and quietly close the door? Kinda lame if that's the case, but if she would tell me the relationship had run its course, at least she's answering my question. I can accept that and move on; I'm a big girl. Or, did I screw up somehow *once again*? Either way...even though I am asking her outright for an explanation, I can't help but wonder if she will just refuse to respond, unfairly leaving me hanging with all my insecurities. Abruptly blocking online communication without giving a reason feels pretty bad and seems rather harsh in this situation. I can imagine she had been rolling her eyes for days, wondering when I will finally look at Facebook so I'd get the hint and would stop wasting her time with my emails. It makes me cringe, and I feel really dumb for being so clueless. Even the girl who dumped me over saying something stupid still allows me to read her posts!
I now have one friend left. Once I lose her, I will have reached Master Level in the game of Friend Loserness. It's only a matter of time. I am already bracing myself for a giant letdown.
That is all. Sorry for taking up so much of your time and letting me wallow in self-pity. I sincerely appreciate your reading all this, though.