August 02, 2021 - Relationships

I am addressing something that has bothered me for quite some time. The impermanence of relationship.

 

Not merely in the sense of a romantic partner or spouse but friends, coworkers, neighbors and even family members. I have been concerned for years that keeping in touch with people is something everyone else is good at, but I just never learned the skill to do so. I have wondered if my family’s moving so often when I was a child didn’t let me learn how to maintain relationships over years and years as I was never in one city long enough to get to that point until I was in Eighth Grade.

 

Even now I worry and wonder why I feel as thought I am lacking some essential skill element when it comes to maintaining long term relationships.

One factor for me is my innate shyness along with an over-developed fear of rejection. The first trait is something that a lot of people who think they know me, will say is not true. However, just because I can fake being social does not mean it is easy and they do not see the emotional toll it takes on me to keep up that façade for more than a couple of hours. When I was younger my tendency to stay on the sidelines, not initiate interactions and take my time trying to understand the dynamics of any new group of people made kids label me quickly as “standoffish”, “arrogant”, “smug” or as if I thought I was better than they were. Which meant they did not invite me into groups or friendship circles. When in reality I was trying to see where I might fit in and identify others with similar interests. But that is a process that takes me as long as it takes, and rushing to join a group has backfired on me badly in the p
ast.

 

And that memory leads to times when my being seen as “separate” from my peers has meant not just emotional hurt, but physical as well. Which I will explore in a later posting.

 

I have been thinking back on various friends I have had through work, or church, or an interest group that I no longer see / speak to / or even know how to contact.

 

•          S: I actually ended this friendship when I had to report her to CPS for things she was doing around her son.
  
  
•          R – L – A – K – S – R – T – C: All friends from various jobs. These are the women I would have lunch with, see a movie, grab a drink or just hang out. Yet even though I know I made the effort to check in after I left those jobs (through voice messages and emails) – one by one they stopped responding. And vague promises of getting together never happened. A part of me wonders if I did anything wrong that pushed them away – or was I merely kidding myself about them being my friend.
  
  
•       L – T – R – H – J – K – D: These are the relationships that hurt the most. And that I grieve the most. The ones where I continued to reach out over and over and over and over. Sometimes for years, until I finally had to accept that for whatever reason they no longer wanted me in their lives in any capacity. These are the ones that made me feel used, as if I was merely a convenience at the time, and that they no longer wanted to be bothered with.
  
  
•       A – E – G – S – N – L: People that I really extended myself for emotionally, physically or financially. The ones that left me feeling like a major idiot who let them take advantage of me, because I hate confrontation. The ones that make me question whether I can really trust anyone and yet do I really want to be that cynical.

It can be too easy for people to spout platitudes such as “You are just not their cup of tea”, “Some people are only meant to stay a season…” or “You deserve to be treated better”.

 

But it still hurts, and for me it still begs the question about whether moving about as often as we did when I was young affected the way I approach relationships – or is this just a part of my nature.