You're an angry blade, and you're brave but you're all alone...

[allfireburns]

I've spent the last week or so feeling like I'm fourteen years old and in fucking high school again. And the more I feel like that, the more I realize - when I guess it never really sank in, before - just how much my childhood screwed me up.

It's no one's fault, really. Part of it's the military brat thing - and not all military brats are even like this, it's just that I got moved around a lot more than most. And my mom lived across the country, and my dad was being deployed all the time, and my siblings were much more socially apt than I ever was, so they made friends easily where it usually took me a year or two, and by then we'd be moving again, and... I got used to being lonely. To not being able to count on anyone, because even when they might want to help, they probably won't be available when I need them.

I never learned how to hang onto friends when I moved away, or they did - I usually let go as quickly as possible, because at least there's a clean cut then. When I got into huge blowout fights with my friends, I never learned how to fix it, because I'd be moving in a few months anyway, and what was the fucking point? I still don't know how to do those things, even though I'm a goddamn adult now, and these should not be difficult things to master.

But I feel like I'm losing people, I start feeling lonely and isolated, fourteen years old and fighting the world alone, and I don't even know how to begin to make it better. I know how to let go before I get too badly hurt, how to pull into myself and isolate more so it can't happen again, and...

I've caught myself thinking, a few times the past week, that I should just stop having friends. Stop talking to people at all. Because that's totally a reasonable strategy to avoid losing people, and - seriously, what the hell kind of thought process is that? I know it's incorrect. And insane. I just... I don't know. My emotional toolbox is a little low on alternatives.

Comments

[ordinarygirl]

I wish I knew how to help. All my social skills, I've learned... very recently. Honestly, I had very few up until I was 17 or 18, and then I met you. :/ I just... I wish there were something I knew to do to help. Something I could try to teach you.

But I just don't know.

[allfireburns]

I know. I'm not sure it's something that can be taught? Mrrph.

Even with your lack of social skills until your late teenage years, though, you remind me of my sister. My father says she was born lucky. He says I was- no, wait. That's not right. Though now that I think about it, unrelated to the rest of this post, suddenly a large part of my love for Zuko makes sense. Except for the part where his sister's a sociopath. ...ANYWAY. With the making friends easily (casual friends, even, which I have never had), and having so many of them and keeping in touch easily and I am really jealous sometimes. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

...I don't expect you to actually be able to answer that question. And I know a large part of it is just that you are extroverted (or at least do an extremely good show of it) and I am... not... but I still can't get the rest of it.

[ordinarygirl]

I don't know. If it's any consolation, a large number of my "casual friends" (People at work, other than Laura who's definitely becoming an actual friend) are... just people I'm friendly with. There's... a difference of some sort. Like, I LIKE all my guildies, and I've dorked around with a lot of them, but I would only really consider, like, Ose my friend. Maybe Kurn. (Megan doesn't count 'cause I already knew her) It's like... being able to joke around in a game chat even when you don't necessarily know everyone. I've seen you do it. :P And that's all no comfort at all, I'm sure, 'cause people to be friendly with is better than nothing.

And, for the record? I'm HORRIBLE at keeping in touch. If I'm not having some sort of interaction through something I use on a regular basis (twitter, WoW, an RP, work), I drop out of contact SO fucking quickly. >< It's kind of depressing, 'cause it means that these people who MIGHT be friends one day... never become friends.

[51stcenturyfox]

When I got into huge blowout fights with my friends, I never learned how to fix it, because I'd be moving in a few months anyway, and what was the fucking point?

Oh yes, I totally get this. Or you know, the job change or breakup "because I'm moving" is a great way to either dodge issues or stick things out for a short period of time when it's not working, too. And now, social networking makes clean breaks almost impossible. :/

[magistrate]

[and these should not be difficult things to master]

I disagree. With anything other than people and art, I feel like there's some concrete science to fall back on. With the above, it's all variables and uncertainties and the rules of the game are constantly changing. (I once saw someone make the comparison that we can predict complicated global weather patterns, but we can't predict the stock market – but then, global weather patterns don't watch the Weather Channel and adjust their behavior on what was predicted.)

And... yeah. I wish I had some advice or handy tips or tricks or anything, but I have never managed to work out the mechanisms of how one finds or forms friendships. I swear it's high alchemy.

[dchan]

Hey, I grew up in the same house pretty much all my life from the time I was three until I went away to college, and I never learned how to hang onto friends either. The kids I knew from high school? I stopped talking to them pretty much the week after I graduated. It's kind of embarrassing really, my mom still talks to the mom of my best friend in 3rd grade, but I don't talk to that friend anymore! Even people from school, who I have LIVED WITH for a number of years, I don't talk to as often as I talk to you guys (meaning current/former Rifters). It's...kind of ridiculous, really.

If it helps, I will try to remember to poke you more often?

[dchan]

Oh, and I also suck ass at trying to make up after big blowout fights. I tend to drop off the face of the planet for a while, because even if I *am* sorry (and I usually am), I'm too embarrassed/awkward to figure out how to apologize. It's something I know I should learn how to get over, but...waugh. Possibly I overcompensate instead by being a doormat and not letting on when people have hurt my feelings to avoid getting in fights, which is not a real great strategy either.

My social skills, let me show you them. 9.9