I don’t know if there is something deficient in my personality, but it seems I don’t connect with anyone. I don’t remember ever having a best friend, there is no one I can look to for advise, no one I can talk to about my conversion, no one calls me just to talk about how things are going, etc. You get the idea. Anyone have this problem? What do you think is wrong with me?
From a one paragraph question, I really can’t say. I know I’ve been in the same boat. My nickname in middle school was “mute”, and I was so depressed by 7th grade that I pretty much would hid out in my closest and cry everyday. I overall would beat myself up mentally and tell myself that I was stupid for this or that action. I’d go through the entire day in my head and critically evaluate what stupid things I had done that were causing people to reject me. I still have a bit of this habit left in me and often don’t even realize I’m doing it. I used to apoligise and quickly forget what I had been thinking about that made me apoligise. People used to get mad at me because they felt my apoligies didn’t mean anything since I’d so often say “I’m sorry” and not be able to explain to people what I was sorry about. Now I realize its because I ponder the past. I’m still apoligizing for things I did ten years ago.
Whenver I’ve gone to counciling and explained this, I’ve been told it is primarily self esteem and that I tend to hold myself back from people for fear that I’ll do something wrong and eventually get rejected. This seemed confirmed to me because so many times I had started to get close to people, I had so many experiences of getting rejected. But I think with low self esteeme, you kind of try to build your self esteem off of other people’s affirmations. You have this idea in your head of what it looks like to have a friend who cares about you and you look around and don’t see that. The goal ultimately becomes “I need someone who values me that much” but I think in reality it drains people because we pursue friendships more as a way to boost our self esteem. If this person likes me, I’m a good person. If this person rejects me, I’m a bad person. Its ultimately all about us. We’re not looking to be a friend. We’re looking to find our value placed and affirmed in us by another person. A boundary to us can look like a rejection and a failure. If we’re encouraged to break that boundary because “well its just anxiety” than we rub people the wrong way.
That said, I do think I’ve come a long way in building my self esteem. I still have a lot of bad mental habits from it and am so used to living and isolation and especially substituting the internet that its hard for me to get out of the pattern. Its just so much quicker to feel like I’m getting my social fix on the internet and then I still have time to go grocery shopping. I also work from home, so work doesn’t really get me out meeting people. That said, when I worked in the office, I found that I never wanted to spend my breaks with anyone. I wanted to just clear my head. I’m not very good at socializing with people for just 10 minutes unless I know them real well.
How much more do I need to work on my self esteem and how much do I need to just push myself to reach out to people? I’m not exactly sure. But having just gone through being used by a friend of mine who did not respect social boundaries (sort of being in the other person’s shoes this time), I feel like I’ve gained a little insight into how I may have made other people feel. I don’t think I’m as manipulative as my former friend, but I never once wanted to reject her because she just wasn’t interesting. It was because she was so consumed on getting attention for herself and on manipulating me to gain something from me, it was too much. When we were friends, she’d impose herself on me and honestly for me it just felt like I was never hitting her social boundary. Instead she eventually hit mine, complained and then I’d feel bad for putting it up and let her continue on…untill the day that I was ill and she decided it would be rude of me to not allow her to come over (when she came over I had a heart to heart with her and she ended the friendship for two days then begged for it back) Ultimately, She doesn’t care about me. I feel bad that she suffers from low self esteem and bipolar, but a friendship just can’t be based on guilt and pity. I think the primary reason it took me so many years of manipulation to put a great distance between the two of us is because I’ve been that very lonely person. I know what its like and heck I’m still rather isolated.
The thing is that I can’t satisfy her. She’s always hungry. Friends aren’t food to consume.
