Friend or foe

We have water again. Yeah!! Now I can shower this stinky body after I clean up the enormous mess left in the basement. Half of the floor needs to be repainted before I can set up stuff for my daycare. Oh, well. Could be worse, right? So, on to the subject of friends.

I am not and have never been very good at making new friends. I have analized this and came up with a few main reasons why. I never think that I am worthy of someone else's friendship. When I get to know someone beyond just being aquaintances, I fail to think that they would actually consider me to be their friend. Mind you, I can be a very good, loyal, and loving friend. I just don't feel that other people are going to reciprocate. Maybe it is also that I don't want to put myself out there only to be rejected. If I call someone else my friend and they don't feel the same way, then what? It is almost like when someone gets brave enough to say "I love you" only to be rejected by not hearing it in return. I think part of this for me stems from childhood relationships of being rejected. I usually only had one good friend each year of elementary school, only to have that friend move away at the end of the school year. Then I was back to square one. By 6th grade I really wanted to connect with someone, ANYONE, but instead I spent each recess just wandering around or sitting on a bench by myself. I was lucky enough in 7th grade to meet up with a girl that I had gone to school with since Kindergarten but never was friends with. Her best friend had moved to a different school so she was looking for someone new and me, being desperate, latched on like a lost little puppy. When we got to high school I started to hang out with different groups of friends. Some of them from band/flags, some from choir, and then my bf from junior high. She and her group of friends were a little more trouble makers than I cared to be with so I drifted towards the complete opposite. A friend from flags who is a mormon, a girl from band who is a baptist, and a handful of other innocents.

Now as an adult I still have trouble making friends. I have tried forcing my old habits and thoughts out the door, but they still seem to come creeping back in. I have to tell myself that, yes, I am worthy of someone else's friendship. It is not easy to do though when you've been telling yourself these things for so many years. Now living in a totally different part of the country as my family, I cannot rely on them as backup. By this I mean that I have to really make an effort to step out of my box and find different ways to meet people. I enjoy quilting and that was something that my mom, sister, and I did together. Every Thursday we went to a class and then out to dinner afterwards. It was our way of staying connected to each other while doing something that we all enjoy. Now I will use that opportunity to meet people here. I also can meet people through my kid's schools. Although it is interesting how clique-ish that can be. If your kid doesn't play with so and so's kid then good luck getting into the group of moms. Oh, well. I'm sure there is someone out there who doesn't mind buddying up with someone as desperate as me. O.K. now I'm starting to sound pitiful, which is how I feel, so maybe I really am. I thought that after high school the clique thing would go away. It does to some extent, but there is always some sort of undertone. I don't know how to get past that other than to try to associate myself with the people who don't involve themselves in such juvenile behavior. I suppose some people get into the habit of excluding others as they are growing up and just don't realize they are still doing it as adults. Then there are the people that you went to school with who would never have noticed that you existed back in the day. You meet up with them years later and they are almost too friendly, sickeningly friendly. I am always thinking, "yeah, I guess you realized what a prick you were before so now you're trying to make up for it now."

Happy thoughts. Have to keep thinking happy thoughts so I don't scare any potential friends away.