Be a better friend

It was easy to tell on Tuesday that something was up with Jackie after hearing about issues with her grandfather and cat the day before.  After saying “you liar, you’re not okay” in response to a rather sombre away message, she confessed that her beloved cat was to be put to sleep on Wednesday.  How heartbreaking to lose a pet of nearly twenty years—her entire life, practically!

I decided to ring her on the telly in case she needed someone to talk to about Kate; it’s not her style to vent, but sometimes we all need a friendly voice, you know?  And I’m really worried about her.  She rather seemed to appreciate the phone call anyway, even though we both hate the phone.  I hope she’s okay.

I’ve realised that irregardless of whatever I say and do, I am always going to feel like an awful person and a complete nuisance to whomever I happen to be around.  As such, it might be best if I simply stop talking and cease to have friends altogether; everybody else is fighting a hard battle, and my consistent sadness is not helping anybody improve their own lives, and indeed persists in unintentionally hurting those closest to my heart, as much as it keeps ruining my own well-being.

I’m trying so hard in such a great many aspects, harder than I have ever tried at anything, and am failing at everything.  Perhaps beauty, be it emotional or physical, is only reached on the point of collapse, and I am growing closer and closer to the day when I fall apart utterly.

Everything that I say and do, I feel irrationally guilty for and take it out on people for no reason in particular.  I just want to find peace, and therein lies the problem: by being a better friend and listening to others to maintain their own inner peace, mine suffers.  Lately, I have been trying to feel better about myself, and feel like a worse friend for opening up.  (Irony: my best friend thinks I’m two-faced for not telling her when something is wrong but making it blatantly obvious that there is a problem, and yet when I do tell her the truth, she bitches me out about my thoughts.)  Even my constant apologising has become annoying.  What am I supposed to do?

I am trying my hardest to be more supportive of my friends.  This year has been a horrible place emotionally, and some people have been taking the brunt of it as a consequence (there are only two or three people whom I feel comfortable talking about myself to, and they are the ones who are typically yelled at).  This has hopefully been happening less, now that I am once again able to keep things to myself (mostly).

I started alienating my best friend when she found a girlfriend in January because we weren’t hanging around as much anymore, and it hurt.  I’ve stopped that, and am trying to be nicer.  Nothing against lesbians, since most of my friends are, but I just don’t like her girlfriend for causing her so much heartache.  Still, I am becoming better at communicating my thoughts in a respectful manner and listening to her when she needs an ear, and I think that makes me something of a better friend.

My other best friend is going insane with finals, so I try to leave her little messages to keep her hopes up and let her know that I am here for her.  Does that count?

Do you ever find yourself closing your mind off to the entire world, but then there is one person out there who actually cracked the shell, who cared enough to be there for you…and then you find yourself completely unable to stop revealing yourself to them, no matter how hard you try?

(Admittedly, this is also part of the rapid-cycling of my bipolar disorder, but I wish that I could stop myself from being so open with her, all the same.  She’s an introvert too, and I think it’s freaking her out.)

I am not a party person by any stretch of the imagination, as I would almost always prefer to stay home and read a book when presented with the choice between reading and partying.  Yesterday was my acquaintance’s birthday party, and I was almost tempted not to go due to social phobias, but I discovered that another acquaintance with extreme shyness was going, so I went and had a pretty fun time.  The thing is, though, that she is EXTREMELY Christian and I am a totally scientific, logically-minded Atheist and I put up with her beliefs anyway even when she berates me for not believing in God or an afterlife or much of anything that agrees with her idea thereof.  I think that makes me a pretty okay person.

My friend Kate was really, wickedly upset last night because the girl whom she happens to be deeply infatuated with does not seem to like her back, and we all know how rotten that feeling is.  I tried to be there for her in her time of need, give her the proverbial shoulder to cry on instead of running away and hiding as per normal.  I think this counts, and she seemed to be feeling better today.  It was even a step forward, because neither of us ever reveal our emotions around each other.

The problem with my friendship collective is not solely me.  I will not exclude myself, because although my friends act conversely, friendship is not the metaphorical one-way street.  I am a pretty good friend whom always takes the time to pay attention and really notice her companions, who listens despite the fact that I have my own issues to deal with very much of the time.  What do they do?  Well, take my away message…

Wow, I am so glad that I have such kind, caring, observant individuals as friends!  Honestly, I quite love how you never see fit to be excessively self-absorbed, and always find time to reciprocate the good that your friends do upon you. Do you know what else is amazing?  How you will be so open with me, talk about all of your own problems, and never consider that maybe the one whom will listen to you no matter that she shoves her own life issues atop the proverbial back burner also has things that she needs to discuss.  “No, she does not talk much anyway,” you think, “who would ever care to presume that maybe she is depressed about something or notice that she hasn’t spoken all day?  Gosh, she must be really narcissistic.  The fact that she never talks about herself is simple selfishness, let us turn the other cheek and say ‘oh, how awful’ and continue on with our own petty rants when she may actually need somebody to listen to her own stories, for once!  Preposterous!”  You are all so amazing, you never fail to notice anything, do you?  Or perhaps you are simply meriting my acting abilities instead of ceasing to care.   HOW WONDERFUL, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT! :D

I hope that they finally start to understand, because I am sick of trying to be a good friend when they are exerting positively zero effort on their part.

I generally consider myself a good friend, or at the least as good of a friend as somebody like me can be: somebody who cannot keep up friendships easily, mostly an extreme introvert (whom in some social situations can be prodded to talk, but is never really socially comfortable), who is paranoid and has been hurt too many times to be able to open up completely.  Friendships are often too much for me, hence I hardly consider many of the people that I talk to as such, but in the ones that matter most to me, I need to try harder.

With my sister, my absolute best friend, I will talk too much and I sometimes detract her attention from her best friend.  They are college students, and those two need to talk more than we do, you know?  But at the same time, I cannot help but try and say hello and catch up on our lives every time that we see each other online, even if it is only for twenty minutes, and we do talk for ten or twenty minutes almost every day.  She is also an extreme introvert, might that be too much?

With others, I sometimes will talk behind their backs; not often, but occasionally, and it makes me feel bad every time.  One is a bad influence, but she is somebody to talk to in my SUPA class and as long as I can learn to keep my head around her, why should I cut her loose?  Each of my friends besides my sister has annoyed me tremendously at some point or another and I cannot take too long talking to them, typically more than ten minutes to a half an hour, without becoming antsy, claustrophobic, and grouchy.  Am I such a horrible person to want to be alone, to only want to keep some of my friends around and be as good to them as possible, despite the fact that I am a people-pleaser who wants to make everybody happy?

My sister and my crazy guy friend are two of the only people that honestly matter to me.  Should I strengthen my friendships with them and ignore everybody else who causes me to be miserable, or stick with my current tactic and be genial and tolerant and smile and tend to their whims even though I honestly would not care less if some of them were not around?