Make new friends

Things are looking up which is great. I still feel a bit at the beginning of a journey and things feel very new and exciting. I’ve basically been making more of a conscious effort to e-mail, call etc and organise stuff to do with people I get on with. In the past I’ve either spread myself too thinly where I didn’t really get to know anyone, or I put barriers up…this time I’m aiming to find a happy medium and not worry about all these stupid rules and regulations I’d previously put on myself. I’ve organised to go and see a gig for my birthday, something which I’m dead proud of, because previously I hated celebrating my birthday as I always feared nobody would come and I hadn’t really established any friendships. Nice!

I’m in my late 20’s and since I went to secondary school I’ve struggled to have a group of mates which I feel I could feel confident as calling my friends. It’s very frustrating, because I’m not an arsehole nor am I a hermite; normally I can talk to people quite easily, and people seem to really like me. Its all a bit strange really…I think the reason why I don’t feel part of something is because I think of friendship in the wrong way. In the past, but not always, I have tended to worry about other people’s judgements of the people I was chatting with, whether they were cool; acceptable; etc rather than what I thought of them and whether I liked them. I also can sometimes, go in on myself and decide to exclude myself as I either panic about letting them see the whole me (both confident and a bit unsteady) as I think they would think bad of me, or feel that I wouldn’t be missed. I’ve started to take the first steps to go out and meet new people and have arranged to meet a couple of mates this week for a beer or two…I think I’ve just got to go for it and enjoy my time with these people rather than worrying about all this stupid stuff about image, success, popularity, coolness and just appreciate people for who they are.