#... for myself

(( OOC: I’ve received quite a few messages likes this, which is insanely sweet and it makes me happy that you guys consider me to be a good enough person to want to befriend. 

It’s important to note though, that what you see presented online from people is almost always going to be their “best face forward”. I know I myself definitely omit a lot of my major “character flaws” when posting online, because I want this space to be a positive space and I want you guys to be able to feel safe here without being bombarded by my personal failings. 

People are complicated, and there’s a lot more to connecting than common interests. I don’t want you guys putting me on a pedestal of “perfect friend” because of what you see posted.

Here’s the reality. I am a difficult person to become close to. 

I enjoy having casual friends, I enjoy talking to people, but I’m 27 years old (much older than a lot of the people who follow me) and I’ve experienced a lot of negativity in my life when it comes to relationships (minus, thank heavens, the relationship I’ve had with my immediate family… in that area I’ve certainly been blessed.) 

It’s not that I’m entirely blocked off to making friends, but because of my past experiences, I have a difficult time trusting or allowing people to become close. Furthermore, as you mentioned, I’ll admit that getting so many messages can tend to become overwhelming. 

I talk to a lot of people in a day, and it tends to be pretty emotionally draining to try to invest specialized attention in every message or conversation received.  

To be honest though, this was the case before this blog took off as well. I’ve always had a similar process when it comes to chatting or meeting people… there just happened to be fewer people sending messages so it may have seemed like I responded more (it’s all about ratio, hahaha).  

And that kind of leads me into the idea of making friends. Many people that I spoke to when I first started this blog ended up either moving on to other things or we just kind of naturally stopped chatting. And that’s okay, it’s how life goes. 

You connect with who you connect to. 

Once you find people that you really enjoy being around, you invest a lot into those relationships. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not open to meeting other people, but because you’re invested in those individuals you’ve chosen to open up to, and put so much time and energy into them, it can be difficult to extend that energy into more people, because everyone has a limit. 

The process of making close friends is a long, emotional process… getting to learn enough about each other that you feel confident saying you “know” them, breaking down barriers that might be present, allowing yourself to open up and trust someone new… it takes a lot of time and dedication. 

For me, I already share a house with (depending on the day) about 12 other people, all relationships that I love and put a lot of energy into maintaining. Due to that factor, I tend to keep my friendship group somewhat limited, because I’m the type of person that invests so much of myself into my close relationships and it becomes difficult for me when I have to divide that specialized attention between an ever-increasing amount of people. There are a lot of people who are able to extend that specialized love past the boundaries that I’ve created and invest in more people, but I’m not emotionally equipped for that.  

Now this doesn’t mean I’ve reached some metaphorical “cap” on friendships and that I’m suddenly no longer looking for more “applicants”… nor is this me trying to discourage you guys from reaching out or messaging me. This is just me trying to explain why I might not always be able to invest myself in actively trying to engage, and why it might appear that I’m not super open to making friends. 

This is my reality and how I work both mentally and emotionally, and I hope that’s something that you guys can understand. I definitely don’t want any of you to ever feel like I don’t want to hear from you, or that I don’t respond because I don’t think you’re worthwhile. That will never be the case.