Yes, I am. 

This post is a jumbled dialogue I’m having with myself out loud, well out in front of me anyway.

And so I turn once again to my thoughts on paper, for they are always here when my so called friends are not. Theme of the day is abandonment with a splash of self-shame and anger and a healthy (and by healthy I mean fat) dose of sadness. Usual business then.

I’ve been dealing with abandonment and self-doubt issues for a long long long time … for as long as I can remember I suppose. I’ve gone to therapy about it briefly, tried to read up about it (borderline personality disorders), spoke to a good friend about it (he feels it too!), mostly tried to forget about it .. but nothing really seems to help because it keeps coming back to bite me in the ass and just piss all over my emotions.

I’m an only child. So the fear of my parents dying and leaving me behind has always (and still does) haunted me. As a child, I moved about a fair amount, met and lost friends in the process, was replaced, had fall outs and the whole shebang. Somewhere along the way, I also seemed to have developed some trust issues (which usually keeps me safe) and .. well go figure right?

Anyway .. so I suppose I question everyone’s motives, don’t trust people easily and though I can and often do just click with people, it takes me a while to fully trust them. I’ve been working on this because I guess it kind of builds up a wall and prevents true friendship? I’ve been finding this wall breaking very very difficult though.

Nothing feels worse than being surrounded with people, people you can talk and have a laugh with, and then seeing these people all go beyond to a different level of friendship that for some reason alludes me. It’s turning me into a suspicious, paranoid, self-doubting person envious of everyone around me and feeling alone and sad. Is it me? Am I lacking something? Or am I myself sabotaging potential friendships because of some unclear wall I’m unable to break down, let people in and follow their paths myself?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but apparently I flirt. But (and I’ve mentioned this too), this is just how I interact with EVERYONE (male female, horses, et al.). My dad is the same. And so to tell me not to flirt, is like telling me not to talk to other people. Because I seriously just can’t talk to people otherwise. Since I don’t flirt romantically, I don’t get all the game playing that goes on – I often make myself clear that nothing will happen and am just straight forward and not into playing games with people I consider my friends.

Because I have NO FRIENDS, when I do click with people and can feel like I can trust them, I very quickly get attached and sometimes possessive (emotionally, so I won’t show it to the other person but it would get to me and my emotions). I’m also quite straight-forward e.g. I am really glad we’re friends, etc.

I met Dom at a work event recently. I had seen him around a few times before and thought he looked like a cool person and he had mad style. I’ve been working at this huge organisation for 3 months now. My department has around 20 people and my team itself has 10. From the 20, a few of us ‘youngers’ have this big group of 10 who all hang out, have lunch together, etc. There are around 150 people in the entire organisation and while we’ve had lunch in the staff common room, the garden and just around, people have noticed.

I volunteered to help out at this work event then it turns out people had to buy ticket so my group abandoned me and the guy from my group I was going to the event with left because he had a marathon to run. Since I had committed myself, I begrudgingly went on and met Dom at the entrance. Since we’d both crossed paths before, we eventually ended up talking and hung out all night. Dom was weird. Flirty but also matey. And then when we got started talking via email at work (I had some things I needed to work out with his department and my work) he was weirdly nice and friendly. I was confused and suspicious. People tend to fetishize the scarf instead of being able to read it as a signal for them to back off and that’s something I always try and be aware of … esp since I’ve been reading up and working on gender issues.

Anyway so it’s all hunky dory .. we’re talking a lot, I’m not trusting him, my friend’s telling me I’m reading too much into it, he tells me he’s married, I feel relief that he’s not after anything weird and is just weirdly nice and flirty like me, he’s still being weird and suggestive, I’m telling him to not be a cheater, we’re becoming mates while I continue to shoot down his (joke?) advances and then next week he just stops?

I had finally started to trust that he is just being him and being a friend and then I felt happy that I had a friend at work because the rest, though I am close and hang out with them all the time, it’s not to the friend level. And now he’s being weird and aloof and not replying to me or hanging out, even though we used to all the time and would talk constantly. And I’m just so upset and angry and hurt :(

If this is a game, it’s a bloody stupid one to play with a FRIEND. Or maybe he never did think I was a friend .. I don’t know what he thought, with him being married and all and TELLING ME HE’S MARRIED .. so I can’t think he’s a player. I am just so confused. But mostly annoyed .. cos I’m over all this bs game playing nonsense. This childish who messages who first crap. I just don’t get why I have to do it with a friend?

A few times that we spoke, we mentioned how he thought my group were all stuck up and rude. How we were intimidating and only interested in ourselves and thought we were above other teams. How he would see us in the garden while having lunch on his own and how he felt hurt because we didn’t invite him.

My group and department are all amazing and smart people. They are caring and passionate about their work and focused and hard working. We have a lot of publications, meetings, conferences and what not that we’re always working on. I defended us and tried to explain to him the situation.

I feel like maybe he tried to use me to get into the group. He seems to always ask after a girl whose part of the team but who doesn’t really care much for Dom. He’s asked me about her a few times but because I’m friends with her, I refuse to tell him what he wants to hear.

I realize how conspiracy theory all of this sounds. I just feel really betrayed, like he broke my trust. I find all these games exhausting. I am upset that things are rarely what they seem they are.

This has just reminded me of the few good .. heck, GREAT friends I used to have .. many of whom have just gone abroad, living out their dreams. All of this has just ended up making me feel more lonely than I felt before. It’s reminded me of what I’m missing. It showed me how desperate I am for human connection that I fell for this shit.

It’s just really sad that a lot of the times, with no signs from my side pointing otherwise (in fact I’m always pointing to the opposite), guys just talk to me for whatever it is that they want, eventually realize they won’t get it, and then move on.



Friendship is hard to come by.