I'm Not Trying to be a Bad Friend

Disclaimer: I know that lots of the thoughts in this post are somewhat illogical. As someone who considers myself to be fairly grounded in most regards, it feels foreign to me to admit that I have thoughts and feelings that, upon inspection, don't always make sense. But I know what I feel, and even if it's stupid, I want to share it.

I imagine that everyone has things that they don't love about themselves. For some people, it might be their weight or their bad habits or their poor decision making. It might be something they can control, like their haircut. Or it might be something they don't have as much control over, like their financial situation. I would be shocked if there is anyone who can't find some flaw in themselves that causes some level of discomfort or frustration.

This might look like different things to different people. Some people might ignore certain shortcomings or flaws because they're focused on one specific thing. For others, they might be painfully aware of many little things about themselves that they perceive to be out of place—every misstep, every bad decision, every perceived imperfection. Unsurprisingly, these views will play into a person's self-esteem, or the way that a person thinks about their worth and value. We frequently label people with high self-esteem to be proud or cocky on the grounds that they do things in harmony with the belief that they're worth taking care of. We label people with low self-esteem as depressed or downers because they tend to focus so much on the things that they perceive to be "wrong" about them that they can't see what's right.

These labels are generally unhelpful because they can be one-dimensional, and they are frequently accurate more by coincidence than by inherent truth. Like most labels we assign to ourselves and others, they are overly simple and don't fully encapsulate the context or circumstances surrounding a person's beliefs about themselves.

For most of my life, I would qualify my own self-esteem as fine. I don't think I'm the worst person in the world, but it's sometimes hard to get the "feelings of belonging" or "ease in decision making" that I'd get if my self-esteem were a little bit better. Fine is the best way I can put it because it's not phenomenal, but it could definitely be worse.

Most of the time, I would say that my self-esteem doesn't have a significantly negative impact on me. But there is one aspect of my life that I've realized more and more suffers because of the way I perceive myself. At some point in my life, I have developed a tendency to believe that people don't actually like me or want to be around me unless they make it extremely and explicitly clear that they do.

It's because of this somewhat irrational belief that I have developed a sincere distaste for small talk. Small talk is so immensely undesirable because it is the easiest place for someone to pretend to be interested in you, which I feel is worse than genuine and freely given disinterest. It so often feels empty and useless that it feels like a necessary evil, except it doesn't actually feel that necessary. I don't think every conversation has be incredibly deep and philosophical; there is a place for short, pleasant exchanges where the parties can't be in one another's company for an extended period of time. But the conversations that start and end with "Where are you living, again?" and "Remind me what you do for work?" and "Really cold this week, huh?" are more unpleasant than silence. It's the reason why I have avoided people I semi-know (not close friends or family members) when I see them in public places. I assume we'd need to make small talk just to be nice and then go on our ways without feeling any level of satisfaction from the interaction. But it's really not that I'm trying to save myself from them. It's that I'm trying to save them from me.

And that's really what it comes down to, ultimately. The dumb part of my brain that thinks people don't like me also thinks that it makes sense to avoid someone in public in an effort to help them avoid me, like it's a service to them.

Gosh, I can be so tiring sometimes.

Another thing I hate as a consequence of this belief of mine is being an inconvenience to others, or, more generally, causing discomfort to others. In the part of my mind that wonders if people actually like me, making someone do something for my benefit can never feel like a good thing. It doesn't matter if the person is a stranger I haven't said a word to or a friend I've known for years; causing someone to spend their time or effort on my behalf isn't something I'm particularly interested in. It's really hard for me to ask for help—not because I think I'm better than others, but because I don't want them to waste their time helping me.

All of this means that I hesitate to reach out to people, even people that I consider friends, because I have doubts about whether or not they'd want to hear from or spend time with me. It's why I don't interject in social situations unless I have a clear opportunity and something specific to say. It's also why I post so infrequently on social media, especially over the past few years. It's not that I don't want to be seen or heard, it's that I don't think others want to see or hear me, so I tend to hold back.

I'm not trying to hide from people, and I'm not trying to make it anyone else's responsibility to check on me or reach out to me. I just hope it's clear that I sometimes struggle initiating contact because I don't always know if that contact is desired, even to people I've made plenty of good memories with before. I'm not trying to be a bad friend, it just happens sometimes.

This hesitancy is, of course, rooted in actual life experience (at least in part). Everyone's perceptions of themselves are somewhat skewed, and I'm no exception to that, but I am also know how I've been treated by others in the past. Not badly by any means, but not always with high levels of excitement or enthusiasm except by my closest peers. I don't think there has ever been a point in my life where I would have considered myself to be "cool" or "popular," and that isn't really that big of a deal to me except it leads me to spiral into asking, "Do people like me, or are they just being nice to me?"

Vulnerability is hard for most people because even though it can lead to greater connection, it can also open the door to getting hurt. It's hard for me to be vulnerable and write about things like this on the blog because it forces me to come face to face with things that I don't like about myself and to come to terms with the idea that I am not exactly who I'd want to be. But even more than that, this post is, in itself, a way for me to force myself into other people's views—a place I don't really like to be for fear that they'll see what I really am: a guy who isn't secure enough to trust that his friends aren't faking it.

The reason I'm writing this is because I want so badly to be different. I want to have the confidence that people are genuinely interested in me and my life in the way that I am interested in them and theirs. I want to be able to not worry about the way that people see me or think about me. It would be great if I could reach out to people without worrying if it will seem forced or fake or unnecessary. But this kind of change doesn't happen just because I will it to, and it doesn't happen quickly.

So this is one of those things that I'm labeling "work in progress." Even though these feelings are uncomfortable to feel and worse to admit, I'm trying to remind myself that people probably aren't just pretending to tolerate me. I know it'll take time to get where I want to be, but I'm willing to be patient as I'm trying to get there.

-GD