Here I am with a wonderful offer of support and friendship in my inbox. And strangely... or perhaps not so strangely... I find myself at a loss for words. Not that I don't appreciate the offer. I do. I just have doubts and shyness... I start to wonder what I have to bring to this friendship table. I tend to be the passive person in relationships... All my life I made friends... and then lost them... I don't seem to know how to maintain this thing, to keep pedaling... injecting the necessary energy or whatever... the momentum fades and the frequency of exchanges slows and sputters... and then I realize how many people I have started out with that sort of disappeared into the great and mysterious wasteland that is the interwebs...
And, at times, I begin to wonder if it is me. If there is some truth to my self doubts... that my social shyness, my awkwardness puts people off or even worse offends them. The crazy lady inside my head mutters that people really don't like me. I know she is not often truthful. I know I should not listen to her... but she makes me doubt... and I withdraw.
And, at times, I begin to wonder if it is me. If there is some truth to my self doubts... that my social shyness, my awkwardness puts people off or even worse offends them. The crazy lady inside my head mutters that people really don't like me. I know she is not often truthful. I know I should not listen to her... but she makes me doubt... and I withdraw.
Work lately has not helped a lot. The middle manager immediately above me is unpredictable. One day he will ignore my cheerful ‘good morning’… the next he will chide me for not saying ‘good morning’… the next his “good morning” will be surly or sarcastic. I find myself cringing when I see him arrive in the morning.
I do know I had inadvertently gotten involved in a nasty bit of in house politics. Some dim bulb had actually been stupid enough to leave some nude pictures up on a student used computer… After hours, but still way inappropriate for the setting… I mean it was a fucking school. I mentioned it to someone. That someone told the principal. They found out who it had been and a guy got fired. Not my intention… but I was sort of the whistle blower… and now I am very much persona non grata among a very large clique at work. So the sense of being excluded and ignored has gotten worse… and the crazy lady in my head may not be too far off the mark when she says… “He hates you.”
I do know I had inadvertently gotten involved in a nasty bit of in house politics. Some dim bulb had actually been stupid enough to leave some nude pictures up on a student used computer… After hours, but still way inappropriate for the setting… I mean it was a fucking school. I mentioned it to someone. That someone told the principal. They found out who it had been and a guy got fired. Not my intention… but I was sort of the whistle blower… and now I am very much persona non grata among a very large clique at work. So the sense of being excluded and ignored has gotten worse… and the crazy lady in my head may not be too far off the mark when she says… “He hates you.”
Another person who I really thought of as a friend… someone who used to email me frequently… wrote a whole book with me… helped me to edit… who actually taught me what chatting was… who was there when Master and I took our first baby steps down the rabbit hole that is M/s… and listened and advised and supported… suddenly just stopped communicating with me. I still talk with her Master/husband nearly weekly… but she refuses to respond to my greetings or emails… she just vanished. He says it is not me… it is her… but all this makes me wonder… what I did or did not do. What is wrong with me? And again the crazy lady hisses and claws at the bars of her cage.
I know I am not social… but I get lonely. I know I do very poorly in groups. I have shit hearing. If more than one person is talking at a time, I am totally lost. If there is loud music… not only can I hear nothing at all… and it hurts my ears. I am shy. I am nervous. I tend to talk too much about all the wrong things. I tell too many stories. I reveal too much about myself too early… and then I get embarrassed and withdraw. I feel disconnected… like I am behind an invisible wall… I once said… “I love people. I just don’t like being around them.” But that is not really true. I am really afraid… afraid of rejection… afraid it is really me… true that people don’t like me because there is something wrong with me…
wait.
ReplyDeletewait.
are you me?
shy, withdrawn, talkative sometimes too much, other times too little...
gawd. i have worked hard to be better socially, but really it is hard for me.
going to NYC as a chaperone, with teens, and 5 other adults i didn't know all that well gave me more trauma in my head than the driving did.
i didn't spend a second worrying about the driving...
and it turns out the Advisor and i got along great...both sharing childhood stories...and it flowed and was a nice time. The kids were great and mostly focused on each other so it was okay there, too.
my wife is very chatty. like "omg stfu" chatty.
she talks to people in line at the grocery store. everyfucking where. weird.
i talked to a few people in the City when there, people that had a "resonance" that i felt comfortable with.
But xantu? i get this. You can be my friend. i might not write too much, too often. but then i'll pop back and send a note.
i do that. . . "dropping" away thing...and work on it. i would love to be your friend....*smiles*
nilla
O.M.G.
ReplyDeleteWe share a crazy lady. She's actually the same person. Is it still schizophrenia when it's two bodies and one personality?
I'll try to be better at reaching out. I see you on chat all the time and I don't because I think "I don't want to bug her. Wear out my welcome. I wonder if she just tolerates me?".
This makes me want to cry, for you, for nilla, for me...for all of us.
oooh mouse knows how you feel...really totally does. You can totally email mouse anytime!
ReplyDeleteHugs,
mouse
I know just how you .. (and those who have commented) feel.
ReplyDeleteI'm a mess socially .. a total mess.
Leave me alone and do not make me go out and talk to anyone!
I read somewhere that submissive women are likely to be the shy, awkward, insecure , etc. kind of people.
Wish I knew where I'd read that bit.
People who know me are surprised if by some horrible chance they find out the truth of my shyness and fright.
I guess I'm good at faking that part of life.
If I had a blog , I could have written your post.
It seems you're not the least alone.. and neither are we~!
What a group we make!
{{hugs}}
Hey...wow.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the school system can be very isolating, very confusing...too hard to figure out what to overlook and when. i understand the cliques that exist there. Confusing. Very. Frankly, i got nervous everytime i got called to the principals office even though it was normally for us to laugh at the Powers That Be.
i was frankly, *shocked* when i was told all of the teachers liked me. i had been braced to hear they did not, that i was too stand offish. Too quiet. Too young. Too friendly or not friendly enough.
Second,
friendships take work. i'm sure you know that. Maybe some ppl make you feel safe and that is why you put "too much out there." Maybe some people make you feel uncomfortable because something is wrong with *them* (not you).
Its a risk. Certainly. To reach out. But you really do often make me think, impress me, inspire me. You are an amazing person.
It seems that the crazy lady is one busy bitch. She makes housecalls to all of us. Check that lock, would you? Geeze.
Me too. I was going to say you wrote about me, but I see from the other comments that others think the same. Trouble is, I don't work at friendships. I neglect them. I don't say sweet things. To hell with friendships, I often think.
ReplyDeleteIt is heartening to know that little storms of doubt seem common to many of us. And I so appreciate all your wonderful offers of support and hugs...
ReplyDeleteI most likely will need some remedial training in this friendship thing. I have trouble figuring out how to keep just one and now here are all these beautiful people asking me to dance... yikes... suddenly wants to disappear into the wallpaper... but I will send those emails... just have to figure out what to say... "Hi, I am xantu... and I suck at conversations and sometimes say the oddest things... but I am funny and loyal... I will help you move but won't help you move the bodies."
@Malcolm... hmmm... now that sounds just like my Master... do I see a pattern here?
It's always a bit odd to see a post that could have come out of my head up on someone elses blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd the shy thing...Well, the other end of that spectrum is the people who are annoyingly so sure of themselves that they can't even see the friendship opportunities ecause they are already so great they don't need any form of human contact whatsoever.
You don't have to help move the bodies...I'll do it lol.