I'm probably overthinking something that works best with no thought, but with my recent exposure to some really cool people around my age, I've been made to wonder how exactly it is one goes about making friends, and how to define such a thing.
Interacting with new people, even friendly, cool ones, is a bit puzzling to me. I super struggle to find anything that can sustain a conversation that isn't directly related to work, which I think makes me sound super boring and serious, not to mention I run out of things to say once work is done, and I struggle even harder to find an excuse to initiate a conversation with someone once work ends. I mean, yeah, sure, the obvious things, like food, weather, hobbies, etc., are on the table I suppose. But I can't seem to find a way to ease into the conversation. Wouldn't it be fucking weird if one day you woke up to find that a colleague is asking you about your favourite foods and hobbies?
My past traumas may be playing a part in this, it may not. But it all just strikes me as super creepy and transparently desperate, and I don't think that'll make a good impression.
I do have friends. Two of them I regularly talk to, and whom I trust with my life. I know these are excruciating rarities that I'm beyond lucky to have stumbled ass–backwards into having in this life, but I can't help but to wonder if I can replicate the process of finding people that could mean this much to me, whom I can in turn mean very much to. I know everyone's different, and that there therefore is no fixed "process" to befriend everyone, and thus me saying in the beginning of this post that friendship is something that works best without thought; I'm willing to say with certainty at least that sincerity and truthfulness is paramount in any meaningful friendship, and neither of those two require thought. But as it stands right now, my honest and sincere thoughts and actions are, "I want to get to know you better and hang out more outside of work but I don't know how to ease into it in an appropriate manner that doesn't cross too many boundaries too soon and therefore I will sincerely just sit here like a paralysed statue and hope that you see something in me that piques your interest or goodwill enough to invite me out to a dinner or whatever it is you social butterflies do now that we're in Phase 2 Heightened Alert and can't dine in no more and hopefully then I can leave a better impression on you that you'd invite me out again beyond the first dinner *WHEW*", which I don't think "normal" people will very much get. I mean, if I see a quiet, desolate kid, I'd think he wants to be left the fuck alone, too.
Small talk is a death sentence to me. I brought this up with - once and she offered to role play a new employee who happens to have sat across the table from me during lunchtime, and I think I hit a solid brick wall about four sentences in. It's strangely apropos that I bring - up, because I think a big reason why I struggle with small talk is because I struggle with boundaries. I don't want to talk about the weather. I don't want to talk about food. I want to talk about something I'm interested in, something that can stimulate my brain into working. I want to talk about personal things. Challenges. How you deal with them. How they make you feel. I want to know what you like and dislike, and why those are so. What are your hobbies. What it means to you. I want an insight into you as a person, and fucking food and weather probably isn't going to give me that information about you. But, again, boundaries. Not everyone is willing to divulge that information on the first, second, or even tenth meeting. It's just that the foreplay confuses and bores the shit out of me. Is it really such a weird concept to want to know if I'll click well with a person and want to be their friend in the first meeting, instead of wasting weeks and months of my life trying to read a person and build a profile of them in my head, only to find that they're child molesters and animal abusers?
But that also begs the question, right? "What are friends, exactly?" Again, I have trouble with boundaries and non binary thinking, as noted by -. At the mention of the word, "friends", I think of the two aforementioned guys, whom I consider my brothers, whom I'll entrust my life to without second thought. I think of celebrating their birthdays, helping them out, having heart to hearts, being there for their important occasions, meeting weekly, where we'll have nothing to talk about but end up talking endlessly for hours, etc.. But there are more "levels" to friends than that, I think. Maybe there are friends out there that aren't so tight. With whom you keep contact with but never depend on them on anything super personal or important, or feel guilty to. Maybe there are friends out there who aren't close enough to share every detail of their lives with. And it's these "grey areas" in friendship that I struggle to understand. I mean, why don't we try to get to know each other better, or try to like each other more? If I can't be 100% honest and sincere with you, if I can't let my guard down around you, then you're just draining me mentally. And I don't want that with a casual setting. It makes the occasion feel like a job meeting, wherein I have to be polite, appropriate, dress up, etc.. And if I'm in that "job meeting" mindset, I'd want something done. I'd want a goal. Then it becomes transactional. Then I'm reminded of how useless and worthless I am, being unable to provide of value for anyone aside from a stupid listening ear and a wall upon which to hurl your shit at to be promptly discarded when you're done. Then it becomes stiff. Then it becomes tiring. Then it becomes disingenuine. Then it becomes superficial. And then it becomes everything I dislike about an office job, and urrrgh. What's the point at this point?
I uh... really want to befriend some of my colleagues, but I just don't know how to ask them. My immediate thought was, "hey, can I add you on Facebook?" It gives me a sense of affirmation to be friends on Facebook, as it's visible, lasting proof that we met one day and liked each other enough to want to see what the other person is like in other aspects of their lives, hollow a concept as social media might be. It also lets me know more about a person without having to conversate, which can in turn help me in future conversations (though yes that does make me sound very much like a stalker). Thing is, I'm so out of touch with these young whippersnappers nowadays that I don't even know how they keep in touch with each other. "No one uses Facebook nowadays!", I'm told after mustering up the courage to ask. And hoo boy do I feel like an old geezer holding his back on a rocking chair waiting for death to finally claim him.
Why do I get this feeling that befriending someone is something no one taught in school, yet somehow everyone learned in school? Except me because I'm dumb?
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