Today I want to write about friendship. The inspiration for this was a friendship that I have lost not too long ago as well as my experience of having to socialise a lot lately.
Let’s go way back first.
According to my mom, I was very outgoing when I was little, talking to all the strangers. Well, little did I know how people could be, right? When I started going to school I figured out that not everyone was nice and friendly and that there were (or rather are) people who don’t like me and that they can be pretty mean and even cruel, regardless of whether they like someone or not. What that did to me was, that I became pretty introverted and fast forward to adulthood even isolated. Also, I always had few friends throughout my life.
Now, that sounds kind of tragic, but actually having few friends never bothered me much. I am very comfortable spending time alone and I can entertain myself easily. I also like being alone but in company, for example going to a cafe alone and be surrounded by strangers that I am not taking to.
It wasn’t meant to be
For the longest time though - and I mean almost thirty years - I had this one friend who was just part of my life. She was my best friend for a long time, but things got weird at some point and our friendship ended.
Fast forward again: Several years passed and that friend and I made contact again and after careful first steps we renewed our friendship.
But everything was different now. Things had changed a lot, because we had changed. We didn’t even share the same interests anymore. We still tried to make it work. But to be honest it was rather disappointing when we hardly found new common interests. Our only connection was our past and it didn’t really match anymore.
Then I met my wife and when I wanted to introduce the two to each other, things became weird again (I’m not going into details but they never met in the end). Then there was some silence and I was fighting with myself a little bit because it felt like this is gonna be it. There is no fixing this and would it even be worth it? Probably not. But it was hard.
There were a few half-hearted attempts to talk by wishing a happy Birthday or something from both sides but eventually this was the end of that friendship again. And for good, this time. It was difficult and even painful, because the reasons for this whole thing felt so silly and and completely unnecessary. And I didn’t want to end in bad terms.
Anyhow, time has passed and I am over that friend not being in my life anymore. I have my wife and I figured out, that I can make new, better friendships. And I said it like this on purpose. I was isolated so much and doing my thing on my own for so long, that I was very much doubting my ability to make contacts and socialise.
But now here I am in IT training and there is a lot of socialising. I am surrounded by people all day and there is a lot of talking involved. I knew this was going to be the case, I knew there were gonna be presentations and working in teams too. That is something that I was very sceptical about in the beginning. Somehow I had reached that point in my life where I thought “okay, but you got this!” but my expectation was rather low. I thought that I’ll manage but probably my social batteries are gonna run out fast and I’ll be tired of interacting with people quickly.
How introverted am I really?
Well, I surprised myself. It still puzzles me, that I am doing so well in this aspect, if I may say so myself. I’m getting along fine, I might be making friends, I feel accepted and comfortable and most surprisingly: my social batteries are fine! Both my seat neighbours here in class had moments where they told me that their social batteries are empty. And that hasn’t happened to me yet. Which is weird. I am seriously starting to wonder wether this means that I was more extroverted than I thought all along. Even though I am still perfectly fine being by myself. Which reminds me that I miss road cycling… hopefully I can get a round done on the weekend.
