That's what friends are for...

It’s ten past 8 on a Saturday evening and I am sitting in bed at home, alone. I have a glass of port beside me and my laptop on my lap, my smartphone within reach and am relatively content.

Except if I am completely honest, the one word in that paragraph that causes me the most discontent is ‘alone’.

In some ways I am extremely introverted: I don’t like crowds or people constantly hovering, I read everything I can get my hands on – whether it is good or not, I don’t like talking on the phone to strangers or being chatted up in bars, I’m a home body – spending more time here at home than out and about… usually.

You see I also have extroverted tendencies: a tendency to call attention to myself, I’m loud, enjoy being the centre of attention on the occasions I chose to put myself there and can talk the ear off a donkey.

I am social awkward, but have an overwhelming need to be liked. I’m independent to a fault and don’t ask for help unless I absolutely need it in my personal life, yet will drop everything to help an acquaintance I barely know if they ask.

I like to stand out and don’t like to follow the pack when it comes to fashion, often feeling really confident and like I look great when I get dressed in the morning, but depending on the reactions I get during they day I can easily become anxious and certain that everyone is laughing at me or judging me as the day passes. I have even gone shopping on a break, immediately changing into something more sedate just because of an off the cuff comment from someone that I have perceived as negative.

I don’t have a lot of close friends, and one thing I have discovered as I have got older, is that the level of friendship I may prescribe to the relationship I have with someone, is not necessarily reciprocated. I have many acquaintances, people who may say hi to me in the street, but wouldn’t invite to me a party they were throwing. People I would invite to my birthday, but who wouldn’t even think to invite me to after work drinks.  This isn’t a judgment on them, this is just me learning about social interaction.

Since I moved to Wellington two years ago I made what I would consider three close, reciprocal friendships with women. In June of this year, two of those friends moved to opposite ends of Canada within a week of each other.  The third is currently in Canada visiting friends and family. It wasn’t until she went on her trip that the loss of the first two hit me like a ton of bricks.

Between the three of them I at least had someone to talk to when I was feeling happy/sad/crushing on someone/having trouble at work. Yes I can email them, yes I can even call them… and I am going to Vancouver in 3 weeks and will be staying with one, but it’s not the same.

I can’t have a mid-week picnic in the botanic gardens the day before pay day with the coins from our piggy banks buying us a bottle of wine and raiding the cupboards supplying us with a feast. No more being dragged on tramps and hikes and bush walks, usually when I’m stupidly hungover with my super-fit friend who always manages to push me harder than I think I can go. I still have brunch dates and karaoke here and a shoulder if I need it, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.

I get attached to people easily, both in friendships and relationships. I know this, I recognise this, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stop it from happening. It is something I struggle with and something I am trying to work on, but I don’t really know how too when it comes down to me interpreting others intentions towards me.

I wish I could get the phrase “She (or He) is just not that into you” out of my head, but unfortunately it seems to ring true, both in friendships and in anything more. I try not to expect too much from other people, just respect and honesty, but sometimes I guess that is too hard.

Or it isn’t about the other person at all and I am just expecting too much… I just don’t know.

And tonight, that is making me sad.

I still have hope

I’m the first to admit that life isn’t easy for anyone. Even those we think have privileged, indulgent lives, don’t really have it all. I’m pretty much positive that if you delved into anyone’s life you would find something that sucked. Something that may have helped shape them into the person they are today, but something that caused them pain and/or suffering at some point in their lives.

I see so much judgement every day. Even by those who rail against it. I see the same people who fight back against any governments trying to legislate a women’s body, or stop two people from marrying just on their gender, I see these people bullying, excluding and judging others.

I’m in no way saying I’m perfect, I have judged. I still do. But I admit it, I hate hypocrisy.

I love Twitter. The social media platform that has given me back the feeling I used to get on IRC back in the early 90s. Introducing me to people from all over the world, giving me a chance to meet people like me. A little geeky, somewhat socially awkward. I made some great, long lasting friendships on IRC. Some I am now friends with on Twitter in fact.

But Twitter is a little different. I’m finding more and more that people are using Twitter as a place to pick on others. To find someone whose point of view differs and then to bully that person, twist their words, retweet to their own followers, so that others that agree with you can mock and bully the individual.

I am finding it harder and harder to understand why this is acceptable. I don’t agree with everyone and I downright feel some people are wrong to think the way they do. I’m for gay marriage, against cutting mental health services, think that any act of terrorism domestic or otherwise should never happen, but I am also anti-bullying.

I have engaged with people who do not share my opinion. Tried to make them see the error of their ways, but usually end up chanting the old saying in my head: Never argue with an idiot. They’ll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

Now you may point out that calling someone an idiot is bullying. And you would probably be right if I was saying that to their face, but I try to just drop it. Block them, ignore further trolls on the subject.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t stand up for themselves, in fact that is one of my points. When your opinion differs from someone else and you pick on them for it, I’m not talking rational discussion – I’m talking putting someone down or insulting them personally for their opinion, then you are bullying them. And when they fight back, they are defending themselves.

Actually, as I typed that I think maybe that’s the point I’m trying to make. When you respond to anyone’s opinion on anything with an attack on the individual that gave the opinion then you are the bully. If you call someone fat, lazy, stupid, ugly or any other insult on the person, not the opinion, then you immediately lower yourself. In my eyes at least.

I make a real effort to think about responses defending myself, I try to phrase a response that addresses the original comment, not the person behind it.  I’m not perfect, I know that. But I try. And I try because I know what it is like to be bullied.

I grew up being taunted. I was too smart, too fat, too uncoordinated and lazy, I was a geek, a ginger, I had funny teeth and then I had braces. I fell of the roof of my house when I was twelve and fractured my spine – one boy in my class laughed when the teacher told them, on the day I returned in a neck brace another girl in my class attacked me. I dressed differently, we were poor, I read to much, I never had boyfriends, I wanted to be a virgin till I was 18, I was abused as a kid, I was raped at 16, I tried to fit in by ‘buying’ friendships – food, drink, introductions to the boys who lived next door, anything I thought would help me fit it.

But I was always taunted. And today on twitter I watched as people I know did exactly the same thing to other people I know and using some of the same taunts that were used on me as a kid and I cried.

I want people to be better than that. I still have hope.

Couple conundrums

Kumbaya

One of my earliest ‘serious’ relationships (I was 18 and it was for 3 months, it _felt_ serious okay?!) was with, let’s call him Jeremy.

Jeremy was adorable, he had a bit of an accent, shiny dark hair and wasn’t too tall so I didn’t get a crick in my neck if we kissed standing up (oh the simplicity of being a teenager).

Now, Jeremy was a virgin. And Jeremy had decided he would quite like to lose his virginity to me. So understandably I was quite flattered, slightly nervous seeing as I hadn’t had much experience myself and from memory I was already phrasing ways to say how good he was even if it only lasted 30 seconds to save him any embarrassment. You know, I wanted his first time to be special.

If only I had known.

Four Faintly Funny Stories

Four short stories that at times read like fiction, but I can honestly (and somewhat unfortunately) say, they are truth!

The funny: Say my name, bitch!

I tried internet dating a couple of times. Had a couple of pleasant dates, some lecherous dates, went out a couple of times with one guy and then there was ‘Nick’.

Nick and I met on NZ Dating, he lived in Auckland and I lived in Hamilton. We dated for about 3 months. It was never very serious and simply ran its course, but that’s not the funny story here.

Boys. Men. Relationships or the lack of.

This blog post is somewhat of a purge for me. I needed to get it out.

 

I have a crap track record with men.

I say men, but my track record with women is equally as bad, sadly I have not even gotten close to a relationship (or otherwise) with a woman for more years than I would like to admit. When I finally meet one that is as interested in me as I am in her, then maybe we’ll have a story to tell.

Back to men. So I’ve gotten to the point that I’ve had so much ‘bad luck’ with men that I’m coming to the realisation that it may not be luck anymore… it may be me.