Friendly

Assalamualaikum

Super friends of 2005. We are separated and it was a good times.

When I was younger I always made friends easily and usually had a bunch of them. I was that person who made friends with anyone and I didn’t mind if they didn’t “fit” in with my other friends, eg. Making friends with “nerds” at school bugged the hell out of some of my “cooler” friends but it didn’t bother me that they were annoyed with it. I was pretty shy actually, but I still believed in myself enough. If I thought someone seemed nice, I would talk to them and be friends with them and that was that, other people could think what they wanted. I didn’t worry.

I suppose nowadays I’ve grown more self-conscious and cowardly. I’ll still talk to anyone just like I used to, but the difference now is that I no longer feel like this awesome, funny, great person who anyone would be happy to be friends with. Let me make it clear, for whatever reason, when I was a kid/teenager, people always liked me. I suppose it was my endless energy, naive positivity and how I would just put myself out there and not even realize I was “risking” something like, rejection or ridicule. I was very friendly and kind. And I knew people liked me, so I felt pretty good in that department.

I wasn’t scared to try and make a new friend if the opportunity presented itself. Now I’m too scared to be that friendly. I worry about rejection and embarrassment. I’ve lost that faith I had in myself that I was a fun person and a good friend. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not naive. I know some people treat you bad. I suppose I’ve been burned a few times too many through the years. But I wish I could be that person again, that happy, funny, friendly person who wasn’t afraid. I don’t know when I started thinking I wasn’t good enough.

Plenty of people ask me if anything is wrong, but I find that none of them really want to know.