When I get hungry, I am really hungry. As in, stomp-my-feet-and-scream-up-at-the-sky hungry. When I have to pee, I am barely keeping myself from peeing in my pants or dancing around like an idiot. When I'm sleepy, I generally feel like I could pass out where I stand.
But nowhere else is this more obvious in my life than with my friendships.
Making new friends is difficult for me, just as it is for the Caitlin I created in my Sim world. She's a little bit luckier in that people just seem to randomly stop by her house in search of friendship, but in general she, too finds herself blindly staring at people at the park as she clumsily reads a book she's read 17 times. Like me, when she begins talking to a new friend, she chooses carefully her words, never knowing what gesture (Flirt? Tickle? Dance?) will offend or delight her new friend. Sometimes I think I can actually see the little red negative friendship thingy above my new friend's head.
 |
| I mean, who hasn't been in this situation, am I right? |
Luckily for Caitlin the Sim, she is spared the debilitating after-effects of social interaction, such as replaying every single word or sending emails of apology for some fabricated sleight.
Caitlin the Sim grows immensely attached to people in a short period of time. If the new friend does not call or visit with any frequency, Caitlin the Sim cuts them off emotionally and their friendship bar begins to diminish.
I as Caitlin the Human tend to also become somewhat possessive and quick to sadness if a new friend seems "off" or would rather hang out with different friends, as though this is any comment on me personally. Eventually I try to cut myself off emotionally and completely, just as Caitlin the Sim does when her new friend doesn't call as much as she'd like. This never works, and I end up hating myself for becoming so attached and ridiculous. The cycle continues. For this reason I've never had a friend with whom I am as close as I am with Robbie, though I'm sure I've pushed away more than one potential friend.
I could blame my tumultuous history of friend-making on a variety of things in my past, from numerous adult figures who transferred their own insecurities and left me with crippling anxiety--including my elementary school music teacher who intentionally marginalized me because I wasn't a favorite--to the fact that I never quite learned how to make my hair not look like a triangle or my eyebrows to not look like defunct caterpillars. But when you get right down to it, we are all the sum of our own experiences and baggage, so it's really nobody's fault but my own that sometimes with people I act like some simulacrum of a person rather than a real-live human being.
I guess I feel like I should apologize to all of the friends who have miraculously stuck with me, both in real life and online, because I know I'm not always the best friend and more often than not make a friendship more about me than about the friendship itself. So I apologize, and I'm more grateful than you know.
I hope you all have a great week.
