Starting this journal, I’m not sure what I want to accomplish here. I’ve always been pretty terrible at written language. Maybe it will help me with introspection, although I’m pretty sure that’s not a hindrance already. I might go as far to say that I have too much introspection… So what am I even doing this for?
It might be fun to go back in several years time and read some entries. It might improve my writing. Who knows.
I’ve been struggling with making friends. It’s not because I moved to a new city, but rather the ex wife took custody of my old circle of friends in the divorce. She was a much better friend to them anyways. I never felt quite right in that circle of friends, but nonetheless I was accepted and loved in many different ways by those people. Inside jokes, movie nights, board game nights, vacations, festivals we were tight, close knit. While my X was the only person to actually know all of my deepest and darkest thoughts/feelings it was still nice to be able to connect with people, and have people that wanted to connect with me. I don’t think I’ll ever find something quite like that again, although I hope to. I’m searching, and it’s painful. I never understood why people said it gets harder to make friends as you get older until it actually happened. They were right.
So… why was it a good night? Well after reaching out to several people in a friend group individually and having some awkward interactions, I finally felt accepted by most people there. I got close enough to start to see their flaws. These people that I had built up in my head that were infallible, people that were supposed to be the shining example of which I should want to follow were just humans with their own problems, own insecurities. That felt really nice. It’s not just me. It’s not just the way I look. It’s not the way I dress. It’s not the way I talk. It’s not my interests or hobbies. They have the same problems I do, even though they’re prettier, more spiritual, more interesting or whatever other metric I choose to pit them against me. I realize it’s not healthy to compare, but it’s a real thing that everyone does and if you’re not, you’re going to be left behind. I got close enough to see these beautiful humans for what they are, flawed just like the rest of us.
I made plans earlier in the week to go to a local spot to cool off at a local watering hole with one of the people from this group. We’ll call him Archie. Archie was always really nice to me. I first met this group of people at a regional burn, and while most people didn’t interact with me the first one or two times I camped with them, Archie did. He came over and asked for some food that I was cooking, and I shared some Steak with him. He let me borrow one of his towels to go take a shower as I had forgotten mine. The next time I saw him, at the next burn he didn’t say Hi to me, nor did I to him. I thought it was me, and it might have been. Maybe if I had been more interesting, maybe if I could speak clearer, maybe if I had made more of an impression he would have noticed me and said Hi. What I’ve come to find out is that he probably thought the same thing about himself and asked himself why didn’t I find it in myself to say Hi to him. The answer is simple, I wasn’t doing so well. I needed people to reach out to me at that time. I’m always the one to initiate conversation, keep it flowing, asking them followup questions, trying to relate… it’s so rare to find someone who treats me with the same respect. It’s exhausting and taxing on my already stretched too thin social mana. I needed him to say Hi to me, but he didn’t. We ran into each other several months later at an amateur wrestling event. I don’t remember the specifics of who noticed who, but regardless we started chatting, and we chatted for maybe an hour or so. It was really, really nice. I got exactly what I needed. He learned so much about me, who I am, what I like to do for fun, what drives me. We parted the conversation loosely about plans in the future to smoke meats and vegetables together. Eventually we started talking online, and what do you know, we made solid plans for 4th of July to do this together. It was excellent. Only 2 of his friends showed up, and the girl I’m currently seeing came later in the day as well. We’ll call her Jane. I felt bad for him, he invited so many people and no one came. It was short notice, but this person who’s social status I held in such high regard has the same problems as me. It doesn’t make me happy that he had the same problems, but it does make me happy knowing that I’m not alone. If someone that was thin, personable, dresses hip, younger than me had the same problems, well… I don’t know what the means, but it does make me feel a connection to Archie. I had empathy as I know what it feels like to be in that position. I played the day off relatively well, keeping upbeat and not really talking about people not showing all too much. It slightly bothered me that we went through 4-6 hours of work to serve maybe 5 people, but again we’re all flawed. I think he wanted me for my smoker, as now it’s at his house and he can experiment with things, but I’m trying not to make assumptions (even though that’s exactly what I’m doing). As I said earlier, we had plans to go to the local watering hole yesterday. We chatted a bit throughout the day, and around 45 minutes before we were set to go, I get a text saying that he’s not feeling up to it but we should still chill out at his house. I was slightly annoyed as I’ve been trying to go to this watering hole with someone for over a month now, but I was still happy to be spending time with him. He wanted to spend time with me, so that’s really nice. We ended up messing around on one of his synthesizers for a few hours and then headed to a bar to see the burner camp lead of this camp I’m talking about’s band. We’ll call him Mas (for future entries).
So back to why was this a good night? Most of the people that are always around this friend circle were there. I was greeted by them. They looked genuinely happy to see me. Before my presence seemed somewhat of a nuisance, this is the first night most of them seemed generally happy to see and share space with me. I felt accepted.
I went around and talked to a bunch of them, even chatted up a few people that were strangers. Had a really interesting conversation on God/Devil and death with one of them. I met a person that floats close to this circle and he invited me to an gathering where they all try and pickup their old instruments from highschool and make a band. We connected on facebook and today he sent me the information. I have plans in 2 weeks to go try and play trombone again, I’ll let you know how that goes when we get there.
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