Dating : Starting Over: I Need An Interpersonal Relationship Overhaul

(Original post from https://kindlykjohnson.blogspot.com/2019/08/starting-over-i-need-interpersonal.html#more )

Recently, I’ve caught myself being a bit moody when I start to think about my social life. The last time I really hung out with a friend it was lacking to say the least. I listened to them tell me about people and every thing about those people they didn’t like, for instance mental illness diagnoses and weight, applied to me. I couldn’t even be bothered to debate (read: argue) with them about the things they were saying with me. I just felt hurt, numbed by it and reminded of a familiar feeling I had felt frequently during that time; I truly had little to no connection with the people I considered friends.

How I got to this conclusion sans that unfortunate conversation was also based on the roles that I generally played in some of my closest relationships.

Despite being a generally opinionated person, when it came to the relationships I had I felt like I had to lower my feelings, opinions and emotions as much as possible to make room for the feelings, opinions and emotions of my friends. I felt like I had to lower myself to be appealing as possible . A lot of times in my closest friendships I found myself being the main listener, the person to vent to. This was fine because I liked listening but eventually it would get to the point where I wouldn’t receive the same space to vent my own problems back or give my opinion for that matter on things we spoke about unless it was for advice they wanted to hear . I had friends who would speak to me though the night and anytime I tried to get a word in it was shortened to four, maybe five words an hour with bits of validation like “Yes, you’re right, uh-huh” occasionally sprinkled in.

I think this is one of the biggest reasons why eventually in my friendships no matter how long they had been going on there became a disconnect between where I stood and where they thought I stood between general opinions and how I wanted the friendship to go. There was never enough room for me to vocalize myself. Another reason why my friendships lost connection and I didn’t really feel like I got to represent myself is 100% on me. For several years in my life I was going through extreme periods of traumatic situations such as housing insecurity, family troubles and romantic relationship troubles. I believe that during this time when it came to friendships it fell into periods of extremes itself. I would either fall off the face of the earth and isolate myself in the pursuit of getting myself completely together or I would go full force into interacting with my friends but when I did I found I felt like we didn’t even really know each other. I was determined to get my life together before allowing my social life to flourish but when I compare my situation to those with identical situations who still managed to have budding social lives I know now that it was foolish for me to ever decide not to live a decent life while I was trying to survive.

Usually during these periods which was also a fault of my own as long as I had a romantic relationship going I would work harder to put time into it. I figured since I was putting more than just an ear to lean on in these relationships (read: sex) I could have an easier time acknowledging who I am and my place to feel cared for but that didn’t always work out that way. My romantic relationships in themselves had extremes. I found that either I was placed in the “Manic pixie dream-girl” role, having people who barely knew me decide that I (Or moreso just a relationship, period) would be the answer to all their problems and forget getting to know me as a person even if the refusal of taking the time to get to each other would eventually lead to huge compatibility problems, or I was just something to do when there’s nothing to do and kept around through minimal displays of kindness that I would give more meaning to than I should have and those displays that either evaporated or were kept status quo with no expansion once I was promptly sprung.

In the same vein as my platonic friendships my romantic relationships were in disarray and I wasn’t given much of any room to be myself. At Least with my romantic relationships I put in more work to try and push expressing myself more but it just never worked out. I tried to be the one who vented my issues into the night and there was plenty but usually I was just tuned out and conversation like with my friendships either turned immediately into what was going with them or sex.

Not all of my platonic and romantic relationships were this bleak, sometimes there were people who we had good understanding and respect of each other so we got along fairly fine but our relationships were just that of acquaintances and our conversations were only occasionally deeper than small talk and some of my relationships were far worse than the issues I’ve detailed where I didn’t just feel like I was basically just used to be a placeholder but to add insult to injury once they felt they no-longer needed me for that role I was discarded in the rudest way possible.

In so many of my interpersonal relationships I wasn’t really a person now I’m finally coming with the terms that acquaintanceships are nice but when it comes to fully fledged friends and romantic relationships I have to start over and pick people who I know will have my best interest and treat me right.

Part of my hesitance with the task of making new friends and lovers is that I’m afraid I will go through this all over again. I got complacent to the pain of feeling not able to be myself and not appreciated for me as long as it was coming from familiar faces and I had to learn the hard way again and again that the years I had known these people truly didn’t matter in the end or keep them from treating me the way I did and a pain from a familiar face can be much worse than dealing with the chance of getting that pain from a new one.

At this point most of my relationships have fallen off and as lonely as that can be it feels good to start off with this clean slate. Loneliness was the main reason I kept dealing with these situations and I can’t allow it to consume me anymore. Even though I am an introverted person It still makes me very lonely not to have someone I can reach out to but at the same time I am being realistic and realizing I didn’t have that enough before and if I ever will I have to be willing to make new friends and new relationships. I cannot let my loneliness continue to keep me in situations where I don’t feel like a fully fledged friend or lover but I also cannot let my fear of making new friendships and romantic relationships keep me lonely.