I struggle with making deep and meaningful connections with people. That is something I realised yesterday night as I sat at our kitchen table with my flatmate who has quickly become one of my best friends.
See, I struggle finding new friends and meeting new people. I am absolutely petrified at the thought of having to talk to strangers and I need at least a week to prepare before any sort of social event (more if people I don't know will be there) and afterwards, I need at least a week to recover from that. That leads to me not really interacting with people, and the rare times I do attend a social event, I sit in a corner, scared of what people might think of me, that they might not like me, and don't talk to anyone, let alone anyone new. New friends mostly find me, and if they do, it's mostly in situations that have been forced on me (sorry to all my friends who's birthday parties I've attended and not been able to strike up a conversation with anyone except for the people I know very well already). When I am forced to come out of my shell and actually feel like the person I'm talking to does not hate me I do tend to overshare quite quickly. I don't even want to think about the amount of times I've probably missed a really great person because I was convinced they did not like me - that's actually a problem, and it has only come to my attention very recently when I met someone new a few months ago and was utterly convinced they disliked me so much that they'd rip my head off if I spoke another word to them again (hi, anxiety! why don't you fuck off?) only to have that person later tell me they thought I was pretty cool (take that, monkey brain!).
See, I struggle finding new friends and meeting new people. I am absolutely petrified at the thought of having to talk to strangers and I need at least a week to prepare before any sort of social event (more if people I don't know will be there) and afterwards, I need at least a week to recover from that. That leads to me not really interacting with people, and the rare times I do attend a social event, I sit in a corner, scared of what people might think of me, that they might not like me, and don't talk to anyone, let alone anyone new. New friends mostly find me, and if they do, it's mostly in situations that have been forced on me (sorry to all my friends who's birthday parties I've attended and not been able to strike up a conversation with anyone except for the people I know very well already). When I am forced to come out of my shell and actually feel like the person I'm talking to does not hate me I do tend to overshare quite quickly. I don't even want to think about the amount of times I've probably missed a really great person because I was convinced they did not like me - that's actually a problem, and it has only come to my attention very recently when I met someone new a few months ago and was utterly convinced they disliked me so much that they'd rip my head off if I spoke another word to them again (hi, anxiety! why don't you fuck off?) only to have that person later tell me they thought I was pretty cool (take that, monkey brain!).
So. Oversharing. Once I've decided I like someone, I talk too much too fast and share too much (sorry to all the people I've rambled to about my stove or books or university or musicals or anything, actually. I know I tend to do that.) very very quickly. If I've known you over three months and I haven't shown you a photo of my cat yet there must be something wrong. I tell the people I like so much about myself, they probably don't have any space to tell me about themselves. I talk and I talk and I talk and I don't stop unless you tell me to because I want to keep the conversation going so badly, I want to keep people interested so badly, I want people to like me so badly I share everything I can. Which then leads to the "problem" I've noticed tonight at around 1:24AM in my kitchen drinking tea: because I share so broadly and widely and with so many people, there barely seems to be anything special about me rambling to someone about a musical I've enjoyed or a book I've read or something that happened. It's like if I invited someone new over to my house and instead of telling them "This is the bathroom, here is the kitchen, this is the living room, sit down if you like" I give them the full tour of the house, every drawer, every closet, and I do that for every guest ever.
I think I struggle with making deep and meaningful connections with people because I want to have that so badly that I stop focusing on each person as an individual that I can give my attention to, but become one big sharing machine dashing out information over information instead of thinking about what connects me to that particular person. I want people to like me so desperately that I forget that it's not just about me presenting the best version of me - it's about a connection. So this will be a goal I will add to my make-my-thirteen-year-old-self-proud-project for this year: engage with people, pay attention to people; make deep and meaningful connections with people.
I think I struggle with making deep and meaningful connections with people because I want to have that so badly that I stop focusing on each person as an individual that I can give my attention to, but become one big sharing machine dashing out information over information instead of thinking about what connects me to that particular person. I want people to like me so desperately that I forget that it's not just about me presenting the best version of me - it's about a connection. So this will be a goal I will add to my make-my-thirteen-year-old-self-proud-project for this year: engage with people, pay attention to people; make deep and meaningful connections with people.
