At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a post on loneliness and how it's less lonely when you expect to be lonely. However, tonight, I'm sitting in James' apartment, and he's not here. He's been here for the past month when I've hung out with him, but he's gone in France now . . . and I am lonely in a place where I'm not used to being lonely.
I'm also frustrated and tired, but it's not related to how many hours I'm working. In part, I suppose it is, but not because I'm working too many hours; more, it's because I don't really have anything to do with the hours I'm off except surf the internet, read books, or clean my apartment, and I can do the first two of those while I'm working. I've reorganized all sorts of things at the motel in an effort to keep things cleaner so the owners can have more time to spend on running things around here instead of worrying about minutiae.
More, I'm frustrated because of friendship situations. I debated a long time before writing this blog post, but, as Izzy has said before, I can't just shit sunshine on my blog; my whole life isn't sunshiny, so my blog doesn't have to be either. I know that several of my friends read this blog, and I hope they don't take offense to this post; rather, I just want them to understand a few things, and I want to express some things I can't really say to any of my friends (both those who read my blog and those who don't).
I'm not a hugely social person. I like talking and discussing with people, but I don't need to have hangers-on ever second. Still, in high school, I did a lot of social organizing. I hosted parties on a regular basis, and I worked hard to keep a circle of friends. I baked, I traveled to other cities to visit people, and I went out of my way to help out friends in more ways than one. I drove friends places, especially when I was the only one who had a license, and I loaned more than one friend cash that I've never seen back. On one notable occasion, a friend couldn't afford to take her SATs. I wrote a check for her and left it on her desk. Sadly, she never used the check and never took the SATs, and I can't help but wish that I could go back and change that moment, because I feel this decision still reverberating through her life.
I moved away from my friends in college; especially after I started dating Chris, I stopped being friends with many people. I deserve some blame, but much of it did have to do with him. He was a possessive boyfriend, and he had a special talent for driving a wedge between people. After we broke up, I slowly started to become friends with people again, only to realize that what has always bothered me about my friends continues to haunt me.
With some of my friends, my first relationship (ended 3 years ago) continues to be a specter. I will perpetually be "Eric's girlfriend," and they never seem to see me as more than that. I don't think this lessens their affection for me, but it does heighten my annoyance when telling stories. Honestly, the less I think about my first boyfriend, the happier I am. Really, in general, I try not to think about the periods of my life spent dating, because they were -- on the whole -- the less happy portions of my existence.
With other friends, I can't stand the lack of communication. I have several friends that still have not returned repeated emails and phone calls. Even a simple "thanks" would suffice, or even an email in exchange for a phone call saying, "yo, I'm busy, but I'll call when I can." I understand that my friends have lives, and it's hard for me to be a part of their lives when I'm not living in the same city. But it still smarts.
This week, I called up one particular friend with the intention of kvetching a little about my loneliness in not having a boyfriend (some days, it just gets to me). However, since I cultivated a reputation in high school for being self-centered and only talking about myself, I first asked her how she was doing, and I geniunely cared. She blathered on for several minutes about what a horrible time she had somewhere that I would have really liked to be this last weekend. When she was done, I said, "At least you were with people that loved you." Honestly, that's more than I can say right now. It might have been rainy, wet, or uncomfortable . . . but when you're with people you care about, you can find ways to make it fun. Heck, I didn't complain so much about going snow camping, and I spent half the night up being freezing cold and not wanting to leave my sleeping back despite a raging urge to vomit brought on by horrible heartburn. About the time she was done, I had to leave to check in some customers, but she said she'd be around if I called back. I did call back, and no one answered. Perhaps something came up, but I'll never know because she never called back nor emailed to see how things are.
I mostly just get really frustrated at the feeling that I have to pull teeth to get people to talk to me. Random strangers are always telling me how nice and charming I am. I get compliments (and the occasional tip) at the motel. I seem to be quite a likeable person. But, honestly, I went through my cell phone to call someone tonight because I've been feeling bummy. I didn't want to call my parents, because I always call them to complain about my life, and they shouldn't always have to listen. I called another friend just the other night, so I didn't want to bug her. And, other than that, the only people I could think to call were bloggers that I don't actually know in real life. In fact, I cold-called one blogger (and I hate cold-calling people for social reaons) because I just wanted someone to talk to that I felt might actually care about what I had to say. Again, that smarts, and I find it really pitiful.
I love Seattle as a city, and I don't regret the time I spent there. I enjoyed going to school in Portland. But I truly am ready to leave all of it and try and find new people to be friends with that actually think about contacting me for once. My missed call log consists of my parents and my older brother. If I didn't call people, I could go days without using my cell phone (well, except for my parents calling, which I do appreciate). While I don't hand my number out willy-nilly, I have had my cell phone for over five years now, so plenty of people have my number.
I'm just really sick of dealing with people who act like this and treat me like this. Lack of contact is frustrating and sends a clear signal that people I thought were my friends obviously don't want to deal with me. I'm so ready to form a new social circle.