Thursday, August 11, 2011

Lend Me Your Hand and We'll Conquer Them All

Living back at home and in Georgia is harder than I was expecting it to be. I don't have any friends here anymore. They've either moved away or we've grown so different that we aren't friends anymore. I've never been one to make friends easily, especially when not given many opportunities to do so.

I see groups of people all out together at restaurants just talking and eating and having fun. And I'm jealous. I wish I knew what it is that makes me so different from them - why I can't be in a group like that. Anytime that I have had a group of friends to hang out with like that, I've had to force it to happen, it seems. I'm not naturally a social person, but I love being social. What I mean by that is that I'm not comfortable making the first move and being the one to start talking first. But I love being around people and watching them and listening to them. I feel like I have to make a tremendous effort to step out on my own and make new friends.

When I was at my first Law School, my now friend Mike made the first move. He started talking non-stop the first day of orientation. And because of him, our group was made. And it was a great group. I miss the friendship there. At my second Law School, I already had a friend there and sort of hung out with him and his friends first. Then I hung out with my roommates' friends. But there are very few people that I know that are "my" friends - "my" friends because I made the effort to keep the relationship going.

I don't know why it's so hard for me.

I remember that, in college, I was very introverted and quiet my first two years. And I got like I am now - depressed about the lack of friends and lack of social life. So my New Year's Resolution in my sophomore year was to "be outgoing." And I forced myself into that happy, social butterfly mold. I made many, many friends - a handful of which are still my friends today. Apparently I did such a great job playing the role of social butterfly that some people started to believe that I actually WAS a social butterfly. An acquaintance of mine saw me at some point during my first year of law school (when I had reverted back to introverted Anna) and was so confused and thought something was wrong with me because I was basically being myself. He had never seen me be myself.

So this is the problem. When I am myself - quiet and introverted - I have no social life and very few friends. When I am not myself - social butterfly, cheery, etc. - I have many friends but few who actually know me.

I really need to do some heavy thinking to decide what to do at this point.

5 comments:

  1. You have to realize that I am awesome and by extension you are awesome, but in all seriousness I think about the fact all the time that we didn't hang out more than we did because you are so awesome and we have so much in common. I think the same thing happened to me in school and people seem to think I was a social person and I never saw it that way. My suggestion would be maybe not to start by trying to have a big group of friends but maybe to cultivate one or two friendships and see where it goes from there...

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  2. My problem, Jonjon, is that I don't know where to find those first one or two people! Haha! I am in a better mood today, though, since I got plenty of sleep last night. I've found that my mental mood is directly proportional to my exhaustion level. ;) I know it will get better. I'm just impatient.

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  3. Anna, i am not sure if being amongst 'artificial' frenz can delight you but definitely if u can tick each of the points u had on ur to-do list for the vacation, u will be on cloud 9...

    -Abid
    http://galli-number-3.blogspot.com/

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  4. Anna Grace, you are beautiful.

    And I find myself having the opposite problem. I used to be full of energy, so outgoing I brought out the energy in everyone else. Now I'm socially awkward and I don't really know how to deal with social situations.

    But

    I love you and have always considered you my friend. It's better to have one or two friends that know you well than to have many you don't know.

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  5. I can relate to this so much. I struggle with these same issues. I wish I had the answers for both of us.

    This is definitely something to pray about. God created us all in His image, but we are all unique and different. He loves us just the way we are. I'll be praying that God puts people in our lives that can love us and understand us--quirks and all. ;)

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