One life lesson I’ve had a hard time learning is that you can’t force people to be friends with you. You might find people you really like and want to be friends with. But that doesn’t mean they want to be friends with you. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. People just have different preferences that should be respected. Think how you would feel in that situation.
But even more than that, having that kind of focus on certain people has hindered my friendships with the people that I naturally get along with well. Maybe not everyone I get along with is the type of person I’m looking for to push me or fill some void or keep me entertained in the areas I want to improve. But just the fact that they want to be friends with me, and I them, should be enough.
I think I spread myself too thin generally to give serious attention to the people I’m close with. My habit is to cling to one specific person, unintentionally making them my focus. But that obviously backfires in cases where it didn’t last long term or otherwise faded out.
I truly want to be a good friend but I don’t feel like I know how. I feel like I’m condemned to never have close personal friends. To almost exclusively focus on a significant other out of convenience and habit. That has been the trend, at least.
It’s a vicious cyclical battle between necessary focus on my future and feeling a visceral need for social interaction. I feel like I’m living my live in survival mode and that I can’t control or otherwise guide myself in a different direction.