I don’t know.
I say I don’t want friends, but that’s more like my past talking because of all the hurt I got from friends at school. I’ve only ever had one true friend who actually went out of her way to do things with me and hang out, and that was fourteen years ago… back in seventh grade. Every other friend I had was the “friend in school.” We’d talk, we’d eat lunch together, we’d be partners during projects and assignments. But we never hung out after school hours. We never called each other over the weekend or breaks. And when I moved, they just disappeared from my life. And eventually, that one friend in seventh grade did, too after I moved. So, I grew up not wanting friends and focusing on the real importance of life (school, jobs, family, hobbies) because I didn’t want to be hurt because it seems like people just don’t care.
People drift away, yes, as you get older. But I’ve noticed this happens way too frequently, and the people who have had friends for years, decades even… there’s something special there.
At my last job, I worked primarily alone. I’d see a few people from work once or twice, but it wasn’t for long and it wasn’t like we became besties. Then I moved jobs and I was hoping that, since so many were nice, I might get a chance to have what my sister has: friends. Not just friends at work who you talk to, but who you go hang out with. While she’s friendly with the majority of the staff, she at least has three actual friends she hangs out with regularly, if not more. And she hangs out with other people as well like some kids from her youth group (she’s a youth group leader at her work/church and the kids in her group are all teens, some of them 16-17 who she hangs out with) or people who’ve volunteered, know those in the band, etc.
And I don’t know, I thought I’d at least have someone who I could hang out with… but I don’t. Even though my co-workers are nice, they don’t seem like they’d want to hang out, and they seem like they have their own lives to worry about. One has three or so kids, and the others at the front are high schoolers or college students who are juggling work and school. But I know that they can go out of the way with each other because when before some of them have left (we had one chick leave like a month or so ago, another before Christmas, and another back in August) they seemed like the best of friends because they’d go out to lunch sometimes or they talk about going up to Colorado and doing stuff. They text each other and everything. And yet, I don’t have that connection, and it makes me jealous of my sister who does.
I get upset when my sisters all have plans of their own because they get to hang out with their friends and I’m stuck at home, alone. Sometimes, it’s okay because I do want my peace and quiet, but other times, I want to have plans with someone else. I don’t know… to go out to lunch, to go to the movies, to do something. And I feel like if I asked if anyone wanted to do it, they’d say no because they genuinely don’t want to with me or that I feel like a burden for intruding in on their life.
I get that some people don’t want to be friends with those at work, but how else do you make friends when all you do is go to work?
I don’t know… overthinking everything has not been kind to my mental health. It just makes me feel like I’m worthless because no one wants to be friends with me, just like how no one wanted to be friends with me in school.