A Little Insecurity

Am I a terrible friend?

I don't have that many friends. My facebook buddies are people basically forced to friend me by school, church, or professional network pressures. I'd guess I never talk to 90% of them—and I may be being generous with myself in that estimate. But it's not that I don't talk to them; it's that I have a few friends for a few years, then they disappear. Then my facebook friend list becomes the repository for all of my former friends and colleagues.

Now, it doesn't usually bother me that my friendships are, for the most part, short lived. What does bother me is that when I see folks everywhere with lifelong friendships, I get the itching feeling I'm doing something terribly wrong. I mean, I suppose it may be the fate of a blunt, cranky, and (let's be honest) relatively self-centered person to lose friends as easily as she gains them. I suppose I could change the self-centered part, and the crankiness is usually hormone-based, but I'm not going to stop being blunt anytime soon. Heck, I'm way less blunt than I was a few years ago (yeah, I used to be an even bigger jerk).

My gradeschool friends disappeared before junior high, and my junior high friends and I had nasty breaks before 8th grade "graduation." My friends from the first year of high school and I split toward the beginning of the second year, and I barely talk to anyone from high school anymore.

Now, I'm pretty sure all of that is normal. Or it's a part of my chronic move-on-itude. In any event, I'd basically waited until college to form any lasting friendships, except Eileen. And she's basically the nicest, sweetest, most thoughtful person in the whole world. She keeps friends like gangbusters. She may be the only person on Earth with friendliness enough to counteract my friend-repulsion powers.

I've kept an Ashley and a Miriam around for over five years now, and that seems to be working out. I mean, I love having friends (especially these two), because a woman needs other women to talk to, commiserate with, and sit around in their cold apartment watching movies on a sick day with.

Anyway, I had another friend I thought I was close with, but then she got married and asked our whole group except me to be bridesmaids. That hurt—especially after I'd invited her to be one of my bridesmaids. Which brings up my other major insecurity: nobody has ever asked me to be a bridesmaid. Ever. Basically every Mormon woman my age has been a bridesmaid at least once. I feel both cheated and rejected.

Anyway, that friend disappeared into Canada with a few futile attempts at contact on either end, but I think we both know that our friendship must've gone down the tubes a long time ago without me noticing. I think it's that relationship that really made me realize that I must be doing something terribly wrong.

Maybe it's being horribly insecure about not keeping friends.

Gosh, this post is boring. I need to write a few more so when you all finally scroll to this one on the page, you'll be too bored to keep reading.