Let's talk about: how I still have no friends, 20 years after the first day of school

“You know, she’s just the kind of person that everybody worries whether she has a ride home.  And, I guess, I’m just the sort of person people assume can walk.”

I like to think I am a decent friend.  I try to help my friends when I can.  I’m generous with my time and my money.  I try to go out of my way to be considerate and flexible of other people’s schedules and interests.  I’m smart, up on my pop culture, and I can always crack a good joke.

So it’s been a source of constant insecurity throughout my entire life that I’ve never had many close friends.  Every few years there was a blip on the radar, a temporary friendship that reminded me there might be more to life than sitting alone in my bedroom reading Sylvia Plath, but there’s never been anyone consistent in my life to talk to or to be with.   Maybe it’s because I don’t need that, because I’m close with my family, and love my pets, and am not afraid to be independent or alone, and maybe close friendships are fundamentally based on some innate co-dependency that I just don’t have. 

It seems so strange to me that someone who is seen as so brave, so strong, and so independent can feel so invisible and ignored.  It's even stranger to me that someone who feels so invisible and ignored can simultaneously feel outraged that nobody can see how great she is, and embarrassed for having such a gigantic, well-hidden ego.  Being friendless gives you a lot of free time to develop skills, and I'm both talented enough and self-aware enough to realize that no matter how good I am at how many things, people just do not want to be my friend.  When it feels as lonely as it does right now, it's such a painful reality to accept.  It's the kind of reality that tends to end up in blood-filled bathtubs or in lakes with rocks in your pockets. (I'm a female writer.  I know where we end up, and it's never good.)

I guess the only fair thing to do, both for myself and for others, is to give as much as I receive, and hopefully receive as much as I give.  I’ll plan trips, arrange coffee dates, organize movie nights, and offer my help when someone asks for it.  And I’ll happily travel the world by myself when a friend backs out, and bring a book to coffee when they call to cancel, and go see movies alone when nobody else wants to see them.  And I guess I’ll just keep being my own best friend until I discover if there is someone out there who can do a better job than I can.  

I'm not quite a rock or an island, but I could probably be a really hard chunk of clay and maybe a peninsula.