Friends

My friends from college came to visit over this last week. I haven't seen C. & J. for a few years, but being with them really made me feel like I had only seen them just yesterday. Friendships like that are awesome.

I've been thinking a lot about the way to make friends since I read a post on that same topic on one of the great blogs I link to over there.>>>>>>
(Of course I don't remember which one since Babybrain has taken over.) Of course, my friends coming to visit and then leaving (assholes) made me consider my dearth of friends as well.

I've never been really good at making friends. When I was growing up, I was an only child, and I didn't really get too much interaction with other kids besides in school. And I was, and still am, pretty shy. Any one who knows me who would read this would probably scoff at that, and same I'm obnoxious and really out-going, but that's just a clever ruse to hide my inability to make small talk or invite people to do stuff with me. I've lived in Colorado for almost six years now and I think I have made about two friends who I actually call/hang out with semi-regularly.

I used to think I was seriously an alien from outer space. Now that I've given birth to an obviously human baby, that theory is shot and I must face up to the fact that I'm just socially inept. I think that's why I like blogging: I can say things, and read other things, and no one thinks I'm a weirdo (assumption is that no one has read this blog yet.)

Mark on the other hand, is completely charismatic and friendly. He can make friends like nobody's business in about five minutes from meeting them. I truly envy him and hope the Manling gets that characteristic from him.

C. told me that she started going to Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings. I was really surprised by that because she always seemed so together and with it, not to mention confident, friendly, and stable. I told her that both my parents are alcoholics and she said I'd probably benefit from going to meetings too. I just checked out the website http://www.adultchildren.org/ and found some interesting things in their description:

We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
We lived live from the standpoint of victims. Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others. We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
These symptoms of the family disease of alcoholism or other dysfunction made us 'co-victims', those who take on the characteristics of the disease without necessarily ever taking a drink. We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults. As a result of this conditioning, we often confused love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue.
Even more self-defeating, we became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.

I can relate to many of these things, and now I'm wondering if this might have anything to do with my inability to make friends. I don't think I'd ever go to meetings like this, however.

Little man is crying, so until next time....