BFF (Banal Friendship Fallout)

I have trust issues.

It's no lie!

I don't trust many people and the ones that I do trust I have built that trust on years and years of give and take and honesty. I am not sure where it comes from, but I have lived a lifetime of trusting my gut instinct when it comes to certain types of people. Add on the fact that I am gay, then there is a whole other dynamic to giving trust to those who would misuse or use it against you. There were also some issues with family members when I was growing up that possibly contributed to my issues with trust. I mean, I have never had one of those trust building exercises where I'd fall into the hands of folks who I'd assume would catch me, but you'd think that family would be unconditionally trustworthy. Fat chance.

But this isn't about family today. It is about friendships and how they dwindle (or rather how my friendships dwindled). I like to think of myself as social person. When I was younger I didn't have many friends, but I did try to foster friendships with the kids in my neighborhood. Most of the time that fostering came with a big ole dose of reality when I would find out that I was the weird kid in the neighborhood and most of the kids were bullies. Some of the kids were just as weird as me. And let's be honest, childhood friendships are wrought with all kinds of weird emotions that are all part of the growing up experience.

I'd like to think that I kept friendships throughout junior high and high school. If I am being totally honest, I wasn't really that outgoing. I didn't have cool clothes. I wasn't allowed to have sleepovers or camp outs with other kids. We didn't do things with other families and the families we did do things with, the kids were either too young or too twisted for me to form bonds with.

I think this is why my adult friendships have suffered over the years. I didn't get that friendship building practice down to an art. I had siblings and cousins that were supposed to be my friends. Nothing was really nurtured in order to show me that there are all kinds of different people and friendships. And trust....well that wasn't something I had the luxury of handing out.

I will admit that I tried trusting different people from time to time. An occasional coworker, maybe someone I met in public that I thought I had a connection with. I joined social media sites to reach out and find people that I hadn't talked to in years. I even moved in with a family member that I knew very little about, in hopes of fostering a new kind of friendship. But my gut instinct always warned me that something was wrong and those friendships ended.

I recently passed a guy on the freeway and instantly recognized his car. we had been friends for a couple of years, but parted ways the winter of 2017. I felt that we had different ideas of what each of us wanted out of the friendship. When I felt like I wasn't getting back as much as I was giving, I decided to pull back and stop associating with him. It wasn't hard, because he basically declined most of my invitations to do things. and socially, he was one of those types that had friends to do things with. He just never included others in things and it kind of threw me off. Then I started to distrust him. Something about the way he said something to me once made me really wonder if our friendship was mutually beneficial or if he wanted more than what I told him I was willing to offer. I didn't want to give up the friendship, but at the time I knew that the friendship wasn't growing or evolving. Which is a terrible thing because I genuinely believe that he was sort of a nice guy.

The end result, unfortunately, is that neither of us talks to one another. I am sure that in some circles I am the villain of this story. What I don't know can't hurt me. For the most part, if it was meant to be then it would have found a way to be. And for someone with trust issues, I always trust my gut.