Do you often feel left out?
Have you struggled to make lasting friendships?
Do you feel lost and alone?
I have a few things to tell you.
I was the person that had an acquaintance in almost every different clique that existed. All of these people would tell me how nice I was and how they admired that about me, but none of these people invited me to do things because they already had their best friends. This made me feel defeated before I even gave myself a chance.
This is when I began to believe that being well rounded wasn’t a good thing.
I read books. I didn’t fit in with the 4.0 students.
I loved to write. I didn’t fit in with the writers.
I loved sports. I didn’t fit in fully with the jocks.
I cared and I loved and I often didn’t feel that care and love in return.
After a year and a half of struggling to fit in in high school, I started to figure what I was doing wrong because I just couldn’t seem to make and keep friends. I played sports and, yeah, the girls on my team were good friends during the season, but it always seemed that things just faded after we weren’t playing softball or basketball together anymore.
It was no one’s fault. I just didn’t know how relationships worked from a simple friendship to a girl-boy relationship… I struggled. I just didn’t get how to connect with people and what I have found is that is OK.
Forcing yourself to connect with someone you just don’t connect with sets both sides up for failure.
After my childhood best friend and I went our separate ways during middle school, I never experienced a true friendship like that again and to be honest I didn’t think that I would.
Because…
I thought there was something wrong with me, and in reality that wasn’t true.
Now I am in my third year of college and I have never had a better group of friends.
People who care about me and love me for who I am, not the person I pretended to be in high school. It truly is nice to not pretend anymore.
I can be my nerdy, book reading, Jesus loving, goofy, and super awkward self around my new friends and they support that.
These people care about me and love me. It feels weird to say this because I have spent my whole life thinking that I would never have what I have now.
I hope they feel the same amount of care and love from me because they seriously have made me see life in a totally different light.
So just let this be your reminder that even if you are struggling to make friends now you will not always struggle. The truth is you probably haven’t come into contact with the right people. The people you will connect with right off the bat and form a forever friendship with.
Best of luck,
Your forever awkward friend.