I'm going to start this by stating a very cliched truth in my life: making friends has always been a difficult task for me.

The friends I did finally start making were brought into my life through a prank. I was used to the bullying I received. My intellectual curiosity was always trumped by wondering how people would embarrass me next. Then I finally came across someone going through daily bullying as well, and we formed a small group of rejects.

Our groups' shared bond was how we emotionally survived high school. We needed each other because everyone had already written us off after one glance. I was shown complete compassion and care by my friends in high school; so I have always had a deep need to return that devotion to all my friendships and relationships going forward.

As we all took different pathways in life, our friendships wained, and that need to connect with others grew to insurmountable proportions. Even though I lucked out occasionally and found connections outside of my high school friends, adulting took a lot of my new acquaintances away.

So, once I felt that spark with anyone, I LATCHED on.

Thanks to my eagerness to expand my circle of friends, I have been used emotionally and financially by those I thought cared about me. Gaslighting, fighting, stealing, identity theft –– it's a wonder I still try to connect with anyone at all. My being used over and over again in the name of finding friendships has currently cost me thousands of dollars, loads of paperwork, police encounters, and an increase in therapy sessions.

My seeming inability to say no to a demand on my limited resources and time has cost me more than I even care to admit. But I still hold the hope that I will meet a group of people who will embrace all my flaws unconditionally as my friends in high school did.

There was no guidebook to finding friends in high school, just luck, and timing. There needs to be a guidebook for finding friends as an adult. It is almost impossible to form genuine friendships as an adult. There's work, school, and family to attend to. Not to mention money and transportation can be an issue for a lot of people.

Add to these factors someone like me who needs compassionate companionship from others to help silence some of my constant personal self-loathing and overall mental health stability, and I am just not a good match for a good number of people.

When I think I'm over being so needy for connection, I turn away more people. People have gone back to lying about how creepy my connection to them makes them feel in order to spare my feelings. And that hurts worst of all. Because I would rather people be blunt and tell me to get away from them than to string me along out of pity. I don't need pity friends. I need the kind of friends who found me in high school. We came together out of need, but I believe we've stayed friends all these years because of love. No one can make me laugh the way he does. No one can understand my darkness like she does.

After my latest disappointment in the friend search, I was ready to give up. I still have my best friends from high school. They accept me no matter what. Isn't that enough? But do you ever get the feeling that life is passing you by while everyone you knew is waving at you from two lifetimes ahead? Like those around you are broadening their horizons and getting over the setbacks you're still going through? New friendships and experiences in life will do that. And if I always know the same people and stay in the same place and do the same things, will I ever change?

A few days ago, I was reminiscing about just how many people I have met and considered myself close to after high school. I graduated in 1999. In the years since, I have formed the long-lasting friendships, I've been longing for without realizing it. And they formed as organically as the friendships in high school did. No one gives me faith that long-term love is still possible to find like they do. I've known them since 2005. No one could understand the daily stresses of my work like these coworkers. I 've known them since 2004. No one is as passionate about LGBTQAP activism than they are. I met these individuals in 2001. No one guy has seen me so intimately. I met him in 2001. No female is so different than me and yet so much like me. I met her in 2002. Just within the last year and a half, I've come across a few people who have opened my eyes to so many new experiences and challenges.

I realized that the people who I have let go due to the pain they were causing me were actually "friendships" that I forced for the wrong reasons. The I've alluded to above came in my life organically and WANTED to know me. They saw my flaws and stuck with me anyways. Just like my friends from high school. These people have proved their loyalty to me. Time and distance don't sever our bonds.

In fact, the fact that I can call any of them up and shoot the breeze and they can call me (when my phone isn't acting up) anytime is a testament that they are my ride or dies.

I will still always look for new connections. Friendship means more to me than anything. Without my friends, I wouldn't have survived high school; I wouldn't have survived living at home; I wouldn't have survived half of the ugly "friendships" and relationships I've endured in my lifetime. I won't fret anymore when people show me negative true colors. Because I realize that I have enough people in my life currently that show me their positive colors. That's enough for me.