It’s already been established that I’m least a little out of the way when it comes to how I think and how I work. So it may come to no surprise that not too far back in my life and even now I get confused at some things that are really simple for other people.

I have some ideas as to why I’m this way, but that’s not what this is about. This is simply about me struggling with my feelings.

When I was really young, I’d make “friends” left and right, acquaintances really. Anyone I met was my friend. Then I’d say around third of fourth grade, I started to think a lot about people. Who I called my friends didn’t change, but my outlook on people did. In fifth grade, I noticed that friends were quite a lot different than I had originally imagined.

I got picked on a bit more too and my best friend at the time denied being my friend once asked by one of the bullies. That really got me thinking about people and how they act and what they mean. I brushed it off a bit at the time, but I couldn’t forget about it. It got me very introspective. In sixth grade, I maintained a joking mentality and was open enough in certain situations, but also very closed off towards people at the same time.

I would call people “friends,” but at the time, I knew that it wasn’t the friendship I imagined or saw in movies and books. More acquaintances put in my face that I was expected to connect to.

My high school life started in seventh grade and I didn’t change much at that time either. I had one main friend that I talked to and got along well with and I thought that I had finally found the enigmatic thing called “friendship.” That lasted for a while, but by eighth or ninth grade, from a combination of things, I became almost outwardly bitter at people in general. I had known since a very young age that people lied and smiled to people they didn’t like or order to obtain something and never was this more clearly presented to me.

The teacher admired the liars that smiled to them and oozed fake positivity. I’d hear such people talk when they were away from whoever they were pretending to and became disgusted. At that time, I had developed a halfway fake persona. I was, again, dealing with a lot at the time, and so, my outward self was just a way to hide how I felt, but never once did I smile at someone I hated. I continued making fake friends throughout the time though.

People saw me and latched onto me and I didn’t know how else to react but to accept their obviously flimsy offers to be friends. I couldn’t even tell you what a friend was for about two or three years after that. I muddled through life in a very confused way and didn’t know how to address it.

Around the ending of eleventh grade and the beginning of twelfth grade, I found what I could definitely without any hesitance call a friend. Friendship at that time had become someone that didn’t mind listening to me talk and would reply honestly and without mincing words.

A kind truth. A joke sharer. An idea inspirer.

Someone that didn’t always expect me to pick them up when convenient and then who would leave when the convenience ended. A person that I never assumed existed before then. And so, I scrutinized my other “friends” and kept active only with the group of the closest. Although I’ll say that I could never reach the same level of friendship as with the other person, it was close, and it made me happier.

Okay, here comes the big emotions- deep like and love. When I first noticed real romantic feelings towards someone, it was towards the end of high school and the beginning of college. It hit me like a sack of bricks and I was in a constant state of confusion. I became even more awkward and weird and although all the signs were there, I blatantly denied them for about a year. I didn’t know what romantic feelings were and I was averse to the feeling of love.

Since I learned what love was, I didn’t want it. Love, real love, to me was something unbearably sad and painful. Many years in high school, I looked at the girls that were chasing love and thought they were dumb. Because, in my opinion, they weren’t chasing love. They were chasing the idea of love.

Me too, I loved the idea of fairy tale love, but I didn’t believe in it. And I still don’t. Love is still not a starry eyed vacation, nor is it something to chase with abandon. Even stupid, confused old me, with all the weird tingly feelings, even I got out of my stupor and told them. Never in my mind was the idea of dating them there, I just wanted to get over it and still be good friends and that’s what I did.

The emotions didn’t stop, but the awkward feeling did. I no longer felt the need to keep things bottled and worry about things that were non-issues.

I suppose what I’m saying is that when I faced my own feelings, I became comfortable with myself. Whether it was friendship or romantic feelings, the only way I stopped being confused about them was to find and face them. I had to be honest with myself. That’s the only way my struggle with feeling things would end.