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When is the transition from making friends as a young adult to making friends as an actual adult. Making friends was so easy when I was younger, even early twenties younger. Now it just seems that everyone isn't who they portray themselves to be. I understand that when you are younger you don't really understand who you are or what it means to be "true" to yourself so being faked out, tricked, scammed, and just flat out toyed with by "friends" when you're younger is almost down-right forgivable. Fast forward 15 years and you're 32. You begin to wonder what kinds of events happen to people to make them how they are. Let me divulge.
I'm going to talk about myself first so there is an understanding why I feel and see things the way I do. I'm a manipulator. I know this, I let other people know this because sometimes I do it without realizing I'm doing it. It is that ingrained in me to be one. It started with my parents. My mother was a guilt manipulator and I learned through her methods and mistakes. I surpassed her when I was about 14 and the tables of our relationship turned. Because I became the parent. Her best work was making you feel bad for her while also feeling bad about yourself. That was her specialty. My father would just out right beat you down with his words until you eventually gave in. That isn't exactly manipulation, but the way he weaved in lies and truths together was almost poetic. It was amazing to watch and heartbreaking to experience. I was also "played" by female friends who lied constantly, were two-faced in front and behind me. I was abused and betrayed by family, friends and lovers most, if not all, of my life. It took time, but I began to teach myself to adapt to situations and make them my own ... even if it was forced on me. This became helpful. I started to expect the worse but hope for the best. I was rarely surprised afterwards.
Then I got hurt. I lived with chronic back pain for almost 8 years before my surgery and another 3 years after. During this time I became a hermit and a prisoner within my own home. I refused to leave my house fearing the pain. I didn't want to make friends lest they ask to do things. I shut myself in and then hated myself for it. I hated everyone for it. But my manipulation skills work just as well on myself as they do on others. And it became this tug-of-war game that no one ever won, you just always got hurt. This cycle was the hardest to break above the narcotic dependency and my nicotine addition of 20 years. But I wanted to be a better person. A better wife for my husband and a better mother for my boys. So I needed a friend. How hard could that be? I was always an outgoing person, center of attention, bright light in a dark place. I had an attractive personality that people usually flocked to. Then I encountered my problem - I was no longer that person.
When I was in my early twenties making new friends was as easy as going online and finding people nearby with similar interests on Myspace or just chatting people up at places. I was born and raised in South Texas and talked to everyone about anything. But moving to Maryland with the military hurled me into a new environment. But I was surrounded by other spouses who were in my same boat ... or so I thought. What I was actually hurled into was the lions den.
You would think that grown women who know who they were and would be able to show their true colors without hiding because we're all adults with lives and marriages and children. You would be wrong. I've lived here for two years and I've met dozens of people. Not including the one who moved away 8 months after I met her, I know of two women who I truly believe are honest with me and may actually like me with no strings attached. I've met women who only wanted to talk about other women, women who just want to hold themselves above you, women who are friendly when they need something, women who pretend to be one person but are someone else, women who lie, women who want nothing to do with anyone, and women who just want to see how many marriages they can sneak into. All these women smile, make polite small conversation, and will even tell you secrets. They'll invite you for coffee, invite you to parties, help you make cake and just shoot the breeze, but all the while they are not who they seem. And now I'm stuck in a new place where the only two women who are the realest either work full-time or also suffer from the same chronic pain and anxiety that I know all too well - and makes friendship extremely difficult.
So what do I do? How in the hell do you make friends as an adult. I have amazing friends who live thousands of miles away from me. Friends who are so busy they don't even have any social networking apps like Facebook. What I don't have is someone I can confide in, someone I can turn too when I need to vent or just have an adult conversation with someone who isn't my husband, my kids' teachers or their counselors. I want a friendship but adults are worse than kids ... and kids are mean. What can I do? How do I meet someone who will be the same kind of friend to me that I would be to them. My biggest problem now is I try and compensate for my lack of friendship by over-adapting to them. I bend over backs and go over-and-beyond to show them I'm a good person but I seem to get used up and then dropped to the curb. What am I doing so wrong? I keep their secrets, I don't judge, I help any way I can, and I'm always available. I'm funny, sensitive, smart, loyal, trustworthy, and honest ... so why is this so damn hard?
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