losing touch with friends can be such a bummer — idk about you, but i feel like there are so many people i'd love to get back in touch with but i'm like, "has the window passed? will they be mad that i lowkey ghosted them???"
Yeah I tend to sort of pop back into people's lives after long absences like nothing happened and, uh, it's not always appreciated. I don't know what to say: "It's not my me, it's just my brain. Sorry."
Wow, spent so long thinking about this at the bus stop. Something I come back to a lot: everyone is just really tired and really busy trying to survive. Not in like a "we don't have time for each other" kind of way. More like...even in my longest running friend group, my two lads and I are just always tired and overworked. That's just the default whenever we ask each other how we're doing. And there's plenty of goofing and sharing of memes, and 15+ years of friendship mean we just understand and care about each other in the most complete and absolute way. But boy, I wish we all performed less soul-sucking labor. I wish we all had more energy to be human.
Though I guess the weird irony of that: my most recent friendships have come from work? I don't know.
Also, the difficulties of making new friends as a Korean lad in Portland, a city full of a specific flavor of white folks.
(I hope your COVID recovery is going alright! I do read all of these!)
I definitely think Covid has contributed to my hard time making friends. I'm still masking in public spaces and I feel like where people used to interact with you if you were alone, the mask is a deterrent. I just don't want to get sick! But I'm also in LA where things are expensive, parking sucks, driving sucks, and it makes everything harder when I'm not sure if I'll enjoy something to make so much effort on the off chance I do make some sort of connection. These are all things I talk about with my therapist lol. But I really liked that advice about not always being the one making plans because you get stuck in that role. It was a big motivator for me to move away because my friends were making zero effort if I didn't do it first (but they would do it for other friends, hmmm). I'm enjoying this series and hope you feel better!!!
glad i'm not alone with masking woes! it sucks that it has to be such a Thing. i've had some success really ramping up my efforts to seem Friendly And Approachable, but since that's not my most, uh, natural energy, it's hard to stick to advice around showing up as your authentic self lol
i loved dr. winch's advice too — nothing wrong with always being the planner if you like that role, but if not, it can be hard to break out of
Well I'm reading and appreciating these as I've been trying to find new friends to replace ones I've lost touch with. (Which should be illegal tbh...)
losing touch with friends can be such a bummer — idk about you, but i feel like there are so many people i'd love to get back in touch with but i'm like, "has the window passed? will they be mad that i lowkey ghosted them???"
Yeah I tend to sort of pop back into people's lives after long absences like nothing happened and, uh, it's not always appreciated. I don't know what to say: "It's not my me, it's just my brain. Sorry."
Wow, spent so long thinking about this at the bus stop. Something I come back to a lot: everyone is just really tired and really busy trying to survive. Not in like a "we don't have time for each other" kind of way. More like...even in my longest running friend group, my two lads and I are just always tired and overworked. That's just the default whenever we ask each other how we're doing. And there's plenty of goofing and sharing of memes, and 15+ years of friendship mean we just understand and care about each other in the most complete and absolute way. But boy, I wish we all performed less soul-sucking labor. I wish we all had more energy to be human.
Though I guess the weird irony of that: my most recent friendships have come from work? I don't know.
Also, the difficulties of making new friends as a Korean lad in Portland, a city full of a specific flavor of white folks.
(I hope your COVID recovery is going alright! I do read all of these!)
I definitely think Covid has contributed to my hard time making friends. I'm still masking in public spaces and I feel like where people used to interact with you if you were alone, the mask is a deterrent. I just don't want to get sick! But I'm also in LA where things are expensive, parking sucks, driving sucks, and it makes everything harder when I'm not sure if I'll enjoy something to make so much effort on the off chance I do make some sort of connection. These are all things I talk about with my therapist lol. But I really liked that advice about not always being the one making plans because you get stuck in that role. It was a big motivator for me to move away because my friends were making zero effort if I didn't do it first (but they would do it for other friends, hmmm). I'm enjoying this series and hope you feel better!!!
glad i'm not alone with masking woes! it sucks that it has to be such a Thing. i've had some success really ramping up my efforts to seem Friendly And Approachable, but since that's not my most, uh, natural energy, it's hard to stick to advice around showing up as your authentic self lol
i loved dr. winch's advice too — nothing wrong with always being the planner if you like that role, but if not, it can be hard to break out of
thanks for your kind words!!