When You Don't Have A Ton Of Friends
Possibly one of the hardest things to say is 'I don't have a lot of friends'. It's a thought that has been swimming around my head for weeks. Granted I do have friends, awesome ones at that. But by no means do I have a huge friend group. Something that is constantly projected onto us is that it's the norm to have a huge friendship group and you all spend every moment of your spare time together. I know very few people who have that and there is nothing wrong with not meeting that stereotype.
Within the past year, I've come to the realisation that I'm an introvert. I thrive when I'm alone in my own environment, I don't flourish in a big crowd and it's something that makes me feel uncomfortable. Five years ago if you had said the word introvert to me I would have presumed they were a total loser with no social skills. I feel so horribly ignorant for thinking that now, it's not the case. Some of us are just happier when alone or in a small group, we should all be our own best friends anyway.
At school, I had a group of friends that I thought I would have forever, those friendships quickly ended after school. No one was to blame, these things happen. The exact same thing happened with university friends, it's easy to start pointing fingers, but these things just happen. I'm sure we've all lost friendships at some point and it's a difficult thing to go through. When you grow up the friendships that you have with people are completely different. You don't have the bond of what is going on at school that week, they're a lot more complex.
It starts to get really easy to start thinking it's you, that you're an awful person who doesn't deserve any friendships but this isn't the case 95% of the time. I've had friendships end and there has been no dramatic reason for them to end they just have. Unless you really are a horrible person who constantly does awful things to people then it probably isn't you. Having a genuine connection with another person is rare. It's not easy to seek out those people either.
As we get older we have a lot of things to keep up with in adult life. When you're a child you don't have to worry about work and the bills so you do focus on your friendships more. Being in a relationship also plays a big role, we've probably all lost a friend who as soon as they got into a relationship completely disappeared. I've done that in the past and learned the hard way that. It's never acceptable to ditch your friendships for a guy. Both are important and both need nurturing. I love my boyfriend he's awesome, but he will never replace my best friends because you get different things from a relationship compared to a friendship.
I wanted to write this post for everybody out there who also might feel like there is something 'wrong' with them for not having a large group of friends. Just because society makes us believe that you're supposed to it's perfectly ok that you don't. It doesn't mean that you're a complete freak or an awful person.
What are your thoughts on this topic?
R x
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