This is a throw-back Thursday post. Six months ago, I wrote this:

This is likely a post that isn’t going to be posted for a long time, if ever.

I’m feeling very abandoned lately. Not only by Ian, but by almost everyone. See…. Aside from him, I had a couple single, childless friends. Together, he and I had more people that we would spend time with that could come out, either in their couples, or individually, and have fun. Hanging out with people was easy. I always had something going on, whether or not Ian was involved. Actually, often, he wasn’t because he liked down time more than I did. But having a night alone at home was rare.

Since he died, I obviously lost the time (one or two nights a week, tops) that he and I would spend together. That’s expected. But not only did I lose that, but it seems like everyone else I had is disappearing.

People are getting significant others, and not wanting/able to do things without them. People are getting engaged or married, and have stopped doing things outside of couple things. People are getting pregnant and having kids, and of course, then that takes them out of the hanging out at night doing various stuff category.

It’s like my whole social life is melting away.

I’m probably not helping, to be honest. I know I’m not inviting people out to things as much. I used to instigate almost everything, and I just don’t have the wherewithal to do that as much anymore. Coming up with a plan, coming up with something I want to do enough to cajole people into joining me… that’s nigh impossible. I can’t handle doing some of the things we did before. I can’t do karaoke. I can’t go bowling; even walking through the bowling alley to the volleyball courts is difficult.

There’s also a group that we used to hang out with once a week that even before Ian died, I had started feeling like they weren’t that interested in me sticking around. I’d even talked to Ian about it. He shrugged and said he didn’t know. He’d stopped going as much by that point, anyway.

It’s not like I feel like any of these people actively don’t want me around. But I feel like they don’t much care either way, which makes me wonder why I’d pursue spending time with them.

Except that I seem to be getting that from everyone who’s local. I have a couple friends across the country that I know would love to have me around, but the closest one is 8 hours away from me.

As much as I’m a social person, I don’t make real friends easily, so losing the closest one was a huge blow… and then the fading away of everyone that I felt at least a little connection to, and a couple others that I actually considered friends, is hard to take.

I’m an extrovert. I get energy from people. I’m a depressed extrovert. I don’t have the energy to MAKE anyone want to hang out with me, which means they don’t which means I don’t get energy from them, which means I have even less energy… You can see where this turns into a stupid spiral of angst and doom.

I read something yesterday that talked about how people who are lonely tend to exacerbate their situations, and at first I was like, “Nah… that doesn’t apply to me.” But thinking about it more, maybe it does. I don’t shy away from telling people how I’m really feeling, and usually right now, that’s purely shitty.

So at what point do you assume that the person you’re talking to really doesn’t want to know how you REALLY are, and just wants to exchange pleasantries? At what point do you know that they really care, and are looking for a real answer?

I guess that’s the thing right now. It feels really black and white. Either you really care about me, and will be there to comfort me, and get me through any initial ick, and then we can have a good time, or you don’t care at all, and why should I even try?

That’s stupid. No one likes someone whose only replies are negative. No one wants to spend time with someone who always brings them down. And given that I don’t have any more really close friends in town, who I can expect to stick with me through the crap, I need to just suck it up and be pleasant and easy to deal with.

I don’t know if I have the energy for that.

Written 7/29/2014

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