Flaky Friends

Many people come into your life and then leave again. That's normal, but I would have thought by now that someone, anyone would have stayed in mine.



I thought I had found some people that would never leave, or at least never permanently leave a while back.

When I joined my school in year 8 I picked up at instant friendship with a girl in my class. She was more than acquaintances and less than friends with a girl who was in our Spanish lesson. She was 'the bad girl'. She didn't take shit from anybody, she was brash and somewhat arrogant and I admired her and had a desperate desire to gain her hand in friendship.

Overtime we did become friends, we recruited other girls now and then but throughout our school life they fluttered in and out only to be replaced with alternative girls. Our friendship as a three though was pretty solid, we had the odd fight but they were normally justified disagreements so the fact that we managed to amend our friendship to the prior strength each time was a reassurance to me that this one was for the long haul.




Fast forward to late 2013. The friendship with the brash girl I so idolised back in year 8 Spanish has completely disintegrated. We were best friends throughout the whole of school yet by the start of college I'd realised she had stopped talking to me over the last few weeks of the summer. We had it out a month or so later and she admitted her disinterest in trying to fix our relationship, so I was left with a bit of a hole.

Fortunately my friendship with the other girl was as strong as ever. The distance we acquired from our separate colleges made us appreciate each others company even more and we found ourselves 'WhatsApp'ing constantly throughout our working days. Additionally our mutual anger towards friend number one somehow made our friendship even more solid, yet fast forward again to late 2014 and I'm worrying that we're hanging on a thread.




Our arrangements although to me are definite, to her are occasionally not a commitment. I try to keep my cool and understand that she is not purposely trying to let me down but I can't help but feel that if roles were reversed I would put in just a bit more effort to try and stick to our arrangements.

On top of that my jealousy is getting the better of me. I can't help comparing our friendship to the one she has with the black cloud that loomed over us in our last year of school. Whilst I honestly have no issue with her having other friends, we all do, it would be stupid to limit yourself to just one crowd of people, I can't help feeling that of late she is neglecting me somewhat.

With my constant affair with short term friendships and my attraction to what seems like flaky, inconsiderate people, I'm starting to worry that it's my friend picking that's faulty and I'm wondering how I can break out of it.

Loneliness

As I slowly wake up, sprawled wide across my bed, duvet array and the polar opposite of it's neat presentation the night before, I dread getting up. I dread opening my eyes, I dread leaving my bed, my safe haven, my literal comfort blanket and I dread the thought of the day ahead of me. I suppose it's rare to find a morning person but this is beyond a small hatred of crawling into the icy air. This is an overwhelming hatred of the day ahead, college, my life. I'm miserable again, I'm lonely, unmotivated, disappointed, embarrassed, ashamed and depressed.

I'm desperate to change my life up, to break the monotonous routine of counting down the minutes until my lesson finishes, racing to my car to drive home for my frees and jumping straight on to YouTube or Tumblr to try and escape my loneliness. The fear of having to stay at college for the short hour long free, doing everything in my power not to be caught alone and friendless but simultaneously avoiding any of the work or revision I should be doing is crippling.

That seems to be one of my issues. It's not just that I hate my life but I don't even have the drive to change it. I don't have the interest or the motivation to do any work whatsoever, I can't bring myself to push outside my comfort zone and nudge my way into a friendship group. I am desperate for an income but I haven't even got the motivation to finish my CV and sit through the hours of online applications required. I'm well an truly lifeless. I'm a physical body with no substance.

I remember a time when I had escaped these thoughts. I promised myself I would never be in a situation like this again, I even laughed at the prosperity of returning to that mindset. I couldn't fathom being that depressed or unsuccessful in all the endeavours I undertook but here I am. I'm back to square one, I have fallen back into all the bad habits I once thought were gone for good, I'm having those dreaded thoughts which I thought would never return. I feel alone and hopeless once more and the incredible embarrassment I have due to that is crushing me.

I've gone from having friends in every direction to virtually none. I now have one friend, I see her almost never. I barely even speak to her now and that's as much my fault as it is her's. She has other friends. I don't. Her friends are local, she is not. Alongside my loneliness lies my feeble excuses.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I hope because I know that despite my loss of drive and life I should keep pushing myself. I can't say it's remotely easy though when the one thing you require to defy the loss of interest in life is the one thing you don't have.