Oh, Ashley!
Articulate...caring...good listener...intelligent...sensitive...insightful.....even talented and creative....
Everyone tells me I am all these things and more. Surely the ingredients for a successful and fulfilling life. So, I ask myself over and over, what's missing? The plain and nasty fact is that I don't have any friends to speak of, and just wouldn't know what to do with a close friend any more, and reconnecting with people who used to be friends carries levels of uncertainty and fakery that I just couldn't cope with.
I'm not the same young man I was when I knew Nicola and Ivan, and they are probably not the same. I would anticipate the encounter being guarded, awkward. I can't imagine how it would be a rewarding experience. Such encounters obviously involve a lot of talking and, no matter how articulate I may be on the written page, I hate talking socially, never have anything to say, feel stupid and boring. But we're straying here into my social anxiety, and I won't open that can of worms here.
It's sad, and troubles me so much, because 'normal' people appear to have ongoing friends, meet old and new friends, chat and interact so naturally and with pleasure, whereas for me it's traumatic and painful and carries no joy. And I do not understand what's wrong, what's missing in me, why I fear other people so much.
You ask me what kind of friend I would like to be. I just don't know. I look back on such friendships as I have had, and I have always been a leech, a hanger-on, a peripheral 'little friend'. That's reasonable. I can't expect other people to value me when I don't value myself.
But I have a family who accept me, thank the Lord. Without them I would be totally alone.