Thursday, October 8, 2020

Friendships

I was listening to a podcast yesterday about friendship. It started out great, different levels of friendship and things of that nature and then things turned ugly. 

I am a person who does not have alot of close friends. I have plenty of casual friends and acquaintances but very few people that I would consider close friends and not one who I would consider an intimate friend or BFF.  I’ve always wondered why that is. So when a question was posed in the podcast yesterday why do you not have intimate friends I was all ears. 

The answer was that it is your fault.  Maybe you are shy or you don’t love yourself or you are a narcissist or you had a not so good childhood or you were too desperate or needy. All of those were listed as reasons why you were at fault and had no intimate friends.  Ok. Tough love. I get it and I was with the podcaster up until this point. I could totally see it and understand it because I am shy and I have low self esteem issues that I am working through. Maybe I’m just too much for people to handle and I totally get that. I have baggage and I know I need to work through it and I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to take me on. 

Then something happened that made me reevaluate my feelings for this podcaster completely. Please understand that I have known of and held this podcaster in the highest regard for years. I love her fitness programs and her overall health messages. 

After describing why people such as myself have no intimate friends and why it is entirely our fault she addressed everyone else and the message was don’t bother with these types of people. They aren’t worth your time or effort. Maybe she’s right but I was completely devastated to hear that. What it said to me was because I am shy and have low self esteem I am not worthy of friendship or even being loved and I am a waste of time. Wow!  Just wow!  That right there is going to help the self esteem. 

Yes, I am shy. Yes, I don’t think very highly of myself. Yes, I am probably draining at times. But does that mean I’m not worthy of friendship or of love????  

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