What is your worst habit?

I don’t make friends so easily. I’m the kind of person who would need a significant time, event or an act to declare my friendship and allegiance to someone. Now, this may not seem like a bad habit, the fact that I exert a certain control over myself in terms of relationships. The worst comes after I’m established friends with someone: I tend to become clingy.

Much of this has been attributable to my childhood, when I was separated from my mother as she stayed with my baby sister when she was admitted to the hospital. Her disappearance was startling for me as I cried the whole time in her absence. When she returned, I never left her side. While my mother never complained about it, there’s no denying it would’ve been so uncomfortable.

Other short triggers to this would be the many times I changed school as a kid owing to my father’s transferable job. The perks of it were meeting seeing new places and meeting new people. The flipside was saying too many goodbyes to the ones I left behind.

So, it’s no surprise that I make friends cautiously. However, with the handful chums I have, I like to hold on to them. Knowing what they’re up to, where they’d like to hang out to them humming their tiny secrets in my ear, brought a sense of acceptance and security. But it gets stretched to people demanding spaces, heated arguments, misunderstandings and being left solo.

I finally had enough of this. I decided to give everyone the space they need. It may seem difficult to not sulk when there’s no reply to a message. But the conversations after a long period of waiting, is totally worth it.