The time I realized I had forgotten how to “friend”

Do you ever feel like you got caught in a spinning wheel without even realizing it? That suddenly you are free falling into somewhere unknown (but you know)? Routine; that’s what I, and everyone else, call it.

It happens to me often, as if routine can happen often and differently each time. I’ve spent the latest years of my life doing the exact same routine everyday of each week of every month of the year. Boring.

I’ve surrounded myself with safe scenarios just so I don’t have to push myself any further. I’ve followed the same pattern when it comes to relationships, I’ve been so afraid of being lonely that I managed to spent each stage of my student life with different people so I don’t get the chance to go through it by myself.

Lame yet smart I think, I loved them, each one of them, and I don’t regret any of the time spent. My whole life has been played safe but… what can you expect after coexisting with people you’ve known almost since the day you were born?!

But I played safe for too long and there I was some years later, all by myself… lonely, trying to start a conversation and a possible friendship with a stranger and I realized I had lost it, the touch to make friends.

I did not know what to say or how to start, I had never had the chance to meet someone new and I freaked out, I was crying on the inside; I wanted to run away, forever. I felt shame and hate, I was feeling exposed for the first time in years. And all I was doing was blaming myself.

Blaming myself for letting me come this far with safeness, for not letting myself out of comfort zone at least once every other time. I still struggle when I meet someone new but I find it more exciting and less traumatizing. I’ve met crazy and normal people with wonderful stories to tell, I’ve made friends that have suddenly become closer than the old ones.

At the end everyone is afraid to say hello at first, but that’s only the first step and who knows how far you can go. So far so good for me.