No Basis for Complaint

I've been keeping an eye on myself lately. Having written in this blog before about my relationships with others (or lack thereof) it's surprising that I haven't really looked at my own actions with a critical eye. Frankly, after having given myself a good inspection, it seems probable that I'm a jerk and a whiner. That said, I'm seriously annoyed that nobody has bothered to tell me so yet. Yeah, I know that just saying that is in itself being a whiner but let's carry on and look at some of the available evidence.

We'll start with Friday because that's as far back as I can remember. Friday was my 35th birthday and as such I received 4 'go to lunch' invitations all of which I turned down for various and silly reasons. One, amazingly was from an almost total stranger. While out geocaching another (female) geocacher showed up. After poking around in the weeds and swapping medium-sized talk for half an hour we finally found what we were looking for. She'd stated previously that she was meeting a friend for lunch and as we were saying our adieus she invited me to join them for lunch. Unsure whether she was just being polite or whether she was serious about her invitation I simply dodged it in a very awkward manner. Fifteen minutes later as I was sitting in the Qdoba parking lot eating a burrito in the car by myself the words, "What the hell is wrong with you?" floated through my mind. Fate had tried like hell to make my day a pleasant one by giving me some company and I'd done everything in my power to thwart it. I'd turned down 3 invitations and when the 4th arrived from out of the blue from a TOTAL STRANGER I'd even turned that down. And for what? So I could sit in the car and eat by myself? WTF?

Later, I realized that the 'lunch with stranger' debacle was actually a double death. I'd been internally complaining for a while that my available pool of 'geocaching partners' was basically empty and then, like magic, this person shows up and what do I do? Well of course, I'm rude to her (though unintentionally). Here, as before, fate threw me an option and I stepped on it for no reason. In retrospect I'm sure this is not the first such opportunity I've had to make a pleasant connection with another person outside of work but it seems I've consistently managed to bungle them.

Sadly, my family relationships reside in a similar vein but primarily due to neglect on my part. My in-laws, despite that the fact that we actually have quite a bit in common, no doubt believe I dislike them. Quite the contrary, I enjoy them immensely but consistently fail to make time for them. Similarly, I don't make an effort to see my father and step-mother as I should. My mother, of course, has asked to be left alone so she doesn't occupy space on the Christmas card list but that's no excuse for ignoring the people who would welcome my attention. All that said, we're still on good terms but there's certainly room for improvement.

The last set of people to be addressed are those from work and since they are by nature 'remote' it's hard to establish any real relationships beyond those that can be carried on via instant messenger. As of late even those people I used to know in person have started to vanish. One person I used to talk to on a fairly regular basis has refused to answer my correspondence for almost a year. Others have merely faded away never to be recovered even when I make attempts to reach out.

In summary and to restate the title, all this leaves me with no basis for complaint about my relationships with others. While it is true that I have few friends and exactly zero that I can actually do anything with, that's entirely my fault. Fate has thrown me into the path of quite a few nice people with whom I share common interests and done her best to foster bonds with them but in the end it's my job to actually make those friendships happen. The tougher question, of course, is "What am I doing wrong?" In the case of last Friday's encounter with a stranger it's apparently just sheer social backwardness. One can do little about that without practice. I tend to hide my social discomfort behind a veil of humor and it's hard to build a friendship with a clown who can take nothing seriously.

For most other people in my sphere of acquaintance I think the problem may lie in simple lack of effort. I'm more than willing to blog endlessly about my lack of personal connections but I fail to make the investments necessary to foster those bonds. That's no one's fault by my own. Last and probably least among the problems is my tendency to say (once I'm comfortable with you) whatever's on my mind. If I have any talent whatsoever it's for absolute candor. If you tell me that your deeply held belief system is based on something you heard while playing a Paul McCartney album backwards at 78 RPM then it's unlikely that I'll be able to keep the look of surprise from my face or avoid questioning you closely about it. To me, the greatest possible service you can do another person is to question their belief systems and that's often uncomfortable at first. People hate to be uncomfortable and perhaps in some cases I have that effect.