i'm an idiot at making friends

I don't understand adult friendships.

How do people even make friends when they're adults? Aren't literally all friendships made when you're an adult a transactional one? Isn't there always some sort of ulterior motive behind every adult friendship anyway even if you think there isn't?

Okay, granted, I didn't use to always think this way, but I keep proving myself wrong.

First of all, I don't make friends the "traditional" way because I'm too introverted like that. I don't make the first move. I don't speak the first word. I don't say the first greeting. In fact, if people aren't the first to say hi to me, I can continue staying unseen for all of 4 years being tuition classmates without ever saying a word to my neighbour, let alone knowing any of their names or what they looked like. The only person I spoke to in that 4-year tuition class was the same teacher, and that was it. I sat in the front row right where the teacher stood and only ever addressed him throughout my time.

But you get the point.

Though I guess if you're really school school classmates then I can kinda call you my friend coz I'd have to talk to you eventually and do stuff together...? I mean, I was a kid. A teenager. What did I even know about differentiating "friends" and "acquaintances".

I'm pretty "extroverted" once someone else breaks the invisible barrier and talks to me first. Maybe I get overzealous and overshare too early on in the relationship but hey it's my way of telling you that I don't hate you and I'm okay with your company and I'm probably making up to you for my "cold" appearance before you talked to me by yapping away.

And then people call me the extroverted one.

No.

I'm not.

I just let every Tom Dick and Harry into my house the moment they ring my doorbell because I don't know any better. I'm not the one gathering the people in my yard and bringing them in for tea or something.

I digress.

So we've established that I don't know how to make friends. And also that I'm an idiot who can't tell the difference between a friend and my neighbour Tom who just wants to snoop in my kitchen.

Enter university.

After 4 years of that, I some how end up with 4 people who can walk into my house at any time and make themselves at home in my kitchen. Figuratively speaking of course. I'm too paranoid to let people touch my appliances because I need to be a good "host".

Where was I.

Okay so now I'm armed with 4 people whom I can call my friends from uni, and maybe a handful of other people I've reconnected again over the years and hang out with often. Fair enough. But I can count them all on the fingers of both my hands.

It's fine. The older you get, the smaller your circle. Right?

I mean, making friends has always been greek to me. So I was pretty thrilled to have come out of life (so far) with a handful of friend friends. Mission success...?

And armed with that information(?), I gotta set out to make more, right?

Wait.

How did people make friends as adults again?

See, at least, in uni, everyone started out as acquaintances, and then you stick to the people you kinda click with, and then because you really aren'y competing with each other for jobs or positions or results or anything you just naturally fall into place as each other's friends.

But what about when it goes to the office?

I've had someone at my first job warn me not to treat colleagues as friends but only as coworkers. I know he meant well, and I still remember the stuff he told me like 8 years ago, but I didn't think I believed him then. I have this tendency to think that everyone nice and friendly is a good person and I don't think I can change that part of me deep down. I still think 人之初性本善. I'm not guarded against other people who are nice to me.

That's literally my weakest and most stupidest trait about me.

I mean, I know that. I'm working on it. I hate how naive I always am and that I must always remind myself to first expect the worst of others.

Then, office politics happen.

Backstabs happen.

Disappointments happen.

Finger-pointing happens.

Even after changing work environments a couple of times, the same stuff happens.

And I'm proven wrong over and over again, but like an idiot, I still think that everyone always has good intentions starting out. And if I personally spoke to someone or interacted with them before, I'll naturally think that they're a friend because we "upgraded" our relationship as we were on speaking terms.

Boy. Boy boy boy. What a naive little idiot.

Because that naive little idiot still believes in that 10-minute conversation she had with them and defends them and then gets hurt and then realises she doesn't know what it means to be friends anymore so she swears off making friends or meeting new people because she doesn't want to be hurt again.

But she continues letting more Toms and Dicks and Harries into her home nonetheless because she believes in always "seeing the good in other people" more.

Idiot.

When will you start protecting yourself like you always should have?

Oh, also, 99% of all the drama happens in just her head. Other people mostly don't even know that she's going through such turmoil in her imagination.

Still.

What an idiot.

Also, when will I stop making my strengths or my weaknesses my whole identity.

Do I even have one.

Hmm.