The Clingy Chronicles

Every story gets to have a really big coincidence, and here's ours... is a phrase I've come to understand very well in these last few weeks. I'd like to start by apologizing for having not written in some 20 or so days. Life has been kicking me in the rear- but it's given me a lot to think about. My spring break starts tomorrow and I'm going to have a lot of time to do nothing but think some more. Tonight I'm just going to write about myself.

For starters, hats of to Minnesota for winning the bipolar weather award for 200 years and counting. We went from hazardous blizzards to 75 degree clear skies in a single week. With warm weather, however, comes my desire to share my life with other people. I'm not sure if it's some pseudo-science, or maybe just seasonal depression, but winter has me comfortable in my own silence. I don't feel as dependent on other people. When spring and summer come around, however, everything changes. I dread being alone.

I don't have a lot of friends. Sure, I have tons of people that I speak to here and there. I have coworkers, I have classmates, I've got the guys online that I play video games with. But very few of them are people I would consider myself as close with. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to build connections. I'm just so bad at talking to people, especially over text. I feel like I give off some superiority vibe that people just don't enjoy. I don't think I'm better than anyone else, and I'd hope they wouldn't think that I believe I am.

Anyone I am close with, or have been close with, is slowly drifting away. College and adult life has caused us to just simply stop talking. High school as been done, and I've only seen my friends from there a couple of times since then. I'm now realizing how much I miss those relationships and how much I am losing by not having that connection with somebody. I really want to have that "best friend." It's been over a year since I've had any sort of physical connection like that. I need to get out more.

Those of you who have been following my posts will remember a girl I wrote about a couple of months ago. I'd like to say that things have gotten significantly better. We're not dating, by any means, but we're close. With closeness, to me, comes another very big problem- attachment. I've always had issues with abandonment, especially when it comes to my relationships with friends and people I've grown close to. I'm so happy that she's forward with how she feels, especially stuff like this, because I never had that in my last relationship (which inevitably lead to it's collapse). I know what I need to work on within myself, and I hope that by writing this I can achieve some semblance of that.

I have this unnatural jealousy, or fear, or mixture of both that comes alive when I am alone for long periods of time. For example, her and I called for a bit this morning. She eventually said that her friend wanted to call for a bit and went to go do that. That was ~9 or so hours ago. Usually we'd text a bit when not on the phone with each other, but that usually only applies to when I'm at school or either of us are at work. Not so much when she's hanging out with other people.

I'd like to state that she is completely in her rights to not be prioritizing me when she is with other people. I am writing this to understand my own thought process in hopes of developing a healthier way to cope. Right now I feel okay. A couple of hours ago though, I had a pretty anxiety attack that just left me feeling distraught. I told her I wasn't feeling well and then I tried to sleep it off. After I woke up we ended up speaking for a few minutes and she told me that she doesn't like how I make her feel when it comes to her spending time with her friends. She told me about how it makes her feel like I am upset with her, or that she should feel wrong for doing so. She said that she would call me when she does want to hang out with me, and that at the moment she just really didn't want to do that.

That phone call helped me take a step back and just look at how stupid I was being. I was being so... clingy. The same thing that killed my last relationship- the need to want to constantly spend time with a single person- was about to happen again. I am so afraid of being alone that I suffocate anyone close to me. Nobody wants to spend every with just one person. Humans aren't developed like that, not normally.

This takes me back to that quote. Everything really is just one big coincidence. The odds of you and I just existing are so infinitely small, and the odds of us meeting even smaller. By keeping my social circle small, every single one of my relationships means exponentially more to me because of that same pool of odds. I cannot yet comprehend the fact that I could very well have five, ten, twenty friends instead of one or two.

I have no real excuse to not be doing that. Sure, I'm a tad bit socially awkward. I can't really read the room. Some of the things I say come off as insensitive. Outside of these, though, I feel like I make some pretty good friend material. I work in sales, I love to socialize. I just have to work harder on building deeper connections with people. A lot of my anxiety stems from the fact that I feel like I value the people close to me so much more than they value me. It's like I put in so much effort and I am met with scraps in return. 

But I am just one person. When you're driving down the highway, have you ever thought about how every other car on the road- every other driver- is another human being? With their own lives, their own complex emotions, their own individual experiences. Everybody has so much going on in their lives, and I feel like I need to learn to be happy with simply being considered a part of it. 

To 2025, the year in which I will stop being a clingy mess.

Published 23:59 3/16/2025