I'm the kind of person who always says, glibly, "I don't have any regrets." Except I do. Plenty. My problem is I've never learned how to forget and move on.
Maybe this should go on the "What goes wrong when trying to make friends" thread, but my problem is a bit different. It's not just that I don't make friends easily. It's that whenever I do, I don't know how to keep them at just the right distance. Either I keep them at arm's length and they stay acquaintances to have shallow, vaguely amusing conversations with once in a while (but, at least, stable friendships) or I end up becoming too attached and the friendship eventually burns out. And instead of moving on, I brood about it for months and it just adds to my depression. Anything I see that reminds me of that person just destroys me. I didn't realize how much certain friendships meant to me until they were over. It's especially terrible when I'm forced to be around people who bore me, who I find utterly contemptible, and I remember the good, funny, honest, wonderful people from your past that aren't in my life anymore for whatever reason. And then when I hear, from mutual friends, that those people now find ME boring or contemptible, it makes me wonder if I really am.
I could talk about the specifics, but I think you get the idea. The thing is I just can't stop analyzing certain events in my life down to the finest detail and wondering "Was that where it went wrong? Could I have changed everything if only I'd bought my plane ticket for a day earlier?" And since those events are far enough in the past that many of the details are vague now, I'll never know for certain.
Anyway, it's slowly killing me, and I think I need help. I suppose the obvious answer is that I need to face up to my past and deal with it, but I feel like I've spent so much time thinking about it that the only healthy thing to do is force myself to move on. But I don't know how I can do it.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 5 September 2002 04:24 (twenty-three years ago)
Part of the reason why you agonise over this is that you're single. Am I right?
― Marco Mattiuzzo (Psycho Ant), Thursday, 5 September 2002 04:27 (twenty-three years ago)
I can't say I've ever considered "distance" when it comes to friends. Things just sort of work out in the end.
― Marco Mattiuzzo (Psycho Ant), Thursday, 5 September 2002 04:37 (twenty-three years ago)
I hate the whole idea of having a past.. reminiscing is really one of my least favourite things at times. Probably why I seem to go through friends like I seem to go through toothbrushes..
― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 5 September 2002 04:48 (twenty-three years ago)
this is horribly prescient. i find the idea of a 'past' difficult. for someone to move into the status of 'someone from the past' is hard for me. you've seen the 'i fucked up' thread, right? (hell, theres a lot of these threads at the minute aren't there???), through stupidity i've let someone i really care about become 'someone from the past'. the idea of 'moving on' is tough, i thought it was a friendship that would last for ever, but it won't now. i realised too late what was important. and now i've got the regrets to deal with
so, to answer the question(s). i've always been fine with the past, the twists and turns, what i was doing. but now, with this loss, there is a danger of spending too much time thinking about it, what i could have done different. and the keeping friends at the right level thing, yes, thats important. finding the right level to keep a friendship at is going to differ from friend to friend. the most problematic part is when someone was a very close friend, and then it drops away from there. that makes me sad...
― gareth (gareth), Thursday, 5 September 2002 07:24 (twenty-three years ago)
Im hopeless with agony aunt advice, nevertheless
12th grade poetry Pearl Jam line time:
"Do you see the way that tree bends...does it inspire?...reaching out to catch the suns rays...a lesson to be applied...you can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets... or you realise youre the only one who can forgive yourself...makes much more sense to live in the present tense.
sorry maybe some poetry will be better
PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell And the profit and loss.
A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers.
As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
TS Elliot
― kiwi, Thursday, 5 September 2002 07:59 (twenty-three years ago)