loneliness
As I sort of mentioned in my previous post, I moved to another country this year.
With each passing day, I find myself wondering more and more why it's so hard for me to make friends. I think that a lot of people have the same sort of worry. However, every time I come back from work to my small, messy, lonely apartment, I end up thinking "I wish I had friends," "I want to do something—anything," as long as that "anything" is in the company of others.
I went on a few solo mini-adventures so far and ended up at a small shop—one of those shops that's actually just someone's house. It was an okay experience, and the owner was kind enough to drive me to the station, since I had walked 30 minutes to get to his shop. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't be so willing to get into the car of someone I just met... Anyway, while we were chatting, I said that I'm still not very familiar with the area and I don't really have friends to go check places out with. To which he replied that he could be my friend if I wanted, even though he's old (I'm not sure just exactly how old he is, but I'm going to guess around 50). On paper, it's a nice gesture. But as a young woman, you know the feeling you get when you're in a kind of situation like this. Needless to say, I told him "Sure!" to be polite, but had a terrible sense of dread lingering in the back of my mind (spoiler alert, nothing happened, thankfully).
He messaged me last week inviting me to lunch. I thought that maybe that feeling I had was just me being judgmental, so I took him up on his offer. Who knows, maybe he just wants to show someone some kindness.
In a word, it was awkward. I, myself, am quite introverted, and often struggle to figure out what to talk about around people I don't know to well. And after we had finished lunch, he tried to bring up places we could go to hang out, and I just wasn't feeling it. Something just felt off to me, but I'm not sure if my paranoia is justified. But again, I think it's a bit understandable for women to have that fear, being with an unfamiliar man (and one significantly older than you). Furthermore, how are you really supposed to hang out with someone who's ~30 years older than you? I barely even know how to hang out with people my own age! Thankfully for me, he had a call from a customer who wanted to come in that day, so we parted ways and I decided to alleviate my sour mood by buying myself 4 cream puffs. And off I went, back to my messy apartment...
On a tangential note, there is someone who I've been crushing on, but I can't even bring myself to make conversation with him, let alone ask him out on a date. And this has got me thinking, if I can't even make friends then how am I supposed to get into a romantic relationship? I envy those who can set aside their fear and take risks in order to form meaningful relationships with others. You need to be okay with being vulnerable around the ones you want to be close to, if you expect to ever have substantial relationships—platonic and romantic. But I'm too much of a coward to take that step.
I just wish I had friends around my age here.