In this age of go-go-g0, get-ahead-at-all-costs, busy-busy-busy, breakneck pace and thrill-seeking, vicariously-living video game escapism, it seems overly fussy, whiny, persnickety, and most of all pointless to ask people to pay you the respect of getting back to you when you call, email or text them. Don't I know they have a life? Don't I know they'll address whatever they think is important and ignore the rest? Don't I know that to not answer is in itself an answer, albeit a rude one?
I'm not self-righteous. I don't pretend to be kind and respectful at all times, though I generally try to be. I try to take other people's feelings into account. If I can't offer them what they want of me, I try to let them down gently. Like a sales associate who has to apologize for not carrying the latest model, I try to offer a viable alternative. "No, we can't sleep together, but we can be friends." And if that's not enough for them, I apologize, as if it's my fault. Just because I want them to feel okay. I hate it when people don't feel okay, because...I know very well what that feels like.
But I've kind of strayed from the topic here. That was an extreme example. When I was in junior high, people would come up to me and say, "Can I be your friend?" A nice thought, except that it wasn't serious. They were making fun of the fact that I had no friends, like it was the most hilarious fucking thing in the world. Since then, I always have tried to choose friends in the same way a person might choose what looks good on a menu. This has typically resulted in rejection.
Nowadays, the relationships I have seem so tenuous that I've been terrified to ask anything of anybody, afraid even to email them, cos in the back of my mind I've expected them to hit me back just to say, "Y'know, I don't really want to be friends anymore." Cos friends have left. People I thought would always stick by me have disappeared.
So when people ignore my attempts to reach out to them, I know their intention might not be rudeness or any similar thing. But it just feels like rejection to me. It feels like, "I don't like you, I don't respect you, I wish you would go away." Maybe I just need people to send me periodic reminders that I mean something to them to prevent me from feeling insecure. But that's too much to ask. I know it is.
