Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post

iceredperson · 09-24-2007, 04:59 AM

[If this is too long I can post a tl;dr version]

Hello, this is my first post ever on these boards. And as you can see I already have a question.
I am 14 years old and in 9th grade and throughout my life I have been really shy. I was always on good terms with other people my age but I had few friends. Whenever I am forced into a situation with a lot of people I usually just sit down somewhere and stare at the wall, hoping no one comes to talk to me. My current situation is exactly that. I have 4 people in my life that I would call friends, and luckily 2 of them go to my school. But so far this school I have run into a few problems. I'll call one of my friends Jessica and the other Donna.
I talk to Jessica a lot more than I talk to Donna, one because I sort of have this thing for her [I won't get into that], but also because she seems a lot more eager to talk to me than Donna. So I will hang out with Jessica at lunch on average 3 times a week, (she's in 10th grade so I don't have any classes with her) and if on a given day I don't hang out with her at lunch, I'm either doing homework or walking around waiting for the bell to ring. This makes me feel pretty pathetic when this happens.

But also when I do spend lunch with her, I feel bad afterwards, like I shouldn't be spending so much time with her. So I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. I guess I feel bad for hanging out with Jessica so much because I feel like I should be making my own friends and not relying on her, I also worry about looking needy/desperate to her, not the image I want to convey to my best friend at school; I also don't want her to get annoyed by how much she's seeing me. She should be able to be with her other friends without me around all the time.
Because of all this I find myself constantly analyzing my interactions with Jessica. "Can I talk to her now?" "No, I'll wait until later, or maybe some other day." "How about now?" "No, she's with her friends, I'll wait until she's alone."

So what I want to do is try to make some other friends, so I can hang out with Jessica without feeling guilty. Also because on weekends I'm always at home, usually in my room not really doing anything. I try to organize stuff with my 2 school friends on weekends, but they're always too busy, or there was this one time I waited an hour for them to show up at a place we were supposed to meet, but they never came. I called them later and they gave a reasonable sounding explanation to what happened, but I still wonder if they're trying to blow me off sometimes.

I don't want to be living like this anymore, and I realize that only I can change my situation. But I'm not sure where to begin. I already have a lot of people at school that know me, and if anything they all like me. I just don't really feel comfortable hanging out with new people for an extended period of time. Whenever I try I just feel the temptation to go track down Jessica or Donna.

So that's my question: where do I begin with actually having a social life? If I haven't given enough information please ask.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.
I'm male by the way.

09-24-2007, 04:59 AM	#1 (permalink)
iceredperson Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 9	Social problems. [If this is too long I can post a tl;dr version] Hello, this is my first post ever on these boards. And as you can see I already have a question. I am 14 years old and in 9th grade and throughout my life I have been really shy. I was always on good terms with other people my age but I had few friends. Whenever I am forced into a situation with a lot of people I usually just sit down somewhere and stare at the wall, hoping no one comes to talk to me. My current situation is exactly that. I have 4 people in my life that I would call friends, and luckily 2 of them go to my school. But so far this school I have run into a few problems. I'll call one of my friends Jessica and the other Donna. I talk to Jessica a lot more than I talk to Donna, one because I sort of have this thing for her [I won't get into that], but also because she seems a lot more eager to talk to me than Donna. So I will hang out with Jessica at lunch on average 3 times a week, (she's in 10th grade so I don't have any classes with her) and if on a given day I don't hang out with her at lunch, I'm either doing homework or walking around waiting for the bell to ring. This makes me feel pretty pathetic when this happens. But also when I do spend lunch with her, I feel bad afterwards, like I shouldn't be spending so much time with her. So I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. I guess I feel bad for hanging out with Jessica so much because I feel like I should be making my own friends and not relying on her, I also worry about looking needy/desperate to her, not the image I want to convey to my best friend at school; I also don't want her to get annoyed by how much she's seeing me. She should be able to be with her other friends without me around all the time. Because of all this I find myself constantly analyzing my interactions with Jessica. "Can I talk to her now?" "No, I'll wait until later, or maybe some other day." "How about now?" "No, she's with her friends, I'll wait until she's alone." So what I want to do is try to make some other friends, so I can hang out with Jessica without feeling guilty. Also because on weekends I'm always at home, usually in my room not really doing anything. I try to organize stuff with my 2 school friends on weekends, but they're always too busy, or there was this one time I waited an hour for them to show up at a place we were supposed to meet, but they never came. I called them later and they gave a reasonable sounding explanation to what happened, but I still wonder if they're trying to blow me off sometimes. I don't want to be living like this anymore, and I realize that only I can change my situation. But I'm not sure where to begin. I already have a lot of people at school that know me, and if anything they all like me. I just don't really feel comfortable hanging out with new people for an extended period of time. Whenever I try I just feel the temptation to go track down Jessica or Donna. So that's my question: where do I begin with actually having a social life? If I haven't given enough information please ask. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. I'm male by the way.