Baby Steps

Building new relationships is hard for me.  I have a knack for one of two things:  I either completely give my trust, usually to the wrong people, or I test the waters so much that I drain people.  Neither lead to lasting friendships!

Since starting my newest job, I've met a few people I wouldn't mind adding to the short list of people I call friends.  I see qualities in them that peek my interest and and have pushed me out of my comfort zone enough to strike up conversations to get better impressions and assess the risk factor.  So far, so good.

The down side to this is that I find myself playing through a myriad of what if scenarios, usually ending badly in my mind.  I aslo see myself trying to mold myself into my perception of the type of person he/she might like just a little better than who I believe I am.  It's strange, I know since until the possibility of friendship arose, I had no reason to be anything but myself.  And since the invitation of friendship has been offered to me while being me, I shouldn't feel a need to change.

Unfortunately, that has been my pattern in the past.  Not believing myself good enough, I pretend to be what I think is.  Keeping up a facade takes a lot of work and usually ends up destroying the relationship I was trying to build.  And since most all my friendships have failed, for the above stated reasons as well as others, I find myself wanting to to completely change the building blocks.

Where to start!?  I'm not sure I have a clue.  I do know that insanity is repeating something over and over again, expecting different results and I'm tired of circling that mountain.  To get different results, I need to try a different approach.  The first step... just being me!   Old patterns aren't easy to change, but I find being myself isn't as exhausting as playing me is.  Hiding my fears, weaknesses and flaws takes a lot of energy!  Exposing them isn't a barrel of laughs, but so far it's easier than pretending they don't exist.  Admitting fear has always carried with it the stigma of weakness.  I'm starting though, to believe it takes more courage to be real!

It's gonna be interesting to see where each of these baby steps leads.