Love me Love me Love me!!!!!!

We are, at heart, a social animal. A herd animal, a pack animal .. we don't necessarily fit into any clear-cut distinction, but we are clearly a social animal. While we may need differing amounts of alone time, we starve if we don't get enough social contact. Friendship is where we go for that contact and how we view healthy contact.

It's a loaded concept. To some people, anyone they associate with on a semi-regular basis is a friend. To others, it's a carefully guarded prize to be sought. I'm one of the carefully-guarded types .. I'm very choosy who I'm going to consider a real friend, and who's just someone I associate with/hang out with. I'm also quick to drop friends if I feel hurt, and I need to be a little less quick to cut and run .. I've been hurt a lot by people that claim to be friends. It makes me very leery of ones that might hurt me. It's far too easy to demand things of "friends" that would never be asked of other people and to hurt them accordingly.

That said, it's also far too easy to hermit and refuse to let anyone get close to me, and that's not healthy either. But I'm very picky who I trust as a friend, and very picky about how much I trust them.

Questions:
What do I give and receive? Is it balanced? Oof, I asky hard questions. I think it's fairly balanced .. I don't feel taken advantage of, at least. For the people in writing group, I give and receive critiques. It's the purpose of the group. For the people I chat with, we give each other advice about our lives, commiserate, and otherwise discuss life. The conversations do feel balanced, though, which is important.

Why is it wrong to expect people close to "understand"? Well, because we're not mind readers, for one. And it's so very easy to let one's own life take over everything, and expect other people to feel the same way. But they've got their own life taking over their own stuff .. they don't need MY life on top of everything else. When we just let ourselves take over and expect other people to "understand", what we're really saying is that we're more important than they are, and that their life doesn't matter.

Am I friends with "safe" people or people that challenge me? Well, some of each, of course. I'm challenged sometimes, and I know I challenge others sometimes. But I refuse to lower my standards of right and wrong for friends (which has cost me a few .. oh well) or otherwise lessen myself for the sake of friendship. I tried being someone people could love instead of myself a few times .. it lasted for about three days, then my usual charming self emerged. These days, love me for me or not at all. I refuse to be less than what I can be, and I refuse to make myself into something that's "comfortable" for other people. If what I am challenges you, live up to the challenge.