TheBanyanTree: My Best Friend

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I lied.  I don’t have a best friend.  Well, except Ray, he’s my very best
friend in the whole wide world.  But what I mean by a best friend is a
woman.  And I haven’t had a best woman friend in years.

A lot of that is me.  I’m an introvert.  I prefer to spend time by myself.
My mother was an extreme extrovert, the pulsing center of her social set.  I
remember being dragged to all these social type things like nursery school,
Bible school, Girl Scouts, and play dates.  She was determined to get me out
of the house, my nose out of a book, and into the social arena.

If she attended any of these things with me, then I would hear about my
social inadequacies when I got home.  “You talked too much, you didn’t make
any sense, no one was listening to you, no one cares about you,” etc.  See,
in her eyes, my mother was the supreme being of her universe, and no one
could ever hope to match her skills in anything.  Whenever I tried, I was
slapped down hard.

Sometimes I did manage to make a friend or two.  However, if I brought my
friend home, then my mother would start in on me the minute my friend left.
“Where did you pick up that scum?”  Or “She is so nice, why would she want
to be friends with you?”  There was no pleasing that woman!

I managed to get through high school with a few friends.  I look back at
this time as dismal and lonely.  Besides ripping the couple of friends I did
have, my mother watched any of my social activities like a hawk.  I really
wasn’t allowed to do much.  I couldn’t stay out late, I couldn’t have a
boyfriend, and I couldn’t go to parties.  Any time I wanted to do a social
activity, my mother vetoed it.  The only approved activity was band.  I
could go to football games and basketball games as a band member.

But then there was college!  I moved in with roommates.  I got a boyfriend.
I began to make wonderful friends.  Friends like me, who were smart,
creative, and fun.  I could be wild and try new things.  I didn’t go crazy
or anything, but finally I was able to live a little bit.  You know, my
mother would never come to visit where I lived.  Every place I lived in was
too yucky for her to visit.

Well, the years passed.  I had a baby, got married, and began the process of
joining the middle class.  I had a decent job, bought a house, a car, and a
couple of dogs.  I was a football, basketball, and track mom.  My college
friends and I grew apart and I don’t see them anymore.

And I search for a best friend.  I just can’t make friends like most people.
I’m always amazed at how easily self-centered, back stabbing, unreliable
people make friends.  I see these women who are all over the map with their
emotions have friends by the dozens.  I couldn’t imagine being friends with
these women, but they attract other women to them like bees to honey.  What
am I missing?

If I do meet a woman I like, I keep hearing my mother’s voice whispering in
my ear, “Why would she like you?”  I know I shouldn’t listen, but I haven’t
found a way to block it out.

And I’m an introvert.  Being by myself is the ultimate pleasure.  I dislike
the energy it takes to keep in touch with people.  I’m drained after
participating in an intense social event.  I hate parties where I’m expected
to circulate, make small talk, and pretend I’m interested in what’s going
on.

I’m careful and cautious about who I let into my world.  If I sense just a
small amount of rejection, I stop trying to make contact.  I know I put up
barriers, that I only allow someone to get so close.  I’m my own worst enemy
when it comes to making friends.

It’s a part of my personality that I want to work on, yet I do like crafting
my own time without a social obligation on the horizon.  I know for my own
health, I should have close friends.  I do OK without friends, yet I fret
over it constantly.  I haven’t figured out a happy medium.

So I’ll keep on searching for a best friend.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
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Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two
most beautiful words in the English language.
~Henry James