I’ve been having trouble with people recently. I often feel like people don’t want to be friends with me, they want to be friends with who they think I am. Then when I can’t live up to this alternate and fictional persona the people in my life get hurt. It is enough to make me want to run away and live somewhere alone. Namely in a little cabin in the foothills of Colorado, a place with no address, or at least not one I would give out.
I understand that relationships are unavoidably founded on what you get out of the relationship. Luckily our relationship with God isn’t like that. He doesn’t love us for what He can get from us. But relationships with people are like that. Does this person make me feel happy? Secure? Important? Do we get along? Do they meet some need in me? Maybe it shouldn’t be this way, but it is. Period.
The problem comes—or one problem comes— when you are depending on someone for too much or you think they give you something they can’t continue to give. That is what happens with me. I think people put a lot of emphases on what I give in a relationship, not that they aren’t willing to give as well, but I get built up as this person that provides for them emotionally. Frankly, I can never keep that up very long, and I never mean to be that person in the first place! This all ends badly. For me. For them. It makes me want to stop being a friend if it means I will inevitably let people down.
I picture my energy in computer game terms. I have an energy bar and the more people I have to give to the faster that bar gets depleted. This leaves me feeling like a failure and the people around me feeling dejected.
Part of me feels like I must be a real jerk, to keep letting people down. Am I not compassionate enough? Do I not get enough of my time? What's wrong with me?
Another part of me thinks I just need tougher friends. The people closest to me and that have been my friends the longest are the ones that initiate as much as I do. They give for awhile, I give for awhile. We are honest with each other, but not it an, “Why aren’t you giving me what I need!” kind of way.
I guess I’m looking for people that get that I can’t be everything all the time. People that don’t immediately assume I’m mad at them because my life has changed since they first met me. I have a hard enough time being someone I’m happy with and being myself. I can’t be the persona you have misguidedly judged me as too! It is too much for me. Way too much.
Anyway, I know I’m ranting, but right now my energy bar is way below empty. My conclusion?
I think I’m going to have to stick with fewer friends, people who get me. If I’ve let you down, I am truly sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone. But consider this, maybe I’m not the answer, maybe you need someone or something else.
In any case I want to echo what the Psalmist says in Psalm 55, “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you.” And again what Peter says in 1 peter 5:7 “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
I;m sorry but no matter how hard I try not to, at some point I will let you down. But God never, never will. He is the one that is going to have to refill my energy bar and He is the one that you (and I) need to be leaning on.
Side note:
If you are reading this and think, “Is she talking about me?” The answer is a resounding, “No”. I have no one person that I’m writing this about.
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