Strange little birds

I feel like I'm rubbish at making friends. Always have been. Maybe I wasn't properly socialised as a child (actually I know I wasn't) but it's one of those life skills I see people enact seamlessly while I fumble ineffectually at the sidelines with a quarter of a clue. Like watching people fly around gracefully at an ice skating rink while I can barely lace up my skates, forget about getting out there and doing anything else besides making a fool of myself. Maybe I missed the day they had successful friendship classes at school but definitely feels like everyone else knows something about the process that I don't. Whenever I'm at social gatherings I look at other people who navigate that landscape with ease and just think 'how do they do that?' I always feels like a character in a game whose dialogue choices are hacky and weird. I know I am supposed to say x and y but i feel strange doing it I, controlling my mouth like I'm playing a part. I do have friends of course. Just not very many. Try to play it off like it doesn't bother me but it gets very lonely sometimes. Solitary melancholy was alright as a goth teen in the 90s but it's sad in more ways than one when you're in your mid 30s.

Some people are fine with being solitary loners, or at least they'll tell you they are. Personally I go between desperately craving company and secluding myself for so long that it sounds strange to hear my own voice when I speak to another. But at the heart of it, we're social animals. Humanity and civilisation would not have got to the point it has, nay, may not even still exist at all, if all those millennia ago primitive humans opted to sit in caves by themselves scratching frowny faces into the walls. Possibly while sporting some ill-considered charcoal panda-eyes, although The Cure was some way off from releasing any material to be sad to. The point is,  networking is crucial. One carbon atom on its own simply exists in isolation without achieving anything, but multiple atoms arranged a certain way can form carbon nanotubes, extraordinarily strong material that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Or possibly just the material for the aforementioned charcoal eyeliner. It all depends on the type of connection forged, and this is just as true for humans as it is for atoms. Superficial and weak connections may be able to form interesting structures but they are transient, unstable. They break easily and the constituents go back to floating about ineffectually by themselves. But the right kind of connection can form a unit that is so much stronger than the individual, able to withstand so much more.

Sadly, not all of us are armed with the ability to make those connections. Some of us won't ever be. Fake it til you make it is generally surprisingly good advice for a lot of daunting situations in life, but when it comes down to the minutiae of interpersonal relationships it can quickly devolve into some kind of psychological uncanny valley. People will disengage and distance themselves from you because, although you seem nice there's just something about you that makes forging that connection difficult or unappealing. But you know what? It's ok. You can't be best friends with everyone. You might be a solitary loner, and maybe it's not by choice.  By ourselves we are merely building blocks, but there are people out there you can connect with, people you can forge that kind of strong bond with. But you must first learn to like yourself before other people can too - that's the real secret. Trite as it sounds, confidence is key. I'm still working out how to do that but I think I can get there one day. Starting from way behind the white line doesn't mean you'll never finish, it just takes you longer to get there.