i'm a bad friend (but you're a bad friend too)

So don't ask me where I've been

Been avoiding everything

'Cause I'm a bad, I'm a bad, I'm a bad friend

I've always had difficulty when it came to making friends. Being shy and quiet while also suffering from social anxiety made it hard to make connections. I learned that being alone was easier, but loneliness itself ate at my bones. There were numerous nights in my bedroom during high school where I found myself on my knees at the side of my bed, hands together in prayer as I prayed to God to send me a friend.

I believed He would send me a friend. But years passed and it never happened and I stopped praying because I felt as if He wasn't listening.

"You have to show yourself friendly to make friends, Esmoore."

My mom didn't understand.

"I don't have friends either."

She was just trying to make me feel better, but I didn't buy it at that time. Now looking back I realize it was true. She has acquaintances that she is friendly with, but no one that she speaks with regularly besides family.

I acquired my shy nature from my mother. She grew up with four siblings, and they all said that she was the one who was always quiet. As she got older she got more comfortable with greeting and having conversations with others due to the nature of various hospitality jobs over the years. As I get older myself I understand that with age you stop caring what others think. Some things get easier, but not everything is suddenly cured with newfound knowledge and wisdom.

High school came and went, then college and I didn't make a single friend.

Much of my university days I somehow luckily ended up without roommates, and I found myself suffering slightly from some sort of agoraphobia, where if I didn't have classes or didn't have to go to studio to work on art I was terrified of stepping outside of my residence hall room. Upon graduation, I ended up with a retail job and was forced to work and improve my social skills which was painfully difficult.

Romantic relationships, on the other hand, were different. My first boyfriend was at 19, a long-distance train wreck of a relationship that ended over text after we had begun visiting each other in person. Long story short, my social anxiety was one of the culprits. This ex would rear up his ugly head over the next few years before I cut him off completely. Then there was a long-distance friendship with benefits situation that was a disaster in of itself. Then there was the event that ruined it all with a false friendship and someone telling me that they weren't ready for a relationship.

The honesty of the guy wasn't what bothered me. It hurt to be told the truth, but it was the friendship I thought that was going to start that hurt even more.

I craved a friendship with a fellow black woman. But instead, I got blocked on all social media with no closure.

It hurts to be rejected by your own. But that was a hard lesson learned and solidified the fact that some skin folk ain't kinfolk.

But not too long after that chaos, I met my now husband, and my life took off. But I was still missing one thing, a friendship.

*

I was in my third trimester when my husband had us exchange numbers. She was a former coworker of his that talked about taking part in craft shows. We met up over lunch one day to plan, and did a few craft shows together. We texted every day, and eventually she would confide in me about her frustrations with the dating world, and when she found a guy that seemed promising, but they ended up butting heads.

Near my due date, I felt down because I was in pain and ready to meet my son. I remember spending one day in bed from morning to night texting and was honest about how I felt and remember her response: "You can't be depressed, only me."

Then I gave birth to my son and things were hard.

I was too exhausted to text as much as I used to. I was dealing with a mix of postpartum blues, anxiety, and depression. My life had entered a new phase and I was trying to figure everything out. With the arrival of a newborn and the transition to infant and toddler, my memory also got worse. I forgot to reply at times and then there were times when I didn't want to reply. I was exhausted. Most of our conversations over the months were of her dating woes and continuing to be so. We met up sometimes for pedicures and breakfast or lunch but as she got in relationships, meeting up became few and far in between, and so I became distant when it came to texting hoping whenever we met up in person we could fill each other in about our lives. But then with every relationship she got in her significant other had to tag along.

In the beginning, I was stoked because making friends as an adult is extremely hard and with my lack of social skills it would be completely impossible. When my son was around two months old was the first time I ever made a visit to a friend's house, though in a Zoloft fog and anxiety-fueled haze. I overstayed my welcome probably, but I was also lonely. My husband was away at drill and I was home alone with my baby and dog.

There were many firsts with her and when my husband was deployed we did some events together that were firsts for me. I was happy I finally had a friend, but I still wasn't happy.

I'm a bad friend because I fail to reply to texts on time or not at all. I'm a bad friend because I'm too afraid to tell the truth and call you out on your shit. I'm a bad friend because I don't speak up about how I feel and how you make me feel. I'm a bad friend because I'm scared of telling you like it is because I'm too afraid to lose you, when I've finally gotten a friend.

But you're a bad friend too.

You're a bad friend because you only want to talk when you're going through it with guys. The numerous times I've had to give you pep talks and advice and worry about you going far away on dates with guys you don't know well. You're a bad friend because you always turn down my invitations to hang out at my house knowing I have a child, or you cancel last minute. You're a bad friend because you put guys you don't know before our friendship and it hurts, you also talk about your life a lot, but don't ask questions about mine.

The last straw was the weekend when I had invited you over to hang out and you decided to hang out with a guy knowing that I'm moving to another state next month. You told me that you'll miss me because I was one of the only friends you ever had, but then I realized that there's a reason for your numerous failed relationships. It's you.

And then again when I invited you to a going away party my in-laws were throwing for us moving away, you were so excited and said you had gotten back together with the guy that had broken up with you a week before. The day of the party I waited and waited. My husband mentioned that you were probably going to cancel and sure enough, you did. You called me on the verge of crying saying that your boyfriend was probably going to break up with you again and that you weren't going to be able to make it to the party.

I wanted to laugh because my husband had called it, but I tried being empathetic when deep down I felt like you let me down again. It hurt.

Maybe I'm blind to my own faults with the lack of friendships made over a decade. But I feel that I am a decent friend. I worry and I hope for the best, I cheer you on when you're down, I'm up for meeting up when you need to talk about your frustrations. I want to do more, and be able to go places more, but it's harder with a young child. I know our lives are at different points- I'm married and in a stable relationship, while you're trying to find your forever person.

One thing that my mom and husband have told me is that you're flaky and only want to meet up when things go wrong when it comes to your love life. They always say how I always go when you plan things, but you don't do the same for me.

I'm a bad friend because I've found that maybe wanting friends is too much for me. I crave interactions and platonic relationship experiences with other women, but it's hard when your phone has been silent for years aside from family. It's draining having to get to know and deal with someone else for it to just end.

However, one thing I know is that friendship should be a balance of give and take and unfortunately, our friendship isn't like that.