I've always been ok at making friends but no good at keeping them. On my first day of secondary we were told to split into groups of three for an orienteering exercise, I thought, 'Excellent, my two best friends from primary school and I shall be a group'. Nope. They told me they were going with someone else and proceeded to barely speak to me for the next year. Luckily I was taken pity on my some other girls and ended up with a good group of friends but it was crushing, these girls had been my best friends for years.
However, secondary school was where I met my first proper best friend, we were inseparable, and even stayed really close for years after I moved away, until we hit 14/15 and she was doing drugs, running away from home, being sent to boarding school out of the country and becoming a chav, while I was still a shy goth who worked hard at school and was frankly intimidated by her, we drifted apart. I've drifted apart from a lot of friends since then.
I've also learned being friends with boys is hard, I've had to turn down several romantic advances, and then you get to question if it's worth trying to continue the friendship, despite the complications. However, I did make some good friends at my second high school, and at other schools in the area, nothing like hanging out in the local parks and skateparks to meet interesting people. I was best friends with a girl from another school for a long time, we became a lot less close after my boyfriend dumped me to go out with her. I said I was ok with it, I wasn't of course, I was heartbroken and jealous, mostly of him. The relationship didn't even last, she dumped him on the day before Valentines and she started hanging out with people who like drum'n'bass and clubbing. I felt uncool and ignored around them, we stopped talking. This is one of the few occasions I can't see that I did anything wrong.
Unfortunately I went to a different college from most of my friends, and that was that, I don't even remember if I tried to keep in touch with my friends from school, I just made a new group, which was excellent for three year but not so good when I was at uni. In second and third year I had uni in London, friends in one town, family in a second and a boyfriend in a third. It was exhausting, especially as my friends hardly came to London, neither did my family. Also, my friendship group slowly began to disintegrate, or rather spilt in two, everyone kind of chose sides, including me. Still, I'd made friends in London, I was even living with them, it was all ok.
Then, during my final year on uni, my boyfriend has a psychiatric break. Nobody knew what it was, it had happened before, but I'd been blithely assuming it wouldn't happen when he was with me. It was a very bad time, and tipped me over the edge into full-blown depression, I spent a lot of time sitting blankly in my uni lesson, not taking everything in, crying, and getting calls from his parents telling my things like he'd run away from hospital and if he came to my house to call the police so they could come and get him. Oh, and I was in the middle of moving house and trying to write my dissertation. I was not a nice person to be around. As my boyfriend got better I saw him a few times, we broke up properly, though I'd felt single for three months, and I did not get happier. I was so miserable, and I wanted everyone else to be miserable, I also felt like my friends didn't want to talk to me about it, at least not the ones I lived with. My two best male friends were amazing, everyone else I pushed further and further away until I was living in a house with three people who didn't talk to me. This was probably my fault, but I think the fact I was ill should have cut me some slack.
Anyway, that was the end of uni friends, most of the people I knew were only friends with me because of a mutual friend so they stopped talking to me once she did, and I didn't care, I was too busy trying to get a job and fit therapy around it. I even found a new boyfriend, who I had more in common with than most of my friends anyway.
So I was left with two friends, who over the next year or so I also lost touch with. I was living in different towns from them, and they had their own friendship groups and lives, it was easier not to talk, and I wasn't that lonely. The slipping away may have had something to do with the fact they're both male, I had a lot of male company, I spend most of my spare time with my boyfriend, it's girl friends I really struggle with. Of course now I am lonely, not helped by my shyness worsening until it is full on social phobia, complete with an especial fear of talking to stranger in large groups.
What have I learned from 20 years of friendships? That I find it easy to slip out of touch with people, especially those I don't live near or see regularly. That's something I'll have to watch, and something I do feel bad about. Also, girls are fickle. Or maybe I am just really bad at choosing friends. Maybe I should be asking people 'will you stop hanging out with me if our music tastes change?' or 'will you go out with my ex even though you know I still like him?' I'm better at staying friends with boys for a long time, honestly girls baffle me. Also that perhaps I am not a very good friend, I tend to be a bit unstable, this can't be fun to be around, and I'm stuck in my ways, I haven't changed much since I was 15, I'm not ready to settle down yet, no kids or house for me, but at the same time I don't like clubbing, or big event, or really outgoing people.
At least now I am really motivated to meet people, far to scared at the moment, but at least I want to, once I do have the courage to talk to more people hopefully I'll be able to make wise choices and make the move from acquaintance to friend.
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