Sunday, August 21, 2011

Relationship Guru...

I most certainly am not. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm kind of awful when it comes to the whole relationship thing. And I mean any kind of relationship. I feel like I'm a generally friendly person, and I genuinely care about my friends and do what I can so as to avoid any sort of riffs with them. But I often feel like that isn't enough, or it's taken advantage of. So many people tell me that they can instantly tell upon meeting me that I just don't get mad...well that's not true. Of course I get mad, we all do. I just seem to do a better job of bottling stuff up than most people. Which, I think, is why I have so many relationship issues. There's a lack of communication in almost all of the relationships that I have. Excluding my mother and sister, I don't always tell people what I actually think about something for fear of upsetting them. There is a literal fear of confrontation that affects me all the time. I hadn't really thought that this was necessarily a bad trait until recently. Like I said, people see me as friendly and nice...and then they get surprised when I voice an opinion that is contradictory to their own. They don't know what to do with it, so half of the time they laugh and the rest of the time they get upset. Neither of which I really appreciate. And so, of course, then I get upset. Because I've offended someone or they aren't taking me seriously. It's a vicious circle, really. 
This year I need to work on improving the relationships that I already have, actively make an effort to meet new people and expand my small circle of acquaintances, and try to be more comfortable in not only expressing my opinions but also in the fact that some people just aren't going to agree with them. And that's perfectly fine.