Half-person.

[arrowwhiskers]

Sometimes I feel like I am a half-person, like I am just a shell of blood and bones and organs and there is nothing real to me.
I feel like people all around me look, and they see me, and they see my emptiness. They see that I am an empty person and then they glance away and forget the moment and I am no one.

They've always done that. But before there were a couple who didn't, and they were the only ones who mattered. Here I am a stranger to everybody. Before I used to see a potential friend in every stranger's glance, but now I just feel their eyes pass through their potential friendship with me and deem it worthless.

Even after almost an entire semester, I don't have a life here. My life is still in Boston. Which is NOT to say I don't have friends. But I think the only people who actually truly give a shit about me here are Ray and Maria, and I met them both online. As much as I adore them, they do not anchor me in this life--most of our interactions are online as well. There is not a single person for whom it is necessary or even really that important that I am *here*.
So I don't really have a real life, not in Arizona. And I really am trying to make one. I'm trying to move on, yet failing--not for a wavering desire, not for uncertainty in my path, not for turning too often to look behind me--but for a lack of something *in me* that other people see and find attractive. I don't know how to make friends--real friends, whose presence actually matters. I really don't. I don't know how it happened the first time...how I made friends before. It just kind of happened. I don't know how to repeat it. I don't know how to turn myself into a whole person, one that people actually see. -_-

I don't know since when it's been Rai-is-emo week, but I'm sorry...

Hiatus on AIM and LJ until Wednesday night (maybe?), since I have let things pile up, yet again.

Comments

[vagabondalingua.livejournal.com]

D= *showers with hugs*
Rae-Is-Emo Week will be defeated by Awesome-Trip-To-Havasu.

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

^_^ Yeah...I didn't mean to be so crazily emo...sometimes you just have to write stupid emo things out though, y'know? >>; So that they have a chance to float away.

[zimfusion.livejournal.com]

Erm...from observation you could probably try to be a little friendlier.

Just saying. I comment on you LJ often and you never reply.

I'm pretty sure someone could be waving their arms in the air saying "HEY I'LL BE YOUR FRIEND!" and you'd just wander off thinking how lonely you are.

Ways to find friends in Tucson:
1) Volunteer. If you love animals, sign up to work with ARF on weekends. Meet other people who love animals. There are a million other organizations of course.

2) Join clubs. I'm in a scooter club and a swing dancing thing and those have hooked me up with all kinds of people. Tucson has a lot going on people don't know about. Anything you like probably has a club. There's slam poetry monthly at Bentley's. It's awesome.

3) The internet. Several people I have just LJ friended and spoke to online for months and then when we eventually meet in person it's like you are already friends because you know what you have in common and there are things to talk about. Or you could try OkCupid.com (there are some creeps though) or couchsurfing.com (freaking awesome and there are local meetups with the friendliest people you'll ever find) you can also have travelers come hang out with you.

4) Drinking. Thursday nights at Club Congress. $1 vodka-cranberries. You'll be friendly in now time. :P

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

You know, I think you're totally right! O.o It's kind of pathetic, since I don't think of myself as unfriendly, but I think that a lot of it is just cluelessness/not thinking about things the right way.

Admittedly, I am really bad about responding to LJ comments even in general. I tend to prefer responding in person or on instant messenger, and sometimes when I don't respond initially, I space out on going back.

Also, I think the main reason I haven't responded to your comments is because I just realized JUST NOW that you friended me--I'm not sure when you did it, whcih kind of is a testament to how spacy and clueless I am ^^;; I don't think you ever posted a comment introducing yourself or telling me you were friending me, so the times that I have read your comments I have assumed they were from a lurker/someone just visiting since I had no idea who you are. I'm not trying to justify or excuse my ignoring you, since looking back I totally shouldn't have. But I do think that if you friend someone you should comment and say that you are and why.

I'm really sorry for coming off so frigid since I didn't mean to ^^; You're really nice for sticking around even after I ignored you a lot--why did you keep me friended? o.O;

As for meeting-friends advice, I am sadly not 21 yet and don't have time yet for volunteering or clubs, but maybe over winter break I'll try something ^^ The internet is definitely an amazing tool, too <3 I just feel like interacting a lot online has the potential to make real life contact feel less necessary...which is kind of hard if you don't have many real life friends.

Anyway--I'll add you back, I'm sorry I didn't really respond to you sooner, I didn't mean to be rude. I would like to think that if someone in person were tryign to become my friend I would actually catch on and welcome them, but seriously I don't know o.O; I'd at least like to hope that if I'm standoffish, it's from just being clueless, not because I'm trying to be mean or whatever.

Thanks for actually making me think about this!! It was long due I think.

[zimfusion.livejournal.com]

I think I friended you back when you first moved here. You posted something to the Tucson group and then I saw in your journal you were complaining about living here :P I guess I figured I could help, or at least defend my beloved city. ;)

You don't have to apologize, I was just pointing out that you are shooting yourself in the foot. You said you didn't respond because you didn't know me...weeeeell you won't make friends of strangers if you don't talk to them. ;) Assuming you are using that philosophy in real life as well.

I work full time and I'm taking 15 credits (I wrangled 18 last semester) and I still find time to volunteer, be active in clubs and cultivate friendships and a relationship. But these things are worth the time and energy...because they are the things that make life enjoyable. It seems odd that doing more could make you feel more energized. But if don't do them because work and school are draining you, you just feel more drained, because all you do is work and go to school.

Tucson is a much better town for the 21 and over crowd, but there are still some good things for younger folks. Art openings are a blast and they rarely check ID >.>

[grimnir42.livejournal.com]

I find this is only a problem until you get over it. This is the way most problems are.
If you except it, take it into yourself, make it part of yourself, you have confidence and a fuller personality. If you reject who you are and the way you are, you will never have your own personality; or that is, at least, how people will see it.
It'll be fine, once you stop whining about it.

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Lol yeah, and I know that--sometimes you just have to write out all the irrational and sad shit that's kicking around in your head just so that you're able to feel better.

[grimnir42.livejournal.com]

It always makes me feel much, much worse when I write something about it if I'm feeling bad. Hm.

[skipperjam.livejournal.com]

hmmm so, i've been in vancouver for coming on three years now, and i still haven't made friends like the friends i have in tucson. but that, i accept, is probably because i never will. and not so much because of me, but because i can't imagine ever finding such people twice. that's because, coming out of high school, i found in my close friends a deep friendship that i can only really liken to true love. i mean, i don't expect to find that again. i have a few friends here in vancouver who i know have that- that deep friendship, and seeing them interact with each other sends pangs of nostalgia to me, but, well, so it goes.

i would say it's curious to me to imagine tucson from the perspective of wishing to be somewhere else except that i also miss vancouver, and when i go to tucson, i may be just as homesick for canada. although, still, it won't be the same sort of incontrollable, deep homesick that comes of history and engrained smiles and smells and sights.

the best way to make friends is to just figure out how to live without them, and then become interested in the people around you. i know it's hard. i know.. i've been there, and i'm still there even now, even with lots of good acquaintances and some really close friends who i care dearly for, here in vancouver, sometimes i still feel the emptiness.

do an art project! spend some time walking with yourself and just listening to the things whistling around in your heart and mind that you would like to be telling your close friends. just sort of hold yourself.

okay one last thing that's helped me. don't think about what strangers/potential friends see in you, think about what you see in them. what you like about them. don't know? ask them, spend time with them, get to know them.

sorry for rambling so much.. i've been thinking about this a lot lately too. i hope it turns out well for you!

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

That is actually a really interesting idea--looking for things in other people and not worrying so much about your own self. I think I shall try it. :)

The thing is that I do think that people can make deep heart-friends anywhere they go. Like last year the people I met, I could tell that if I spent more time with them and let the years pile up, I would definitely get to that level of closeness with them (but didn't for simple lack of time). I think I may just be ridiculously fortunate that I have met such wonderful people, and happened to have had the opportunity to become friends with them.

I think that's most of my problem. Inflated expectations. I have a lot of trouble with that--being happy with how life IS, rather than how I'd like it to be. But it is a good goal ^^

Good luck to you in this arena as well <3

[acern.livejournal.com]

There needs to be a way to write D: in all caps and bold and really really big so I can express my sadness for you. Don't be unhappy, Rai... I can guarantee you that that's not how it is. (This is a lame argument to use in response to your worries about friends BUT) studies have shown that people actually become friends not with people who share the same interests or personality types or thoughts on subjects but with people who they spend a lot of time with, SO I think the most ginormungous factor in your feeling alone-ness is probably that you just don't have the _time_ to actually spend with people in order to develop really close friendships on account of how you're always _swamped_ with _so much work_. And you _shouldn't_ see that as a reflection on yourself because you're a wonderful person and people can see that, it's just hard to see them seeing it because that's how life is. And don't be sad, please. D: We still love you here.

[arrowwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I'm not really that unhappy in the big scheme of things, I'm just a drama queen who always wants more.

You are lovely for always trying to make me feel better despite my most egotistical complaints. I miss you, I hope taht you haven't had similar problems finding friends. :3 <3