stargazer
Member
Shortly after I moved to this new town for the new job, it seemed as though all my longtime friends from the Valley suddenly stopped contacting me, or returning phone calls and emails. It didn't bother me too much for a while, because I had to zero in on my job anyway. Also, I figured I had pestered them all with incessant "buzzes" when I wasn't doing so well, and so I had probably annoyed and alienated them, at least for the time being.
Here I'm back in the Bay Area, and I have three pretty good male friends here, and somehow we never see each other. I get tired of calling them, hitting them up on Yahoo Messenger, and so forth. It's not working, and I don't want to be a pest. I have had exactly one meaningful phone conversation with one of them, exactly once.
My weekend begins Saturday evening and ends Sunday evening. After church on Sundays, I go into a state of total ennui, seemingly paralyzed, unable to find anything to do that will not leave me feeling as though I wasted my entire weekend.
I did see my daughter last weekend, however. That is the best it's been. She loves me, and does not seem bothered by my intensity, but I do notice that many of my friends find me exhausting because of my high and often scattered energy level. Somehow this does not interfere with my work, and I am acquiring more and more positive work connections all the time. Maybe it's because they're not around me often enough to be exhausted, or because I am more in tune with work mores and boundaries than I am with social/personal boundaries. Or some combination of both.
I wonder if I should be trying to make friends, and if so, where do I find these people? And, upon finding them, how do I keep from alienating them? What would happen if I had a hypomanic episode? Would they, too, abandon me?
I belong to two Internet sites -- PsychLinks and this other blog site where I've made some friends. But all that does is affix me to my computer on a beautiful sunny day. I guess I could set forth alone, go window shopping, bus-riding, and so forth -- I just wish I were able to get together with a friend, because I know that I wouldn't feel so alone afterward, and my life would feel as though it had more balance by the time I show up for work tomorrow.
Here I'm back in the Bay Area, and I have three pretty good male friends here, and somehow we never see each other. I get tired of calling them, hitting them up on Yahoo Messenger, and so forth. It's not working, and I don't want to be a pest. I have had exactly one meaningful phone conversation with one of them, exactly once.
My weekend begins Saturday evening and ends Sunday evening. After church on Sundays, I go into a state of total ennui, seemingly paralyzed, unable to find anything to do that will not leave me feeling as though I wasted my entire weekend.
I did see my daughter last weekend, however. That is the best it's been. She loves me, and does not seem bothered by my intensity, but I do notice that many of my friends find me exhausting because of my high and often scattered energy level. Somehow this does not interfere with my work, and I am acquiring more and more positive work connections all the time. Maybe it's because they're not around me often enough to be exhausted, or because I am more in tune with work mores and boundaries than I am with social/personal boundaries. Or some combination of both.
I wonder if I should be trying to make friends, and if so, where do I find these people? And, upon finding them, how do I keep from alienating them? What would happen if I had a hypomanic episode? Would they, too, abandon me?
I belong to two Internet sites -- PsychLinks and this other blog site where I've made some friends. But all that does is affix me to my computer on a beautiful sunny day. I guess I could set forth alone, go window shopping, bus-riding, and so forth -- I just wish I were able to get together with a friend, because I know that I wouldn't feel so alone afterward, and my life would feel as though it had more balance by the time I show up for work tomorrow.