It's the "Aha!" that gets them

I'll be the first to admit that I don't feel things rationally. I can do all the logical thinking I want, but sooner or later whatever I'm feeling has a tendency to dictate what I start thinking. And generally I tend to prepare for the worst. Because that way nothing can hurt. I'm already expecting it. I assume from the start that the conversation will go poorly, that whenever I get close to someone, eventually they'll stop talking to me and we'll drift apart. That I like them more than they like me and I'm probably just being a pathetic nuisance by always wanting to hang around them. There's going to be someone else they like better than me. Even when something good happens and it makes me really happy, there's a part of me that says, this won't last. Pretty soon that fleeting emotion will be gone, and I'll just be sliding back to where I started. What an utterly miserable outlook on life.

One place it particularly irritates me is with friends, when I invite them to do something and I really want them to say yes, but they have a conflict and can't, or when I leave a message and they don't get back to me because they've been busy and haven't been home to check their messages yet. Even when I know they're not avoiding me on purpose, and there's a hundred examples I could site that they really are my friends, it still hurts.

Today I asked a friend if he wanted to toss around a frisbee for a bit, but he couldn't because he had a meeting to get to in a few minutes. I wanted to ask if he wanted to hang out later, maybe get something to eat or enjoy the beautiful weather, but I was already floundering because the phone connection was bad and I could only understand about half of what was being said, and my brain had inconveniently frozen up, and all those fears about being a burden to other people were racing through again. My friend suggested we could do it another day this week, in fact, how about tomorrow? I made some sort of lame finish and said goodbye, feeling horrible about my dismal conversational skills and the failed invitation. Sleep is a good way to avoid reality.

Several hours later, after a long nap and many episodes of Scrubs, I realized I was being a complete idiot. My friend's not being able to play frisbee right then had nothing to do with our friendship. He wasn't just trying to make up an excuse to get out of it. He was sorry he couldn't make it, and immediately made an effort to find another time we could hang out. He's never said or done anything that would indicate to me that he doesn't value our friendship. The only problem here is me. And me I can fix.

Suddenly I'm in a really good mood.