Eelationships As You Go Older

I have had this realization, knowing I almost ruined all my relationships. my childhood, teenage years and early twenties are all lessons of detachment and isolation, and I kind of never been hungry for relationships although I wasn’t so fully into them either, and that paradox was what confused me. that all this independence should lead to some desire of feeling what it’s like to feel the dependence you would feel in all sorts of relationships, all this alone time means I might need at least one loyal friend who I would need to talk to about everything. and it really isn’t that strange, but this was another form of walking contradiction. it confused me, but not that much. attributing factors worked as explanations, I might be fulfilled with the close circle I have, and indeed I have a very small circle where I’m fulfilled with life, satisfied mentally, intellectually and emotionally. my very few friends and family are all I need so I don’t look outside. but then also I shouldn’t cheapen bonding myself with others this much, and I wasn’t, I was genuinely fine in forming healthy relationships with others, but it was so messy. not the kind of messy that comes from a dynamic relationship, but in the mechanism I had of making new ones and then when I realized all the things that were holding me back from maintaining and establishing new relationships in my life, it was because of being emotionally detached.

And then at a conversation with my sister, when she felt the guilt I was carrying for leaving behind and letting down a lot of people in my life, she told me: you might have cut people because of your independent personality, of course that’s fine, you don’t need that many relationships in your life anyway, and I don’t advice you to try to go back and make all the friends who could have stayed there stay by being close to them. and of course that’s true, I agree. I wasn’t already into such a thing, and I wasn’t going back to remake all the relationships I could have made, to go back and say sorry and make sure they forgave me. because I really can’t forgive myself for what I did to them, and saying sorry was enough as a gesture. going back wasn’t.

Then elaboration on this topic arises as time goes by. I see and talk to people who complain about their circles getting a little narrower than they used to be, that life makes it hard for them to be in groups anymore , and I really wonder about those people. I haven’t really been a person who prefers big groups of friends, who wants to feel connected to all the good people in life. I just respect them from a distance and I appreciate when they respect me back, I wouldn’t want more than that. and I know I’m trading away one of the most beautiful features of being human, feeling the connection, feeling the potential of what you possibly can be with someone. but I’m not biologically wired to feel that pull the way others do.

But then rises this layer of confusion about which reality is more accurate, my distorted, possibly biased reality that relationships should be as narrow as possible if you feel fulfilled, or the one that maximizes the warmth and happiness we feel in life by genuinely wanting to know everyone who is good and connect with them at a deeper level. and what I came to understand is that there is another dimension to this, which is time. I wouldn’t celebrate someone being at my age and as isolated as I was, and I also wouldn’t wish for someone in their late twenties to still be searching for big group warmth as their primary need. and that’s what I think was missing from how I was framing it.

When you are young, I think it is good to spend time exploring as much as possible, as much as you can with others, so you can understand humans. get to know the differences between them, who do you prefer, who you don’t, what do you love, what do you hate. and there are an infinite amount of things you can learn by interacting with humans, not just knowledge exchange, of science, art, and skills, but also about yourself. the amount of learning you can get from interacting with people is genuinely staggering and I would appreciate someone who posses an extroverted behavior at the time where social interactions are rich, even if they are not naturally extroverted. from interacting with others and perhaps experiencing the downs of that, disappointment, misunderstanding, and all of that, as well as the ups. and it is painful sometimes of course when people learn it the hard way, but it is good for you to study people. to know who to pick and who to avoid. to master this, and not become overly protective, is a skill that not many people are able to excel at. but the point at an early age is to know people, understand them, and interact. there is no better way to do that than being with people, and also observing from a distance .

As you grow older, and I’m not really a life coach to comment on this, but the pattern I see in the people around me and in myself is this: the more you focus on yourself and your goals, the fewer the interactions you will have with people, and the fewer relationships that will be in your life. and I think yes, this is sad in some way, but in another it is efficient and honest. when people grow they tend to have different paths and different interests, so they are no longer part of the same thing. you can see it clearly, almost all kids went to kindergarten and elementary school, the majority made it to high school, a great number went to university, and in that a further split happens. your friends are in different majors, soon different interests, soon different careers, which means you will eventually find it hard to stay connected. and that’s why my relationships in the close circle are all kind of flexible, we would have been together for a period of time, and communicate every six months, but the amount of love we carry is massive. although my relationship dynamics are somewhat deviated from normal, where my friends are all independent and autonomous, so maybe there is a bias here, but I like it this way.

Going back to the question, if you are someone who feels they want to be connected with anyone and have these big warm groups of people, I really question whether life will aid with that, as it is not the sociological pattern we observe when people get older. it shrinks, in my opinion, and for a lot of reasons. people make friendships when they are young in an unconscious way. some are just afraid to be alone. others need external validation. others because they were genuinely interested without thinking about it. and it’s often either a bad experience or self awareness that will lead them to filter relationships more cautiously. I hope it doesn’t go as cautious as the way I did it . some learn it as a kind of interoception, a recognition that relationships should be regulated at some level. others learn it the hard way and become overly protective and selective, not knowing you can keep people but from a distance. others grind hard after wasting years chasing friendships and feel what they’ve done is a waste when life becomes real and they see they invested in something not as everlasting as they thought. others were people pleasers and discover this later. and a very few rare people know how to balance these extremes .

Just make sure you start to be aware of who gets into your life before it’s too late. regulation is important. because at the end, when you have a smaller circle of a few people who you can really trust with everything, you will find out you don’t need tens of friends, or thousands. those can still be your friends, if they were meant to be and they were gold, meaning they don’t get stained or rusty over the years, no matter how long the distance and the silence have taken. they will save you the spot they did before.

Having a smaller circle as you get older allows you to avoid the blame and burden that comes with being busy with your goals. it helps you filter who you can depend on in your future, and who is meant for just momentary company. and that’s it. it gives you clarity about real life, because the hard truth at the end that no one wants to admit is this, many of our relationships are fun now, but they may not be fun when life starts to get serious. they may not be the kind of people to account for. not to lift you up materialistically but also spiritually, by having people around you who share the same goals, who are as ambitious as you are, as dedicated and as worried about their future and the future of those around them. only then do you get to rise together.