Social life is so awkward and strange. When I need friends, I could easily come off as needy, and people who I'd like to know feel they don't have the time or desire to invest in a relationship. When I don't need friends, and have an established social circle, I find that circle ever widening as people want to be a part. The two extremes move further and further apart, with an impassable divide in the middle... and somehow I find myself switching sides more often than I thought possible.

Moving from social butterfly to recluse is actually pretty easy to manage. My friends get married, I move, or suddenly change of circumstance means we see less and less of one another. I'm not very good at keeping in touch, even though I try, and so friendships disappear without a trace, no fanfare... Only the rare reunion. It's happened plenty of times. I feel like I have friends, people I can talk with, and people I could call at a moment's notice, and then they disappear. It's probably my fault, but I haven't been able to determine why it happens or how to prevent it yet. It just happens, and it leaves me on the other side of the gap - feeling like I have no one to talk to and no really good friends in life.

And so enters the tenet of social self-sufficiency. I've never been able to pull off the "I'm shy" motif; people think I'm just too good to talk with them. And so the only way to make friends is to act as if I already have them... which requires social self sufficiency. Being socially self-sufficient means that I'm ok being alone... indefinitely... and giving in relationships even when I feel like I need others for support. Leaning on others doesn't seem to work in my case; I need to reach out and lift them, and then they will be willing to lift me. So I organize events and make clubs, set up games and try to involve everyone - essentially doing what I wish someone would do for me. And then something miraculous happens. The Lord meets my own personal needs or He helps me to gain friends who can. I still can't say that I have super-close friends... But at least I can say that I am trying to be a friend to those in need. And, ultimately, that's more important. Yeah. I'd love to have someone to really, truly confide in - someone who shares my dreams and hopes and understands my view of the world. Someone who would be there for me in an instant, and for whom I would give my life. Maybe I'll have to wait until I find a wife to find a friend like that, but in the meantime I have the Lord. He is my strength and my help, the Friend who has been through it all at my side. When no one else wanted to, or could, understand, He was always there for me. And He always will be.

I guess that's what the Lord expects of me and why He puts me in situations that require social "self-sufficiency" - so that I'm more reliant on Him and so that I continue to reach out to others. I'm really not a super-social person; if I weren't constantly feeling friendless, I probably wouldn't care much about others. But since I have the same experience, it means that I'm willing to put something of myself on the line to meet my own needs... And also help others in the same boat. I give unto men weakness that they may turn unto me... and if they will turn unto me I will make their weakness strong unto them...
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