I flip between wanting close friends in my life and not wanting the cost of friendship. The commitment to maintaining a friendship takes a lot of effort. It takes trust. It takes a willingness to be available, to be real and to be open and vulnerable. I don't do any of those things well.

I am good at the front end. Making a friend and getting to know someone and providing support and for a while even asking for support but sooner or later I begin to feel too exposed. Even with online friendships. There comes a point where I feel too exposed and have to pull away when I think people know too much about me. Or I may have gotten lax and out of the blue someone will attack me or hurt me and I over react by spiralling into the safety of deeper isolation. That is when I start to put on a fake personna and hide my need for support if and when I do need to interact with people socially.

Every now and then a special friendship will develop and I will maintain it privately from a distance where I feel safe. I have one such friendship now with someone I met here and it means the world to me. It fills a void in my life that I won't let anyone, not even family fill. I can be honest with this friend when things aren't going well while I feel I must paint the picture of happiness for everyone else. I feel guilty if I tell my family how my life really is going. They can't fix me so why should I cause them grief with tales about my less then peaceful life? When they start to crowd me because I let some truth out of the bag I start to feed them stories that will make them think all is well and give me some space again.