i have trust issues. pretty big ones. i have trouble making friends and my standards of "friends" are higher then those of most people- i more consider people my acquaintances rather then friends, but i'll use the word "friend" with people because everyone uses it.

the thing is, i don't really have friends. i'm withdrawn, quiet, weird, and i don't actively seek out people to chat with. i'm too shy to contact someone privately to talk or hang out or whatever, so i don't. if i'm too shy to contact people, i'm not going to get any further in friendship.

and even if someone else took the initiative to always be the one to contact me and be the more active person in a friendship, why would they want to? i'm scared and discouraged easily, someone can say one thing and i'll misread it completely and think they hate me. there are people who i truly am sure hate me, but i tend to think everyone does.

how do you be a good friend? what is a good friend? i'm frankly not really worth the effort and i know friendship is supposed to be a two way street. i'm not accustomed to asking for a lot from people i'm close-ish to, and i'm not good at helping someone when they need it, i never find words and as a result, it comes off as i don't care or i can't be bothered with another person's problems. i don't know how to be a "friend".