Paranoia

For a couple weeks, I've been a little concerned about friendships. More specificially, how I feel around my friends.

I'm the type of person who questions everything - and I mean everything - before doing anything. Before saying anything. I examine my motives, my opinions, my hopes, anything that could affect my decision very closely before taking action.

Imagine my surprise and discomfort, then, when I discovered the following fact: I was feeling oddly around my guy-friends, and whatever this unidentified feeling was, it was strongly influencing my actions. Now that's an embarrassing realization.

Let me explain why: I don't take actions without knowing why I'm doing them. Now, I've got an emotional memory going back to 2005, when I was 12. By emotional memory, I mean, I can recognize emotions I've had since that time.

I haven't felt whatever it is I'm feeling for as long as I can remember.  For a while, my working theory was that it was what people commonly call "a crush." Problem being, I haven't had a crush since my *ahem* boy-crazy days (circa 2003-2004), so I wouldn't know one if it introduced itself with a handshake. I hoped it wasn't, but I couldn't know.  "Crush" seemed the only option.

That is, until I realized that I felt the same way around pretty much all my friends left here in Washington. Including the gal-friends. If the feeling is a "crush," I really don't like the implication.

So it can't be a crush. I won't allow it. Then I got to thinking. This feeling is remarkably similar to my first day of co-op, my first day of choir, my first day of speech club. In other words, the closest match I have is shyness.

This new implication, while still upsetting, is nonetheless less disturbing  than being attracted to all my friends.

...

But still. Shyness? really? I'm shy around the only people I can call friends who I still physically interact with every week? I'm shy around the two guys I spent over 70 hours with this summer? I'm shy around my duo-partner, Calvin? Around girls I paged with? Around people I call my friends?

And yet, I still treat them as strangers. Are they friends of necessity?

How can I call people my friends if they don't know me, and I don't know them?

I don't know. I just really, don't know.

B