@ZehraSky 3 May 2022

I need a friend In difficult times, a friend is someone who can be counted to have your back. They offer their shoulders to cry on or their ears to listen to you venting. In all honesty, I have awesome friends but I know they are busy with their lives. I do not want to make them worried about me and my condition. However, this does not erase the fact that I need someone to talk to. Sure, I always have my partner to talk to but like I said,I do not want to dump all of my ramblings to one person only. Plus I really miss learning new things about someone. I miss the excitement associated to getting to know an interesting person. The problem The main reason why I have yet to find new friends is myself. I now have rusty social skills so I do not know how to keep a conversation going with a stranger. I am okay with people that I know for a while since I have some sort of foundation with them, but with strangers, it is difficult. For one, I do not know where to start. I have forgotten how to build friendships that last for more than a couple of days. I am not sure how to make myself look approachable nor do I know how to approach others without coming across as FC (feeling close). Next is that I am not in the mood to reply most of the times. Sometimes, I would forget to reply for days because I haven't been opening my messages. This of course makes for a boring conversation. I can not seem to remember a time when I talked with a stranger where the conversation just kept going and going. I guess it was probably one of those times where I was still flirting with multiple people at the same time, before I met my partner. A difficult combination I am too shy to initiate or act close to anyone, and I am also awkward. I have joined some group chats in my quest to make new friends but I have actually not been active in those group chats. The main reason for this is that I do not know how to participate in the ongoing conversations. I am not sure how to catch up with some inside jokes that I missed or conversations about each other's daily lives. I just can not seem to find the right message to send aside from the rare "good morning, guys" messages that I sent. After this, I would usually go back to overthinking how to continue. Yet I almost always end up just vanishing for days after that. Not because I want to but because I can not seem to understand how everything works. I feel like a child in an adult's body and everyone else knows the rules already but no one gave me a heads up about what is happening. I feel lost I just can not seem to remember how to go back to my friendly self. It is frustrating since I want someone to talk to about random things. I want to hear about someone's day and their problems. I want to listen to their stories about their places, and all those other stuff. But I just can not do it. I am guessing that the reason why I even managed to keep my friends, and partner is because they never take my late replies personally. They know that my social batteryay suddenly ran out but I will always reach out again when I am able to. They also do not hesitate to double chat me. You know, they chat again even if I have yet to reply to their original message. Usually, once they double chat me, I find myself replying just so they know I saw their message. Closing words This is just a random article filled with my thoughts and hopes. I really want a new friend or friends but I guess I would have to wait for the face to face classes to resume. Virtual friendship seems so hard to maintain for me. Moreover, I can not seem to get how to cross from point a to point b. Like I do not understand how to know when we can talk about personal things or some shallow things. I just don't get it. Now that I think about it, I am super lucky to find a partner during this pandemic despite my rusty social skills. But then again, I met my partner when I was at the peak of my flirty stage so that was probably the reason why our conversation lasted as long as it did. Anyway, this is just a random article but in case anyone takes pity to my awkward af self, I will be happy to try and use my rusty social skills. **Thank you for reading this article!** If you want to read some more articles of mine, I have monthly summaries here: **April 2022 Articles Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/april-2022-articles-summary-42ae9c6e **March 2022 Articles Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/march-2022-articles-summary-f8534b65 **February 2022 Article Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/february-2022-article-summary-1ac4a2d8 **January 2022 Articles Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/january-2022-articles-summary-158cfc1f **December 2021 Articles Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/december-2021-articles-summary-900cb111 ****November 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/november-2021-articles-summary-2c68b6ca **October 2021 Articles Summary** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/october-2021-articles-summary-1293a999 ****September 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/september-2021-articles-summary-7febda16 ****August 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/august-2021-articles-summary-cb068f97 ****July 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/july-2021-articles-summary-fc106569 ****June 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/june-2021-articles-summary-baeb334f ****May 2021 Articles Summary**** https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/may-2021-articles-summary-5ba6d0c7