New Friends

It is difficult, as you get older, to establish new friendships.

In my 30’s I find that I only seem to be making friends with women who are at least a decade younger than me. And even though it makes me feel youthful, it is actually quite hard to maintain these friendships. Why? I guess because a lot of them feel as they need to be doing something, or saying something or moving or complaining, or flirting with your boyfriend, anything that disrupts the potential for a good time. Don’t get me wrong, I have a wonderful friend who is 22 years old and we can just go for lunch and talk about work and life. I think that she is an exception because she is socially aware or, maybe, being a single mother, she hasn’t got time to put up with bullshit.

Or, I seem to make friends who have a hefty repitoire of personal problems who require much of my time and cause worry and mental anguish. I don't like using this term but most call these people toxic friends. Through these bouts of friendships I was on edge waiting for their upset phone calls, always attentive to their needs, helping them, trying so hard to make them happy, and getting absolutely nowhere. It turned me into a depressed zombie with an aching heart. I was desperately unhappy and anxious. I started to cringe when I saw their name come up on my phone, I didn't sleep because I was thinking of things to say or do to help them, I had fights with my boyfriend because, couldn't he see, I was spending all of his time trying to help people?! In the end I had to say goodbye because it consumed me to the point where I had no life but theirs.

During the last couple of years I have tried to make some female friends, not quite succeeding due to matters that I addressed earlier. But last week I met a tourist from Switzerland through a friend of a friend of my Facebook friend. It was funny really. She is also in her 30s, yippee! And had been travelling around Australia for the last month with her father. We hit it off straight away. She was switched on, quite at ease and completely open. It didn't take long, as she had to go home after a week, but we formed a close bond and are now friends for life.

I guess it takes a lot of searching, or a lot of luck, but I am really glad I got to meet her!

Intuition or Paranoia?

I think that, as a woman, we often question ourselves as to how blurred the edges are due to contributing factors such as hormones, sleep deprivation, family problems and other things that could affect our well-being and mental health. But, I would like to know what people mean when they talk about a woman’s intuition? Do women have better intuition than men? Because the way I see it, women think way too much which results in confusing and often irrational ideas.

My friend had a relationship with this man who came across as an honest and good person, a little quiet, though very polite and open. One night after they had had sex and were falling asleep, she had a sudden sense that something was amiss. She said it was a feeling that was out of the blue and rocked her core. I never heard her once say anything negative about him. She always said that he was open and honest with her. She did the outrageous and the inexcusable, she checked  his phone while he was sleeping. Now, I know what most of you will be thinking, that there ended up being no substance to her feeling, and that her behaviour was a teeny bit obsessive. But I assure you it ended up being vital that she did or else she wouldn’t have found out about the handful of women he was dating behind her back.

I have had these bouts of ‘intuition’ where I have felt that my partner is hiding something from me. It is an awful thing to go through and I always wonder what is wrong with me as it makes me feel insecure and paranoid. When I get like this I have to ask myself whether my thoughts are plausible. I work through every reason, every effect and every God damn excuse as to why I shouldn’t be feeling this way. It is consuming and, quite frankly, quite depressing. I do think that people should learn not to jump to conclusions and to certainly not accuse or throw out the question of, ‘Are you seeing someone else?’ Because there are two inevitable consequences from asking this which are:

1. They will blatantly lie to you and say they aren't seeing anyone else. 

Or

2. They will get angry and make you feel like the smallest person on the planet.

I wonder if this stems from being cheated on in the past? There was one incident where I had this type of ‘intuition’ long before the missed phone calls, the vague mentions of his whereabouts, the lack of eye contact, the one-sided conversations during dinners out and the overall lack of effort for which I blamed on the length of the relationship, that only being 6 months. What was I thinking? The last straw was when he stood me up after stating he was with his family and too drunk to drive. Imagine me, beautiful make up, hair done and dressed to kill. Killed that relationship. Lucky I had that intuition, that sneaking suspicion, or else I would have been a mess. Expect the unexpected, I say. 

I don’t want to sound like a pessimistic feminist but I will maintain one thing. Trust your gut and, even if you don’t do anything about it, store the memory because the truth will come out in the end.