Missing

I'm feeling incredibly lonely right now. I miss Charlie. So badly. I don't know what's wrong with me. I need him. All I want is a hug from him. But I can't. He's in California. I have to wait like 20 days or something until he comes out here. I miss him.

I thought I was lonely for romance. And in some ways I am. But right now, I'm lonely for a friend. Charlie is the only person I can open up to. He's the only person who calls just to see how I'm doing, or who will stay up with me as late as I need him. But he's not here.

I could ask Brian to talk. But I don't even know what I want to talk about. I don't know how to open up to him. With Charlie, even when I don't know what's wrong or why I'm sad he just listens and calms me. I don't know if Brian knows how to do that. And I wouldn't want him to feel like he has to fix it. I just want one of those hugs that convince me I'm loved.

I think I'm feeling unloved because of my situation with Collin and Alex. I call both of them to hang out and they seem like they want to, and they seem like they have fun with me. But neither of them ever call me. I asked Collin why he never calls. He said it's because he's an "introvert." He said he will hang out with people if they call him, but he usually doesn't call people. And if no one calls him he'll just do something at home by himself.

I didn't tell him this, but that made me really mad. Why should I have to do all the work to be his friend? Am I not worth the effort for him to call me once in a while? A friendship involves two people. The burden of the friendship should fall equally on both people, not on one person only.

This makes me really mad because of what happened with Austin. When he and I were involved, I was the one who called every week. I planned our date when I was in Utah. I called him on Valentine's Day. He didn't do anything! It scared me when I realized I was doing all of the work because it made me realize that he didn't care enough about me to actually sustain a relationship. I was afraid that if I stopped calling our relationship would completely die.

I was right. Once I stopped contacting Austin, I never once heard from him. That hurt so bad. Am I not worth the work of being in a relationship? Am I that annoying? What's wrong with me? Am I really that worthless?

Great. And now I'm about to start crying as I sit here at the Wilk with a zillion people around.

I know in my head that I'm not worthless. I'm really not. But I get so scared sometimes. Why do I have problems with people loving me? Why don't guys ever ask me out? Why have I never had a real boyfriend? I feel like there's something wrong with me. Like there's some defect others see in me that I can't.

And what if I stopped contacting Alex or Collin? Would I lose their friendship? You might say their friendship isn't worth having if they aren't willing to sustain it. And that's true. But I really enjoy being with them. I don't want to give up on our friendship. And I don't want to be right like I was with Austin. I don't want to risk feeling unloved and worthless again.

And so here I sit, shunning human contact for fear of being hurt, and wanting so bad that Charlie were here.