Complete Failure

I failed.

I don’t utter those words often. Very rarely do I have reason to. I want to believe that I am competent in most facets of my life. Sure, I have my shortcomings, but who among us doesn’t?

I am my harshest critic and I always will be.

I know that I don’t always recognize social cues and that I don’t always read social situations very well. Rather than try and get involved in situations, I tend to shy away and avoid them completely. I don’t think I have much to offer in the way of contributing to situations or making them better, so my tendency is to stay away. This is the way I have always been.

I think this is the way that I need to be once again.

She told me that I; the one person she would have wanted to come by, console her, and ask her how she was doing; didn’t do anything along any of those lines, when she needed me to do so the most. As she was in the midst of all of the drama that was surrounding her, a myriad of other people managed to stop by and check in on her, whereas I did not.

There is where I failed.

I’ll be honest. I’m taking this pretty hard, because I have always prided myself on being that reliable person, someone who could always be counted on in the midst of adversity. She made it known that I didn’t come through for her like all those other people did. In some way, I failed to act. That’s how I see it and it bothers me.

I think there is where I give up.

I no longer see myself as being reliable, as someone she could come to when times and life got rough. I had always told her that she could come to me whenever she needed to talk or whenever she needed someone to there for her. Apparently, because I didn’t say it explicitly enough times, somehow this meant that none of those words meant anything anymore and it somehow communicated that I didn’t care anymore either.

As I had told her many times in the past, she has other people on whom she can talk to. I always knew she had. She’s not the introvert that I am, so, of course, she’s going to have a bigger social circle than what I have. This became readily apparent at the end of this past week. In a manner of speaking, I was a victim of my being “out of sight, out of mind”. She could have reached out to me by phone or text message, but she rarely did. A lot of other people checked in with her in-person and asked her if she was doing all right. Because I didn’t do anything like that, this translates to me somehow not caring.

She had also gotten upset with me because I didn’t ask her about the problems that plagued her that day. I had told her that if she wanted me to know what those problems were, she would have told me. I have always maintained this mentality with her. I didn’t ask her because I assumed that she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened and maybe that’s my fault for thinking that way. Again, I think by not asking, this led her to believe that I didn’t care.

I miss a lot of social cues and I misread situations. I make assumptions that are inaccurate. I have reached a point where I don’t know how to move around and react to things anymore. I can either tread lightly, or not at all, but it seems that I just can’t seem to get things right.

I think this is where I crawl back into my shell and stop associating with others. Life was so much easier when I kept to myself. I sure as hell didn’t make all these damn mistakes, that’s for sure.

If I keep to myself, I won’t be in a position where I can fail others again. People won’t need to rely on me, just as I won’t need to rely on them. I won’t misread social cues and/or situations. I won’t have people upset with me. I won’t inadvertently hurt others.

I think I’ll be happier because I won’t be that failure to others that I think that I have become.

I guess I just need to embrace the introvert that I am and always have been.  At least I know that I’m excellent at being an introvert.