Alone among many

Sometimes it amazes me that I feel so alone, or lonely. In a town this big, in an office of hundreds, thousands and thousands of people in AA, ,yet I feel alone. I feel alone and isolated these days, even when I am sitting in the middle of an AA meeting. Meetings are full of people who will welcome you, accept you, not judge you - yet I feel alone. Maybe it is easier to hide here, in a room full of people, than it ever was in my life before. I have always wanted to just blend in. To go unnoticed. Perhaps I have succeeded, on some level.

AA is like this ready made family, it is this instant group of friends - but it isn't like it was at home. It feels fake here. Now that I have been here a while - I am really appreciating the difficultly of integrating myself into AA in a place that was not the place I got sober in. There is something different about being in the place you got sober - there is a connection you have to the people and to the meetings. I didn't get sober around these people, or with them - they all had friendships when I got here, and groups - it feels cliquey. I feel like I've never quite made it onto that side of the wall. I feel like I never will. The friendships I have - they feel surface level, like those that come and go as frequently as the seasons change. Like those that exist momentarily on Wednesday night when you both show up at 6:30 - but they don't carry over.

It occurred to me tonight as I was leaving the meeting, that despite having been here for a year and a half, I don't have real friends. I feel like an outsider. Is it my fault - do I not put enough effort into having friendships? Cause I frankly feel like I'm the one putting all of the effort into the ones that I do have. I am the kind of person that if you don't reciprocate some effort, then I'll stop also - and if you don't respond, then I say forget it. I let friendships go pretty easily this way. Because I never feel like anyone else bothers to put any effort into it. I'm kind of mad at someone right now for this very thing - for failing me as a friend in a way. It makes me question whether we ever were friends. I am teetering on the edge of not trying anymore.

Am I just unlikeable as a friend? Am I boring or stupid or something? Sometimes I hate AA for all of the gossip that goes on - I just hate that part of it. It can feel very high school sometimes - just like me sitting around worrying about why I don't seem to fit in here and why I have no real friends here. I have fake friends here - but I am not sure that I have any real meaningful friendships amongst them. I will admit that I have a hard time opening up to people. I am frequently afraid to just be myself out of a fear that if you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't like me or want to be friends with me. What is this truth that I am hiding or so afraid to reveal? Nothing in particular - nothing that I haven't blogged about...it's just a feeling that no one would be friends with me if I really be myself. How do I get over that feeling? I don't know. Because I have felt that way all of my life and it has always affected my relationships.