Day Twenty-Seven: Apparently All Roads Lead Back to Me

For whatever reason, people randomly pop back into my life after a period of absence. It's always been this way for me and I'm not entirely sure why, though I choose to believe it's because after living without, they finally start to miss my sheer awesomeness. The first time it happened I think I was seventeen and I guy I'd dated a year and a half earlier called me out of the blue wanting to see me again. After that first time it's happened over and over again with both friends and partners.

Maybe I'm better in hindsight or maybe after realizing what else is out there I start looking pretty good again, or maybe I'm just tough to get to know and people give up trying to break through only to wonder if maybe I was worth the work after all. Whatever the reason, it's been happening again and I don't know if I should be offended or flattered.

If I am so great, why bug out in the first place? Why not stick around, be a true friend actually invest some time in a relationship with me. Perhaps it has nothing to do with my potential greatness as a friend, maybe they view me as easy to forget so when they are lonely or bored I seem like someone who would be equally lonely and jump at the chance to socialize. Am I so pathetic? Is it really that easy to believe that after six months, a year, five years I'd be willing to just jump back into a friendship with someone who clearly did not value me enough to stay in touch the first time around.

When it happens with men who I've dated it's even more extreme. On one hand I am very flattered that of all their potential options, they've come back around to me, realizing that I have something to offer them. On the other hand, it kind of makes me wonder just what exactly they think I'm offering. I know I'm not the greatest friend. I tend to be self-absorbed and I am horrible at finding balance in my life. I also am prone to extended periods where I just want to be alone and to not socialize at all which is difficult to explain to friends who then assume either you don't like them or that you're just a Debbie Downer.

Even so, as bad of a friend as I might be I do try to stay in contact with those I want to be friends with, even if it's only through Facebook. And for those people I wished I'd stayed in touch with, but didn't I'll probably be too embarrassed to just pop back up like nothing's changed. In the end, maybe that is the real problem, rather than choosing to believe the best possibility and to embrace these old friends I become suspicious and doubtful. At the same time they're telling me they want to be in my life, I'm assuming the worst and shutting them out. Can we afford to take people at face value? I'm a tell it like it is person, but I know from experience that most people are not so where do I draw the line between suspicion and flattery? More to the point, is it even worth revisiting a relationship that someone found so easy to give up in the first place?