This week was another big one for me, emotionally speaking.

I’ve been thinking that I’m bad at making friends, but I’ve realized I’m actually bad at keeping them. Or at least I’m capable of making friends when there’s some sort of infrastructure there to keep bringing us together, like work or school. When that infrastructure goes away, though, I tend to lose the friendships. I understand I’m not solely to blame there—it takes two to tango, as the saying goes—but I can clearly see a pattern where I’ve let people I really like slip away.

It feels to me that there’s a secret door that some people are able to walk through, but I can’t. Maybe it’s due to my own brand of neurodivergence, but I feel like there are signals I’m either not reading or misreading. Then, before I even realize it’s happening, I’m left standing alone in an empty room again.

So, this week, I told a new friend a version of that. Kind of just blurted it out in some kind of fugue state—I still can’t recall exactly what I said—but it was something along those lines. I also said that while I figure it out, instead of just guessing I’m going to be explicit. I told them I like them, I’ve liked spending time with them at work and through work-related activities, but I’d really like to spend time together outside of that structure. I told them I didn’t want to fuck it up and lose another friend.

I wanted to die right there of embarrassment, but they took it well. They were very practical. They said “Just ask me to do something with you, and I’ll put it on my calendar.” Simple as that. Kind of amazing actually.

Of course, now I have all of the anxiety that comes with asking someone to do something with you and them saying no, but that’s another problem to solve.

Things I enjoyed this week