You gotta have friends but making new ones is a nightmare

I’m shit at making friends.

Like, notoriously so.

I’ve always had friends, people mostly like me (I think!) but I am a tangled knot of insecurity, anxiety, depression and self doubt and always have been.

In primary school, I felt so far removed from everybody. I experienced sexual trauma during that time and so it was very hard for me to trust anybody that wasn’t a member of my family. I had friends but I didn’t want them in my home or for them to be close to me emotionally.

In secondary school, I experienced true friendship and love for the first time. But I don’t think I made more than 10 phone calls to friends throughout my time at school - and this was before social media, phone calls were the only way to maintain contact outside of school. I remember watching shows and seeing this trope of the teenage girl always on the phone, twirling the flex between her fingers and lying on her bed, gossiping or talking about some pop star or whatever. I remember thinking ‘what is this lie about teen girls liking to call people?!’

My mum actually used to insist that I try calling people, that friendship is a two way street and that my friends might think that I didn’t care about them. But the fear of that completely paralysed me - it was the reason I couldn’t pick up the phone in the first place. I was so scared of saying something stupid, of not understanding a joke, of not understanding a cultural reference, that I couldn’t risk it - they’d laugh at me and that would be that.

Not only was I combating normal teenage hormones but, as is really common for young victims, the real aftermath of what happened to me as a child really began once I started puberty and understood sex and boundaries better. I was also bullied and had issues with my family accepting me for the confused mess that I was. They didn’t know about the past trauma and so my choices and my depression made no sense to them. Then my parents separated and mum got cancer for the first time - it felt like the risk of losing people was just constantly over me and I couldn’t put myself potentially in line for more rejection, it was too much.

Thankfully, there were girls who saw nice, glowy things in me and to this day I am so exceptionally grateful for their patience and their love. Without that, I would never have had the confidence to do the things I did - going to gigs, dyeing my hair blue, sneaking to the pub (but no drinking!), singing for that A&R guy at Brixton Academy.

It was easier at university. Well, at first it was. We were a group of people thrown into halls that were so far away from the actual campus that we spent all of our time together in the on site pub or taking sex quizzes in the kitchen, playing Golden Eye or listening to music in each other’s rooms. I didn’t have to pick up the phone to see anybody, I just had to wait in the kitchen. And I met two people who completely changed my life forever by actively wanting to fold me into their lives: one is still one of my favourite people in the whole entire world (love you, Ruth) and the other was my first real love - a gay man who loved me so completely and welcomed me so fervently into his life that I’d often forget how much I hated myself or the horrible things that I was still struggling through.

After uni, I kept my friend group to the people I already knew. I made new life-long friends at work but, again, you don’t have to pick up the phone or make a first move with people that you sit in a room with for 9 hours a day. So I didn’t have to think about making friends.

And then I became a mum.

Thankfully I did NCT before lockdown and I still have some of those women (and their gorgeous families) in my life now but I’m missing a certain type of support - black women with kids.

My cousins have beautiful kids but they’re grown - I’m one of the last to have a baby - and the women in my NCT group are fabulous and sociable and Ramona adores their kids. But there’s something missing.

Now, the beauty of the internet is that there are millions of people at your fingertips. But also the awful thing is that there are millions of people at your fingertips and the old anxiety, second guessing and self deprecation rears its head at just the thought of reaching out to people. I’m sure it can make me seem lazy or disinterested but it’s just boring old insecurity and nonsense that really can paralyse me at times.

I’ve written recently about how, before I had kids, I knew that one of the most important things was for my child to have an exceptional relationship with their dad. Another entry on the list is for my child to overflow with the confidence needed to reach out and make friends. I don’t want her to feel this crippling fear of rejection because, for the most part, it is complete nonsense. I don’t like random, surprise phone calls but if someone texted me out of the blue, I’d be so happy. Someone sent me a gorgeous voice note the other day, totally unexpected, and I was buzzing from it for days. I want Ramona to understand the power and joy of being the active party in making friends.

So when we had a parents' evening at the beginning of the year where they told us that Ramona likes to just watch people playing together but recoils when others try to play with her, I was really scared. Did she learn that from me? But how when, if she sees me with other people, it’s always really affectionate and open? Even when her very best friend in the whole world tried to play with her, she’d shout ‘no!’ and turn away.

Jack and I were so confused. When we watched her in the park, she would follow kids around, laugh and shout and try to get their attention (though, a lot of the time she wanted their parent’s attention). At London Zoo once, she followed a year 8 class around - she wasn’t even 2 years old at that point! She was so curious and wanted to play and we were so happy. So to hear that on a smaller, more intimate scale, she would refuse to play with others was heartbreaking. A few weeks ago she told me that, between playing with her best friend or on her own, she would much rather play on her own. She said it about 5 times so she definitely meant it.

I know it could just be her personality type and that kids don’t even really play together properly till they’re 3, at least. However, you can’t help but feel nervous when you see a trait that you hate within yourself seemingly start to manifest in the person you love more than anything.

We had another parents’ evening very recently and before we’d even settled the key worker couldn’t wait to tell us what a brilliant and sociable kid Ramona has become. She loves to play with others (primarily only the kids in her close circle but that’s all good by me for now) and has really close relationships. I took her to a stay-and-play yesterday and, after reminding her that the toys there are for sharing, no matter how much she wanted to keep filling the little boat with bubbles and swinging them everywhere, she enthusiastically offered the boat to another child “here you go!”

I’ve not completely exhaled on this yet but I’m feeling so much lighter to see and hear that she is getting so much better at developing relationships and actively wanting to interact with other children. For so long she would just ignore kids in the playground and would want to talk to their parents! Now, she’ll talk to other kids (though sometimes it’s just to make sure they don’t try to take her turn on the slide - “No! It’s my turn, little girl! Don’t go there!”) and gets so excited to see her friends outside of nursery that her joy is contagious.

So, here’s hoping my little titan will keep growing and sharing how brilliant she is with everybody around her. I could definitely use some of that energy to start making some new friends of my own.