The second fiddle friend

For someone who finds it extremely difficult to make friends, I lose them a little too soon. Today there are about twenty percent people left that I am talking to out of the hundred I had a year ago. Obviously, I would think, they are the problem. But even if you have the thickest of skins, at some point you will wonder if the problem was you. Eighty percent, you could give to circumstances, maybe ninety percent even. But what about the other ten percent?

After a serious night of contemplating and introspecting (and pizza), I realised that it wasn’t anybody’s fault. No one was wrong here, nor was anyone right. Circumstances are also not at fault. I basically played first or rather gave first fiddle importance to people for whom I was second fiddle to. Confused?

Here’s the thing, people who find it difficult to make friends hold on harder to most of their friends. Because they have only a small number of friends, they’re all extremely important to them. Now before I delve further into my theories, yes this is an acute observation of my life, because I do not have this kind of an insight about anyone else’s life. This isn’t a ‘I am so awesome’ post, I know I am not the only one going through this, and which is probably why I am writing this, trying to reach that one other person who is blaming himself for not being able to hold on to friends.

Coming back to the point, people like me have very few friends and we hold on to those, they are important, very important. But atypically, to these people, some of them, we are not the most important tier of friends. Now here is the difference between these friends. Your most important friends are the ones you have around at all times, you are a part of all aspects of their life, their family, you basically know everyone and their mother. The second tier knows everything too, just gets the second call. No biggie, but the second tier friend may or may not affect a person’s mood. If you get super busy, the first tier will still get to see you, the second tier not so much. Sometimes you become a regular in their life and sometimes they want you around only when they are bored. You treat them special and you think you are being treated special too, you think that your opinion or presence matters but sometimes it doesn’t.

The realisation that you are playing second fiddle comes at the oddest moments especially when you’re not expecting the epiphany. It hits you like a ton of bricks and sometimes it is just a passing breeze. At some point, through various introspections you’d think that I would figure that I probably might be dealing with people who I was second tier to, so I stopped talking to those people. But no, this realisation came to me through the oddest circumstances, job took over my life, I couldn’t be free when they were free and so on.

Here’s the thing though, those people weren’t bad people, or aren’t bad people, I am not saying they didn’t care about me either. It was just something that is very human to have. It is also a problem that we sometimes come on very strong because of our nature. Now let’s look at the negatives of this situation. You somehow stop caring about keeping in touch with people, sometimes people who actually care for you, losing them because you were once bitten. Now it takes you even longer to make and trust the friends that you make because you feel like you can’t be sure any more about who will truly be there for you. It is a very insecure state of mind.

The positive, today you can proudly say that you gave everything you had to every friendship that you ever had and you will give your hundred percent to every friendship you will have. Question is, do the first fiddles in your life realise that you play second fiddle in theirs? A bigger question is, do you know who your second fiddle friend is?