Making friends and the vulnerability pledge
I just recently finished reading Brené Brown's book, The Power of Vulnerability, and it really made an impact on me and made me think about friendships and how one goes about making them.You see, I used to be a lot better at making friends in fandom when I first came into it as a teenager in 2006. I joined friending memes and poked random people on AIM and kept on poking them even if they didn't seem all that interested. I made a lot of good friends that way, actually.
In the past few years, life has been really busy and I've fallen in and out of fandoms, and I've pretty much stopped doing that. And I've found now that I'm ready to jump back on the fandom horse that it's a lot more difficult. There's this sort of paralyzing fear that comes with putting yourself out there and having people think you're weird or too forward or just not interesting enough to be bothered with. It's really scary to make friends, as anyone who still remembers their first day in kindergarten can attest to. And because I already have great friends whom I love and adore, I just stopped trying to make new ones.
In her book, Ms. Brown insists that in order to make meaningful connections you have to be vulnerable. That means putting yourself out there, your true self, and accepting that people will take you how they'll take you. If you never do it, you'll never make any meaningful connections. I realized while reading this book that I didn't want to let my insecurities--and man, there are a shit-ton--get in the way of building connections. If I'd let that get in my way back in 2006 and 2007, I would have never gotten close to some of my best friends today, and that would be really sad.
So I made a pledge to myself to make an effort to be vulnerable--at least once every day. That means letting people know I care about them, or making a new friend I've been too afraid to talk to, or writing something I've never dared to write before.
This post is about making friends, and getting to really know people. Are there people you want to get to know but are too shy to approach, flist? What do you do when you want to make friends with someone, whether it be online or offline? Do you randomly friend people in hopes they'll friend back (I do!)? Do you do friending memes? Read friends of friends' comments for interesting replies? Do you have the same insecurities about making friends, and how do you get past that?
Most importantly, do you want to take the vulnerability pledge with me?
In the past few years, life has been really busy and I've fallen in and out of fandoms, and I've pretty much stopped doing that. And I've found now that I'm ready to jump back on the fandom horse that it's a lot more difficult. There's this sort of paralyzing fear that comes with putting yourself out there and having people think you're weird or too forward or just not interesting enough to be bothered with. It's really scary to make friends, as anyone who still remembers their first day in kindergarten can attest to. And because I already have great friends whom I love and adore, I just stopped trying to make new ones.
In her book, Ms. Brown insists that in order to make meaningful connections you have to be vulnerable. That means putting yourself out there, your true self, and accepting that people will take you how they'll take you. If you never do it, you'll never make any meaningful connections. I realized while reading this book that I didn't want to let my insecurities--and man, there are a shit-ton--get in the way of building connections. If I'd let that get in my way back in 2006 and 2007, I would have never gotten close to some of my best friends today, and that would be really sad.
So I made a pledge to myself to make an effort to be vulnerable--at least once every day. That means letting people know I care about them, or making a new friend I've been too afraid to talk to, or writing something I've never dared to write before.
This post is about making friends, and getting to really know people. Are there people you want to get to know but are too shy to approach, flist? What do you do when you want to make friends with someone, whether it be online or offline? Do you randomly friend people in hopes they'll friend back (I do!)? Do you do friending memes? Read friends of friends' comments for interesting replies? Do you have the same insecurities about making friends, and how do you get past that?
Most importantly, do you want to take the vulnerability pledge with me?