The Key to Friends (I think)
The key is not to try to be likeable, but to try to be good.
Everyone works from a premise, shaped by the people we've know, the parents we've had and our own often wonky brain chemistry. A friend of mine works from the premise that everyone likes him, and will continue to like him until he gives them good reason not to, which he sensibly tries not to do.
I obviously do not work from that premise, especially when making new friends. Mine is much less a "hey, I'm a good person, you're a good person, let's be friends" and much more of a "New Friends? oh, no. No thank you, you see, I've got a busy evening full of cowering behind my couch in crippling fear of social failure to attend to; and then I've got to spend a good few hours thinking of things I ought to have said..besides those teeth-falling-out nightmares aren't going to dream themselves you know."
I'm not bad, at least not inherently, but I'm not quite yet as good as I want to be. So I'll keep working, standing in the mud, looking at the stars, and sometimes hiding behind the couch.
Everyone works from a premise, shaped by the people we've know, the parents we've had and our own often wonky brain chemistry. A friend of mine works from the premise that everyone likes him, and will continue to like him until he gives them good reason not to, which he sensibly tries not to do.
I obviously do not work from that premise, especially when making new friends. Mine is much less a "hey, I'm a good person, you're a good person, let's be friends" and much more of a "New Friends? oh, no. No thank you, you see, I've got a busy evening full of cowering behind my couch in crippling fear of social failure to attend to; and then I've got to spend a good few hours thinking of things I ought to have said..besides those teeth-falling-out nightmares aren't going to dream themselves you know."
I'm not bad, at least not inherently, but I'm not quite yet as good as I want to be. So I'll keep working, standing in the mud, looking at the stars, and sometimes hiding behind the couch.