The World's Common Tater

I will start this post by admitting that I am really bad about staying in touch with people. I don’t send messages to friends I have not seen in a while. I did not initiate any Zoom reunions during lockdown. I don’t plan social events and invite friends over. I’ve written about some of the reasons for this. One, I am socially awkward and not great at mingling at events so why would I make an effort to put myself in that situation? Two, as I wrote in my post on blogging and anxiety I always reach a point where I assume people tire of me. I hesitate to reach out to people because I assume it will be an annoyance to them and not a pleasant surprise.

Given all of that, I have no expectation that anyone would make an effort to check in on me. So, I was very pleasantly surprised when I received a message from a friend recently. I have not seen them in a couple of years. They are not someone I ever expected to hear from again. I generally don’t get messages from anyone besides my siblings. Then it turned out they only messaged me because they wanted something and have not read any of the messages I sent after they got what they needed. I hope that I am correct that they will never see this post.

I then got followed by an Instagram account that appeared to be a friend from high school. They sent a message saying hello and asking how I was. I answered and then the following message seemed odd so I looked at the account again and realized it was not actually my friend, but someone pretending to be them. The next day, the same thing happened with another friend from school. Because of the previous experience, I checked as soon as I received the first message and then warned my friend that there was a fake them out there.

Three times it appeared that friends were thinking of me Three times I discovered they were not. That will teach me to assume the best.

I did receive a real message from a friend recently where they were doing something nice for me. It’s not all doom and gloom, but I will temper my expectations when I see any new messages come through.