TravelChick

It's My Fault

One of my friends once pointedly said that one of my faults is that I tend to care more about people than they care about me. I fail to gauge how much people care about me, which inevitably lands me into trouble, especially when I’m living abroad. Being sick his past week, for example, showed me that, while I may know a lot of people here, very few of them really cared when I was sick.

Over the last week, I’ve had people emphasize to me that I should know that the friendships I’m forming here aren’t real. But to me that’s wrong. I don’t become friends with someone with the idea that I might not be friends with them for several years, or for the rest of my life. And I’ve formed some great friendships while I’ve lived abroad, so I like to think that there’s always the possibility that I’m going to form another great friendship while I’m living someplace new.

My best friend here is probably a very nice German guy who I’d really like to think I have a pretty good friendship with, but I don’t know if that’s true. I talked to him tonight and started crying because I’ve been so lonely and sick this past week. Sympathetic as he was and as sorry as he was that he hadn’t been around the past week, when he told me that I had to remember that the friendships I’m forming here aren’t real, I thought that maybe that’s what he thinks of his friendship with me. That leads me back to what my friend said about me. Have I failed to gauge how much he cares about me?

posted by Travel Chick @ 11:51 PM