Wiktionary has nine different definitions for the word friend. But the first is probably the most relevant to this post. It is “A person other than a family member, spouse or lover whose company one enjoys and towards whom one feels affection.”

Subjecting that definition to strict scrutiny would mean that I have zero friends. I base this on the final part of the definition that states “whom one feels affection.” I don’t really feel affection for anyone other than my family and wife, mainly because that seems natural to me. Feeling affection for others outside of that just isn’t natural for me. I imagine it is for other people, but not me. Subjecting that definition to a more loose interpretation, and focusing on the phrase “whose company one enjoys” I could then say I have maybe three or four friends.

Now I bet you’re wondering one of two things. You’re either thinking “That seems too small, you must be joking or posturing for attention” or you’re thinking “Am I your friend?” Both can be answered by the fact that I tend to separate friends from acquaintances and colleagues. Most people I know, be it physically or places like Facebook and Twitter, are the latter two groups. When I speak about people I somewhat know or work with, I tend to speak as if they are not friends, but people I know. I avoid personalizing them too greatly as a friend because I am afraid most people don’t see me that way, and one of my social fears and nuances is that I will not be regarded the same way as I regard others. The defense mechanism I have built for myself over decades is not to consider everyone I meet to be a friend, but “someone I know”. The few people I call friends, I do so because I’ve known them for so long and they personally interact with me often offline or online, or I have enough evidence in my mind to believe they consider me a friend. My “Facebook friending” policy was constructed roughly from this mechanism, in the respect that I don’t request other people because I don’t want to make it known to them that I am trying to be their friend, because I’ve had past experiences where I tried to communicate with people in that manner, and have been shoved off or disregarded because they thought I was inserting myself where I do not belong.

For a lot of people, friendship is something like a business contract, and when it is broken, hell and high water will come to whomever violated the contract. Women especially form very intimate friendships that they will lose their shit over when broken. But for me, thanks to the many psychological problems I’ve invented for myself over the years, I can’t allow myself to form friendships without going through what amounts to being a job interview worth of questions and a battery of tests that are arbitrary, never explained, never realized, completely irrational, and completely opaque. The end result of these idiosyncrasies is that I live a life largely alone, apart from my wife, family, and a few people. I don’t go places, I don’t hang out at events, I don’t go to bars or restaurants with other people. I spend my time at home online, playing games, watching media, or something else internal. I know it’s not what people should do, but it’s all I know how to do.

I’ve considered finding a therapist for many years, to try to understand these problems. I find it weird to be one of a handful of people at my job who is classified an I-introvert by Myers-Briggs. Most people who work here are extroverted, and rightfully so. The worst part is, I can play the extrovert very well when I need to, such as being on a call, talking to a co-worker, or interacting with a group. But at the end of the day, my energy is spent, and I just want to confine myself to my own devices at home. I feel this is part of the reason I’ve delayed myself so long in having kids. It’s not about the money, or the time, it’s about up-heaving my entire mental train-of-thought and changing everything I know about myself. I still want to do it, because I am not afraid of change, but what I am actually afraid of is passing on my disorders to my children. I don’t want them to grow up internalizing everything, believing that it’s not worth the effort to do things because they’re complex or difficult, to challenge themselves to expand beyond their reach. I did not do enough of this growing up, and the result is I’ve become a shell-shocked person who is just now trying to correct a lot of mistakes, but is finding it difficult to do so because of mental calcification. That sounds absurd, but children learn a lot from their parents in early age that sticks with them beyond. I want mine to transcend me, and elevate themselves to a level where they can make friends and make that connection that is interpreted as affection, to have people they can depend on physically and emotionally. Because that probably makes sense, just not to me.

Because reasons.