Bad Blood

The world of celebrity can often make us think that we ought to have our own 'squad' of friends. For instance look at Taylor Swift and her gang of leggy lady friends, they all joined forces in her 'Bad Blood' music video. The phrase 'friends in the right places' springs to mind, she capitalised on the idea of featuring famous women from a variety of industries; fashion, music, acting and even sporting as Serena Williams joined her on stage. She combined forces with these women whom she is often papped with to create a music video. This video attracted the attention of her fans, and also would have been of interest to the fans of the other women featured, even if they had no interest in Taylor Swift! As a slightly introverted person, it can be hard to see others living their lives with masses of friends and showcasing their activities on social media. I'm not a particularly jealous person, I know that there may be factors going on that aren't presented in their social media posts. Perhaps life can be fantastic with a big crowd of friends, sharing a holiday home for the summer and racing across the beach. I used to be part of a fairly big group of friends in secondary school. The group changed over the years, people joined the group and others drifted into different groups as they became more popular or developed different interests to the rest of us. I was happy for a time, until I realised how catty some girls can be. I hated witnessing how some girls made it their mission to actively exclude certain members of the group. I hate that I didn't speak up about it sooner. Most of you know what happened when I did speak up. Their catty nature and their gaze turned towards me and made me the target, but it became so much more than what I had witnessed before. It was pure, psychological bullying and harassment.

I was incredibly fortunate to have other friends at school, ones who I actually felt like myself with. I no longer had to act a certain way, ensure that I laughed at a particular person's jokes or agree with their vicious put downs of other people. I finally felt safe and secure. I'm still lucky to be in contact with most of those friends that were such a big support to me during that time. At the time they didn't know how bad it had been for me or how bad things were about to become. I hope that they're aware of how much they mean to me. We may have periods when we don't see each other much or when we've forgotten about that Skype call we intended to have. Life intervenes sometimes. University, jobs, relationships and geographical distance can make it hard to stay in contact. The truest friends will always understand that this is a part of growing up and that we'll all be there for each other whenever a crisis comes calling.

Despite all of that, I often find myself thinking about how few friends I have. I may know a lot of people, I might have a 'decent' number of friends on Facebook. However, I'm not in contact with almost 90% of those people and I can't say that we truly know each other. I can convince myself that I have a handful of really great friends that really understand me, which is fantastic. Unfortunately the demon inside my head will get the better of me and will have me in tears because I feel SO lonely. I can distract my mind to an extent with 'busy-work', but every now and then I will be sobbing hysterically, feeling like I have no-one to stick around for and no-one to hold me up. Have I mentioned how cruel depression is?! I don't understand why I appeal to people, what qualities I have that make someone want me as a friend. I've been told that some of my fiance's school friends read the blog and that they'd want to meet me. For which I want to say that I'm flattered, but I'm scared that perhaps they perceive me in a certain way through what I write. What if I'm a let down in person? Perhaps one day I'll be back here reporting on how a meet up went.