Back in April, I over-drafted on my checking account. No big deal—I transferred money from savings and paid myself back at the end of the month. But it was kind of a shock. I hadn’t over-drafted since high school. My fear of scarcity is significant, so I always made damn sure I lived below my means. I was frugal. Thrifty. Cautious.
Except that wasn’t true. For one year prior, I had been spending like somebody else. The bitches I was running with liked to go out to eat, so we did, sometimes twice a week. I bought a new car and chose the 3-year 0.9% financing option, thus my payment was very high—literally three bucks less than my mortgage. I was getting highlights every eight weeks and Brazilian bikini waxes every five.
I wasn’t being frugal, thrifty, cautious. I was not living below my means, and I over-drafted.
*****
For about six months, I tried to break in a pair of flats. I’d wear them for about 30 minutes before hot spots would erupt on my big-toe knuckles. A week ago, my co-worker asked why I was hobbling, and I slipped a gimpy foot out of my shoe and showed him my raw heel. He said, “Yeah, I’d say those shoes are definitely too small!”
I said, “No, they’re not too small. They’re a size 7. I wear a size 7. I just can’t seem to break these ones in.”
But when he walked away, I thought, “Wait. Are they too small?” I went to DSW to see if I could find some cheapo flats to replace them. Found some Rocket Dogs with pointy toes, and guess what.
I’m not a size 7. At least not in pointy flats.
Despite a heaping pile of evidence to the contrary, I believed—so hard—that I had a size-7 foot. It’s who I was.
Except I wasn’t.
*****
If you had asked, I would’ve called myself a people person. I have some social anxiety, yes. Strangers scare me, but I have friends. Lots of friends. I do things with my friends. All the time.
But then a few days ago, my friend checked in on Facebook at a coffee shop with my other friend, and the same synapse in my brain that fired when I over-drafted went pew pew pew.
See, I don’t do that—invite a girlfriend to meet me for coffee. I have gaggles of folks over for a fire pit. I arrange river tubing trips. I plan and attend parties. I also get up on stage and tell stories—personal ones! Like that time I got a Brazilian bikini wax. And that other time I got a Brazilian bikini wax. I told 200 audience members about confessing my long-held feelings to a guy and him saying (more or less), “Thanks for sharing.” I even put my shit out here on the Internet because I feel like my shit is often other people’s shit, and it might make us all feel better to know there’s somebody whose shit is our shit.
I don’t invite a girlfriend to meet me for coffee though. I don’t seek out one-on-one experiences. I haven’t had a best friend, other than my sister or brother, for an eon, and even with my siblings who I’m fiercely close to, sometimes it’s easier to tap things out here and hit Publish, rather than tell them to their faces what I’m feeling.
Why is it so hard for me to be intimate, to be vulnerable, to be calm—shit, just to be—with one other person?
I’m not a total and complete moron, and it dawned on me a while ago that making it to my age without ever having a relationship longer than six months probably meant less about the variables and more about the constant.
But I didn’t get the scope or depth of my intimacy issues until my friend checked in on Facebook with our other friend at a coffee shop.