Friendships/self esteem/insecurity issues?

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I have a problem.
Whenever I make a friend, because I dont tend to have many friends, I have a habit of becoming somewhat possessive of their time at times, and in some cases, jealous of those I perceive them as caring about more.
I have really poor self esteem issues and tend to analyse the way people behave to me, compare it to how they behave to their other friends and then conclude based on this that their other friends mean more.

I have a friend and basically, I had spent a considerable amount of time with them in person... an evening, night and then most of the day.
We talk on msn too, and I messaged to ask if they were busy and they said to give them a while and then we could talk.
I tried again after an hour and 25/30 minutes and was told to give them another 15 mins. Their status was set to away for about 30 minutes, and I sat there and waited when they were back, waiting for a message which didn't come.
To me, that was a lie. I had been told 15 minutes, and 40 mins went by and nothing. I like to know what is what and where I stand and in truth, I was only staying up because I wanted to talk.
So I waited another four-five minutes after they returned and then just got mad and sent them an annoyed message about how it f**ks my head up when people say one thing and do another etc.

And I cannot stop analysing this as when I have been at their place, they are swift to reply to friends on msn in other countries, even if they are busy.
With me, that is different.
Is it because they see me in person most days that is the reason they dont really feel any desire to talk to me online too?
Cos all I can keep thinking is it is because they don't actually really like me, but rather just tolerate me and feel sorry for me.
The fact I am interested in them isn't helping me any either.

Although they are generally blunt and straight with words to people, that is all I can think cos in the end, I do not see myself as an interesting or valuable or worthwhile person, so why the hell would anyone else?

Does anyone else have these kinds of issues with people or self esteem?

Yes i tend to have these issues as well. I have very poor self esteem. I have problems with trying to hang out with or talk to old friends from high school. They were the ones in high school who initatied converstations with me. As the years went by we slowly lost touch, due to work and post secondary. Ive recently been trying to re-connect with them but with no sucess. Im very understanding of the fact that they are now married and have kids and are busy with work. But they still have time to hang out with some of their other closer friends. Ive tried giving them my phone number, ive tried leaving them messages on facebook. Ive spread them out to about once every two weeks so that i don't come off as desparte and insucre. Ive tried apologzing for the fact that i haven't been able to keep in touch much over the years. None of it is working. They clearly have more important things to do and i understand very well about that. It would still be nice to catch up with them. Part of me just doesn't get it. I finally just gave up and deleted them from facebook and cut them out of my life. If its that hard to re-connect with them its just not worth the stress, anexity and it adds to my depression. One would think that it should be that hard to keep in touch or hang out with people. I may be coming off as rude here but that is not my intentions.

All in all this discussion has helped me to determine some values or helped reconfirm them.
Friendships come and go naturally.
Relationships have to be worked on time from time.
Friends and Relationships is all about give and take.
Hanging around Married friends with kids could prove benefical for many reasons:
They are hopefully more understanding of people who are different.
They are not into the loud, unsucessful bar scene anymore.
They may have single friends that are looking to settle down that you may be able to try and start something with. Friendship first then see were it goes from there.

These are all things i value very closely but when it doesn't go smoothly i get fustrated, fill up with anexity and get depressed. Its all a vicious cycle and i start feeling very conflicted about what i want. I feel like im being very honest with myself and others but i feel like or am constantly re-evaluting my values and beliefs with every passing situation to make myself feel better about the situation, but that could come off as rude and not very honest to other people.

I have got a little sidetracked on what im feeling blue about but hopefully some of what i wrote in the first paragraph helps you and you can relate to it.

I do this sort of thing too. I just have to understand everything. I Don't like this about myself, but I start to question everything. It drives me crazy! I even start to question my own logic. I try and give people space when I don't understand a situation. It gives them time to process.

I like myself generally; it's just that no-one else does At least not in the way I would like.

Out of three billion women you would there would be one one for me but I'm damned if I can find her.

I have tried Wrongplanet (which must have about 6,000 female members), I have tried a dating site and other sites ~ all to no avail.

And this chap, who is lucky enough to have someone who wants to be with him all the time seems to be taking you for granted.

Anyway, he's making his life far to complicated chatting to loads of people and trying to maintain friendships with them all; when it comes to maintaining freindships I always think that no friends at all is not enough but more than one is starting to get a bit much.

It is only when I speak to NTs about friendship that I realise how very differently I see things and how terrible I am at empathising. I simply cannot see things in terms of others having feelings too and being affected by what I say. I suppose too that if you believe someone doesn't care about you anyway, you assume that nothing you say will have an impact.

Because my esteem is so terrible, I assume the worst when someone does not respond to me and because I am too afraid to simply speak the truth of what is going on in my mind for fear of an angry or blunt response, I lash out instead and disappear before the other person has the chance to respond or explain. It is a terrible cycle and of course, the other person will get annoyed or simply not bother with me anymore, which just furthers my sense of being worthless and a not very nice person. They never see that it is all coming from my self esteem, and the fact of the matter is, I have no idea how to improve my sense of self worth.

I probably can't offer much help there; I can only speak about the way I see things.

For me, my self worth doesn't seem to have any relation to what others might think about me. I think this is because generally I am more attached to the real world of nature and patterns and things than the world people have constructed for themselves.

I move about in the world of people (reasonably succesfully most times) but rarely do I feel part of it. I feel closer to rocks and trees and animals than to people; at least than to the construct of society people have made. People as animals (the flesh and nature of people) I can connect with given the chance but this construct people have made is so false to me and I have never felt part of it.

So whether most people like me or not has very little effect on my self esteem because their world is false.

I have a great esteem for the real world and for the magical effect patterns can have on me and because I have esteem for this world (of sky and patterns and grass and rocks and planets) I also have esteem for myself because I am part of it.

If you only realised it ~ you are too!

I have this problem, too.

Tim

It's when I gave up on trying to find ways to improve my self-worth that I feel better about myself. Being a Christian who understands and believes what is said in the bible, I've learned that nobody is worth anything without God's gifts that He has the sovereign power to give or take away. That puts everyone on an equal level.

Those who don't believe what's stated in the bible and believe that they are wonderful don't have the effect on me anymore of having me feel less of worth than them. I perceive things differently now and that, for me, is so refreshing. The more gifts/talents someone has, the more responsibility there is that goes along with it.

I'd rather be judged by my creator than to even judge my own self and/or permit someone else to judge me. To each his own.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

Giving up on looking for a friend worked the same way. I finally was given my first real friend this year last May. I knew that if it was meant to be, it would be instantly and I would know it right away. I had to stop thinking about needing something from someone else and to start realizing I too had things to offer others (even if others didn't think so).

Well I have a friend who I have known for a month or so now, maybe a little longer.
Have spent quite a lot of time with him, as in talking most days and staying with him.
He has a lot of friends and is the kind who is everyones' friend.
The first time we met, he invited me round for coffee and we talked...and talked.
But since then, he has not invited me, so much as my asking when he is free.
And it has always just been a matter of sitting round his...which is nice, tho at times it has had me stir crazy and desperate to get out for a walk or somewhere new.
But I wouldn't dream of asking to go somewhere with him as it would seem to be pushy or something.
I had a minor fall out with him a few nights ago on the net. Sort of rectified it today, but when I asked if he had any evenings free, it seems he is getting tired of staying in at weekends and so has arranged to go out every night this weekend with friends.
And it hurts. Maybe it shouldn't hurt, but it does because I never asked to stay in...and he has invited me out once and we went home early. It was noisy...live band. A quiet pub would have been nice.

This emotional turmoil I experience just makes me think I better get used to having no day to day contact with people...certainly no friendship or pseudo friendship because it just opens a whole can of worms and I always end up feeling worth less than I did before I knew the person.

For some reason, they always act like a friend, yet treat me differently to their other friends.
I want to be invited, not to have to invite myself.
I want to feel valued, not like some poor thing who needs some company.

I really wanted some company this weekend, and the fact that this person suggested we might go to some festival should the weather be good and has instead decided to go with someone else has left me feeling furious and hurt.

Double post.

Do believe this happens, I have these feelings quite often.

Recently been emailing someone I met on Yahoo Personals. She usually responds in 2-4days. Guess she has a lot more stuff to do than respond to emails within a day. I understand though. Not everyone checks/writes/responds to emails daily. By the way... this lady is fabulous, am so excited. Hope to meet her in person in a few weeks. She's a artist(painter), writer, poet, blogger, atheist(Yessss!) and so many other traits which I value. I hope she is not (doesn't get) bored with me. I'm not too good at communicating by written correspondence. Think that I have a better chance of impressing her face-to-face. Can't talk to her on the phone since she speaks sign language. Sorry about this segway... just real excited.

I don't even see many of my family since they don't call to spend time together. Finally decided it's not worth the stress of trying to get them to initiate get-togethers.

I can almost rely on visiting mum but that's pretty pitiful. A 37yo male desperate enough to have to got to mom.

I have so much admiration and respect for you Graelwyn. Will be a joyous day when you're able to feel how much worth you actually are Hope I'm around to hear about it.

Peace,

This woman you hope to meet sounds wonderful.
I hope that works out.
I do not know how you admire or respect me unless you have lurked about and read my posts.
I think I analyse things too much.
I spoke at length today to a lady who used to feel as I do and she said I need to take myself less seriously and to work on my empathy, which I would agree with. She also said that she deals with things by the fact she stopped caring what others think of her and got on with just living. And of course, a lot of hurts we feel and a lot of the other negative emotions come about from ego and wanting to be special. I suppose that is a human thing.

She gave me food for thought anyway, tho putting it into practice is harder than it looks.

I hurt the friend I mentioned today. I feel terrible for it. He waved at me and I looked at him and walked off. And he shut shop and went home, so I know it must have hurt.

And why did I do that? Because I felt angry and sleighted by his going out with his other friends this weekend and not ever taking me out etc.
Very selfish of me in a way, tho my feelings are understandable.
I should have had more control and said what the issue was rather than stomping on his feelings.

Wrote him a note anyway to say sorry and posted it to the shop.
Message to self in future...think or express before acting in anger.

Graelwyn,

Have lurked about for several months now. Don't usually have anything interesting to say so don't post much. As well... Don't think I'm very good at getting the message down. And it's very very challenging (to communicate or write things down). All these combined is the icing on the cake eh:-)

The respect and admiration still stands... just not able to convey why in a understandable way. Not your or anyone elses shortfall but my own communication issues:-) Working on the communication though. Hope am getting better little by little.

Peace,

Well, for what it's worth, you seem to be doing okay to me.
Guess I have had a lot of practise and writing always was the one way I could express myself, since real life expressing doesn't come naturally.

Sorry to hear about this Graelwyn. I hope things turn out better between you and your friend.