The Pain of Being Annoying

Why do we open ourselves up when we will most likely get hurt? Is that searing pain worth anything? Does opening your heart up actually benefit anyone?

I recently had a Facebook conversation with a guy I use to play soccer with. Before I go much farther I have to explain the background. For some reason I always ticked this guy off. I felt just my mere presence made him break out in hives or something. He would criticize things I said or did. Of course, I was a young, insecure girl so everything he said I would take as "the whole world must think this! It is so obvious to him how stupid I am. Just the rest of the world won't tell me out of pity or something!" I really really disliked him for the longest time. As I got older and spent less time around him anytime he said something I would roll my eyes just like he had done to me when we were younger. I still can't play soccer without his critical attitude drilling into my brain.

So the fact that we were friends on FB was astonishing enough. And then we had a nice conversation too. I was amazed! It was like a miracle had happened, I saw for the first time that it was possible that he was a nice guy 0_0 But of course he was a nice guy. He had many friends when we played soccer together. No one disliked him as much as I did, I realized that even when I was younger. I only saw one side of this guy and assumed that deep down he was only capable of treating me like this.

After coming to the realization that he was a normal person and I had only seen a much less pleasant side of him, I had an idea! We.... could be friends!! It might actually be possible to want to be friends with this person who had caused me emotional suffering and insecurity for years.

Long story short, he did not want to. He was confused (understandably so) as to why, after such a long time of disliking each other, I would suddenly want to be friends. And so he reverted back to being mean to get me to stop asking him to hang out with him.

It hurt a lot. I stepped out, taking the risk that he would treat me like he did before and get hurt. Possibly laughed at. Though i don't know if he laughed at me or not. We were on FB and he didn't say he was laughing. Just annoyed. I felt complete rejection.

Was it worth it? At the time I didn't feel like it was. I was hurt and he was annoyed. Nothing seemed to have changed from years ago. Although nothing has happened since then I can say that what I learned from it was worth it. I learned how to be rejected and not turn my hurt into hate or callousness. I will get hurt when I open myself up to people. We live in a world that is not perfect and everyone has a self-serving default mode. And we all default to it. I wanted to default to closing myself off to taking a risk and opening myself up to everyone after that conversation. But will I be able to reach people and tear down their defensive walls of their hearts if I am still hiding behind my own walls?

So is the pain worth it? Yes, if I remember I am loved by someone who matters above the rest, God. If I base my self worth on any other relationship I will always be insecure. But I realized that not only with this guy, but with everyone else around me I base my self-worth on their opinions of me, my thoughts, and actions. Even this blog, I continue to go back over what I have said and I think "Will this seem stupid? They probably won't like this analogy." I constantly run these programmed criticisms in my head, assuming what people are thinking or will say to me.