Sharing too much

As I have discussed in the past, I have a hard time making friends. This is something I talk about a fair bit in counseling. I don't live very close to my family and it is important for me to build a network of people I can trust and depend on. But also, people who are there for my kids in ways that my family can not be there for them. They need more than JUST me and their dad. As much as I would like that to be sufficient, I realize that as they get older their support group will need to be larger. Heck, my support group needs to be larger, so why wouldn't theirs?

Apparently making friends is like dating. Or this is what I have been told. I never really "dated" though. I met my husband in the 4th grade. We didn't go to middle school together but met back up in high school. After our freshman year we started a serious relationship. And... 10 years later, we are married and have 2 little boys. So the dating analogy doesn't work real well with me. But when discussing how you make friends we did talk a bit about dating. Like, the idea that when you date someone and you reveal way too much way too fast... you scare people off! Telling your date that you (making up a scenario here) were locked in your closet for 6 hours a day every weekend as a child... might be a little much. So this is what I struggle with because I don't know some of these social skills... This is what I am working on learning. How to know how much information to give to people and how much they actually care and if they are trustworthy. I can't just tell a new friend on a "first date" too much. I also don't want to feel like they are not getting to know me (which is another common way for me to cope). So apparently I can learn this stuff... I feel like sometimes I am going to school for the socially inept. I am okay with that if it helps :) But I am learning that this means I am going to have to really think about what I talk about and when. And that is hard for me. I am typically a super honest person and I answer questions as they come pretty bluntly. I have never really been overly vague and if I don't feel like talking about it I am way more likely to say "that isn't really something I want to talk about" than to answer in a vague, but honest, enough way for people to accept and not be sharing too much. I never really knew that making friendships had so many rules. Maybe for other people they don't? But this seems really complicated to me.

I think that is one of my issues... I don't want people close and I really dislike how complicated it all seems. But if I find someone I might like to have a friendship with, I don't know how to initiate or give the right pieces of information and at the right times and in the right amounts. I guess one day I will get it figured out but today I left my appointment feeling a bit defeated about the whole friend thing. But I have resolved to try and kind of pay more attention to the information I give people. My goal is to not share too much but to also not put up walls. Balance.