Relationships

Watching my aunt's situation has made me reflect a lot on relationships. At age 61, she has 2 non-family friends in her life. One lives in another city and she only sees her every few years, and the other is a very Christian woman, who may or may not view my aunt as a good deed. She's alienated everyone else, with a combination of mild accusatory paranoia and extreme neediness.

While I don't have social problems to the extent that she does, my own circle of friends is a lot smaller now than 10 or even 5 years ago. Partly this is because I have so many family members in town to socialize with, partly due to social anxiety. But even with my sister I sometimes get weird about whether she likes me as much as I like her.

So, it makes me realize that I need to do two things: put more effort into building and maintaining friendships, and not spend so much time worrying about whether my friends really like me. That piece tends to sort itself out over time anyway.