i know it's not just me...

Have you ever been friends with someone, only to discover that they really don't like you as much as you liked them? And you do whatever you can to act like it doesn't bother you, but inside it really makes you feel sad?

That would be me this weekend.

I have written about the cruise before, and while not everyone left with glowy feelings, I thought that the friends that I spent so much time with and I had bonded. Apparently, that is not true at all. It's been almost 6 months since that cruise, and I only regularly talk to one person from the trip. I occasionally check in with someone else, but on the whole... it wasn't what I had built up in my head as a memorable vacation where lifetime relationships were created. Instead, I think a pretty major rift was created.

I will admit, I may have been a tad harsh in my recap of the cruise, but I do not regret a word of it. There were a billion expectations brought on that cruise, more than the luggage that each person brought, and unfortunately it did not live up to any of those expectations.

Over the weekend, several of the cruisers that I had thought were my friends got together in NYC, and nobody thought to invite me. It made me profoundly sad. To the point that I blocked most of them from my newsfeed on FB, and even removed a few because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing them all having a fabulous time while I sat at home by myself because my husband had to work 18 hours yesterday.

I had invented these amazing friendships in my head, but in reality - they never existed. I am very disappointed in myself for allowing myself to feel so sad about something that wasn't real, but I'm more disappointed in myself for letting it bother me. That's growth, people. I would normally mope and eat my feelings away, but instead I am OK with feeling sad about it, I didn't binge, and I'm writing about the learning experience. I will never take another vacation like that again, I will only take trips with my true friends, not people who I was DYING to be friends with - you know, the "cool clique." As a teenager, I was socially awkward, and never found my circle of friends to hang with so I kind of wandered from circle to circle and never really felt like I belonged. As an adult, 20-something years later, I am still socially awkward, but it's mostly driven by my own insecurities of wanting to belong instead of just being comfortable with who I am as a person.

I am tired of trying to mold myself to fit others' lives. I belong where I belong, and I shouldn't have to try to fit into a circle or a triangle if I'm clearly a square. And that's OK. We are not all meant to be friends, we don't all have to like each other. I am happy with who I have in my life, and if someone comes along who fits in with that - terrific, but I flat out refuse to try to reshape myself just to be liked by someone who clearly doesn't have a space for a square.

Week 5 of Jenny Craig down, weigh in tomorrow... I'm learning a lot more about my eating habits, I'm learning even more about how I deal with my feelings, and the therapy is really helping a lot with my eating disorder. Can't wait to see what 2012 brings!