Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, ya girl is learning a lot these days. She’s learning how to budget her money responsibly (even though she did buy 6 albums within the last couple of weeks), she’s learning how to simply embrace the things she enjoys (i.e tons of KPop music, sense of humor, style), and she’s learning a couple of things about having adult friendships.

Also, she’s gotta stop referring to herself in the third person. 

The thing about friendships is that I haven’t had many of them within a couple of years. The last group of people I had as close friends were the ones I had during my senior year of college in my acting class; it’s actually where I met the most real one out there, Tori! I’ve had a couple of friends within the last couple of years, but with my social anxiety and fear of keeping friends, I always ended up disappearing.

This time, I’m trying my hardest to not let that happen again and to actually develop some meaningful, long-lasting friendships.

Of course, that comes with learning about adult friendships in the first place.

What made having friends as a teenager so easy was that we were always at the same place at the same time for five days a week. Sure, we knew other people outside our friend group and such, but for the most part, your friends were your friends and you were your friends’ friends. The only distance between you guys was possibly the fact that you lived a couple of avenues and streets away from one another. 

But, as I got older, keeping friendships was a really hard thing for me. Not only was I in a situation where I was cautious of having friends, I just lost touch with the people in my life because I have this fear that I’m easily forgotten… I’m working on that! After a while, I just stopped having friends altogether, and it wasn’t until recently since I started to make some friends again!

So even though I’m very respectful and honest about my boundaries with the people in my life, I sometimes have a hard time understanding how boundaries work in adult friendships.

Adults have lives. They are in romantic relationships, they have other friends in their lives and honestly adult friendships have their own side of unique issues than it does when you’re a teenager. For starters, keeping in touch plays a huge role in adult relationships; your friends are not around the block to constantly see you in person and hang out. My closest (and for a while; only) friend lived in Pennsylvania for a year before she packed up her life and moved to Florida, so our long-distance friendship only works if we keep in touch and keep a presence in each other’s lives. For me, that includes sending out holiday/birthday cards to her, keeping her in the loop of the juicy gossip in my life, and supporting her creative outlets.

Another thing is that many adult friendships mean that these people have significant others or a family in their lives. Tori is engaged, half of my girl coworkers are in long-term relationships, and yes, even guy friends are in relationships as well. While I treat everyone pretty much the same because I am not the type to transform into different people for different people, I realize that yeah, even in friendships, especially adult friendships, have different tiers.

It’s about school friends, life-long friends, work friends, etc. – people fit into different categories in your life and depending on the relationship you have with them, your willingness to share things about yourself varies. In other words, things that your life-long friends know about you are not the same things that your work friends know about you. 

I don’t have that boundary with the people in my life, and that’s not always the greatest thing.

While I don’t mean any harm with the people in my life, there is just some level of boundaries you have to have with them. For example, the things I may share with my managers in casual conversation will not be so deep as the conversations I have with the other booksellers at the job. It’s just the level of professionalism and position that creates that boundary for you. New friends in my life shouldn’t know my autobiography within the first week of knowing each other, which yes, I’m aware that with some people in my life as of now, I did share some things way too quickly.

But, it’s about respecting the boundaries and voicing those boundaries, especially with friends of the opposite sex that are in relationships. Not only do I have to remain conversation on a friend level, but I have to also consider the friend’s partner and what they may think of when certain things are shared with me. It’s just having that reassurance that I’m in my lane, staying within my boundaries, making platonic relationships with new people.

Boundaries are not just things you have with people you are in romantic relationships with; they are present in all different relationships! They don’t exist because you shouldn’t trust people blah blah blah, but they’re used as healthy ways to respect yourself and your worth and show others that you will only accept that same level of respect from them and nothing less. That was preachy word-vomit, sorry!

So, have some boundaries and be honest about them, then the actual fun friendship with people begins. 🙂

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, I’m in a pickle as I write this; I’m currently in this dilemma where I’m deciding when will I be ready to put myself out there again. Although I like my time to be spent on myself while I’m in this self-discovery journey, I still need to challenge my social skills and willingness to want to meet new people; romantically and socially.

As I’m learning how to be a little more confident with myself in a social sense, I’m realizing that I’m actually a pretty confident person when it comes to my personality. I feel like I’m a caring, fun, loving person that is able to communicate with people; I honestly have to thank my co-workers and the customers I encounter on a daily basis at my job. Sure, I have my awkward ass moments and sudden social anxiety freak-outs, but with practice and daily encounters, I’ve become confident with my personality.

Now, you’d think that because I’m confident with my personality, I wouldn’t let my personal views on my body affect me and my willingness to put myself out there, right? Completely wrong. Although I don’t consider myself a superficial person and will give anyone with a good vibe and kindness a chance, we live in a society where 90% of people are first attracted and intrigued by looks. Of course, I wouldn’t want someone in my life that just thought I was pretty and nothing else, but to literally start from scratch and put myself out there in a world where looks are a huge factor in society, it’s scary.

I started my Overexposed series on the blog to highlight some major parts in my life regarding my way and finding ways to love and embrace myself in my skin and to some extent I do. I’m okay with my body, I’m okay with how she jiggles, how round she is, and how she is built. But, that doesn’t mean there are people out there that do.

Also, let me just say this: I’m getting weight-loss surgery to be “beautiful” or “more appealing” to society. I’m doing it for my health.

In my twisted mind, I believe the relationships, lovers, – whatever you call them – happened out of luck. These people liked me for who I was and not how I looked like, but then also tell myself that all the bad things happened in them because they didn’t like the way I looked. Of course, I know that’s just me doing some irrational thinking and that’s not true, but maybe that’s just my opinion on how I believe other people see me: ugly, fat, the girl you don’t really love because of how she looks.

So, it’s going to be a journey to get my mind out of that thinking. It’s going to take a lot of breaking things down and embracing some imperfections in order to feel like my personality overshines the way I look, whether or not I’m fat or “thinner”. It’s so much easier to say that you are a good person and not feel insecure when being introduced to a new person, but maybe how I got confident in my personality it just takes some practice.

So if you’re feeling like no one would take interest in you because your looks are not what society’s standards are, it doesn’t mean that no one will like you. Your personality should do the talking, and the insecurities you feel about your body should not take center stage when you’re meeting new people. The more confident you are with yourself, the more people will love you for your inner beauty!

Forget about your body, you’re still beautiful, babe.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

How’s everyone doing thus far in February? We are officially at the halfway point of the month and I hope no matter how your month has been for you that the latter part of the month turns out good!

Boy; has this month been a ride and a good one at that!

So, there’s been a lot of work being done with my social skills now that I feel comfortable being social with new people. The true first step was when I applied to my current job as a bookseller and had to interact with dozens of customers on a daily basis, which gradually came to me making friends out of my coworkers, me being able to go out with them like a big, social butterfly, and also even making bold moves in order to develop new friendships because I want to make them it’s just–

Y’all, my social anxiety is shooketh.

It’s amazing to see myself at this stage in my life because it’s something I thought I was capable of doing. Sure, it took a lot of therapy sessions and hard decisions to be where I’m at, but it was honestly so worth it. To agree to go out with a couple of friends and to even be openly honest with people I’ve met in the course of the last six months is mind-blowing.

Each and every day, I am beating anxiety’s ass up, y’all.

And I want to be an inspiration for the people who feel like they could never get back out there and start meeting new people because their social anxiety has taken over their bodies. I was once in that position – shoot – sometimes I’m still in that position! There’s no doubt that the little negative voice in my head tells me I said or done the wrong thing in a situation and that I don’t deserve anything good in life, but it’s gotten better. I’ve gotten past the point of self-doubting my every decision and just decided that so fucking what if things go wrong? it doesn’t hurt to try things out. You honestly never know the outcome of something if you don’t try it out, and that’s what keeps me going.

That’s what keeps me going to have this want of creating new relationships: that being social and being yourself with people who vibe with you well and give you some great energy is such a great feeling. You never know the type of people you’ll meet if you don’t put yourself out there! I recently met a really cool person from campus that literally has some of the same interests as me, which never friggin’ happened in my life, and I wouldn’t have known that or got that connection with another person if I wasn’t bold enough to pursue this person as a friend.

I’m slowly learning that the only way to beat your social anxiety is to challenge it: challenge your fears, challenge that inner voice in your head that is hoping you fail, literally challenge everything that is telling you that you can’t do it. Because you can, and do it so friggin’ well. 

So take that chance, you honestly have nothing to lose! The only thing you’re losing out on is a new opportunity to make some new memories and some new adventures.