A friend just when I needed it

I wrote a few months ago that I met someone on the dating app Hinge. He’s, all in all, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and we have quickly become close friends. We share similar hobbies so it’s not too difficult to find an excuse to hang out. I’m not sure he’s into me romantically or maybe he’s just not ready to date at the moment, but that’s not really important for me right now. What’s important is that I’ve found a close friend for perhaps the very first time since coming out of the closet around 2014. He’s someone I could turn to when I’m in trouble for emotional support and he’s someone who possesses enough similarities to me that we can be relatable in a lot of ways. Our birthdays are only 11 days apart. He’s a close friend that appeared just when I needed it the most. 

Making friends is an interesting proposition: it’s really difficult for me. I don’t know if it’s because I tend to move around a lot because of my career (I’m trying to change that), or if it’s because I rub some people the wrong way. I don’t really know. I’m a very intense person when it comes to my career in a rather unconventional way in the sense that I don’t really chase what most other people chase (i.e. I tend to chase “passion”). I find that most people in this world either don’t know what they’re passionate about, or are too scared to go after it in this lifetime. And I think because I do go after mine, that I intimidate some people or rub some the wrong way. In other words, I think I make some people feel bad about their own lives. That’s just a hypothesis because I’m not a particularly disagreeable person. I’m a pretty easy person to get along with.

Anyways back to my close friend. I’m just overly filled with joy to have someone like him in my life at the moment. My bipolar, which flared up to extreme extents when it was just me and my parents essentially during my graduate school years in Davis, was a bit out of control. I’m trying to change the way I manage the disorder by being more social. I don’t make friends easily, but I made one recently, and I’m so grateful.