Love is all I need

This morning I read a post on another site made by a friend/ acquaintance.  It was a simple comment on having got together with friends last night and I had a flash of jealousy and of longing.  I had imagined a mutual friend of ours was at this get together.  Okay.  Truthfully, I imagined my therapist was at this get together.  My therapist and I have a few acquaintances and friends of friends of friends in common.  Anyway this lead me to explore my need to socialize more with people.  I struggle with really feeling that I have something to offer people (I think I am getting better with this…sometimes).  More often than not I am afraid of annoying the people I am with.  I am afraid of doing something wrong.  It is as if my inclusion in any group, work or school or social, is conditional.  I have a really really hard time with believing in my worth, in a group or by myself, as being something given, a matter of course, inherent, unquestionable.  I understand that some people will like me and some people won’t; that fact is almost irrelevant. It is a question of self worth.

I am reminded of a conversation through Facebook I had the other night with a friend.  I said something like “I’m not any hot stuff either.”  He said, “I bet I could get a list of a hundred people who would say otherwise.”  I told him I didn’t understand and that there was nothing pretty about me.  I am just baffled when people see positive qualities in me and it is rare that I believe them.  But it is so necessary for me to hear them.

I am never entirely comfortable with people, including the people with whom I should be most comfortable.  No matter how assured or unassured, no matter how “safe” or “unsafe” I am at any given moment there is this little part of me that is crying out, “Don’t leave me.  Love me.”