I was just wondering if anyone else has trouble having a social life and meeting people. I'm not sure if its me or the disease or a combination, but lately I've just been feeling extra lonely thinking about the friendships I let drift away and the bridges I've burned.

I had two groups of friends in college. One group of us I was close with and we actually lived in the same apartment/building/dorm for several years. One group that I wasn't as close with. I kind of drifted apart from the second group as I got sick. The first group and I had a misunderstanding when I decided I wanted my own apartment rather than living with noise 24/7. I didn't intentionally break my friendship with them, but by the time that bridge was burning, I watch it burn with glee. Every now and then I wonder whatever happened to a girl I was friendly with and had originally dated one of my dorm mates, but otherwise I don't give them a second thought. And I had the other group of friends back then, too.

The group of friends I had in high school has been weighing on my mind a lot though, since we were all really close. I never really had many friends in my grade growing up. I was bullied a lot in grade school. By the time I reach high school nobody messed with me because I'd worked out a system of mutually assured destruction. If someone tried to bully me, I'd start a fight and we'd both end up suspended. Luckily it never got that far, a few black eyes and nobody tried bothering me again. Then again, start fights doesn't win you friends.

I did make some close friends in the class under mine, though. Even though I was a grade older than my high school friends, I don't think many of them realized I was two years older until I could buy liquor (by which point we were all in college, but I was 21 and they were 19). For the most part, I'd refuse...but there were a couple people I was close to and trusted. If they wanted a 5th, I wouldn't say no (I was stupid and 21). One of those people (a girl I fancied, no less) managed to extort much more than one bottle from me. She was also kind of my link with a lot of the group. I don't think the rest of the group ever knew the full story (or where the liquor they were drinking came from) but my reaction to the incident was to hell with the lot of you. Irregardless of to the law, I didn't need anyone's death on my conscious. I had already lost a friend to drunk driving.

I don't think I really meant to break ties permanently, in fact I did see them some after that where we used to meet weekly. But being betrayed by someone close to you is probably one of the worst feelings are is. And the girl in question invited me to a party with her a year or two later, which I think was her way of apologizing, but that didn't turn out so well since there were enough hard drugs floating around that if the cops had shown up for a noise violation, I'd probably still be seeing the inside of a jail cell. I politely excused myself after about a half hour.

Then I got real sick with MG and SPS, was misdiagnosed, almost died in surgery and just generally had other things to worry about. Now I just go to work and take classes to try and get a better job and fill the void where I should have a social life. I'm not really sure how to move forward from here. Do I find out what happened to my old friends a decade later? I have no clue how to make new friends.

I was actually invited block parties through a neighbor of someone I met at work, only they lived over an hour away. My parents talked me out of getting back in touch with them as they said I need to find friends closer. In hindsight, friends an hour away are better than no friends at all.

I have a lot to do and need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I just thought getting this down might help me focus more on the task at hand.