Why did I find friendships so stressful?

I was never a social butterfly, I never wanted a massive social network. However, I knew that I would have been happy with a fairly tight network of people I could actually keep count of and invest in. I overcorrected and it all went wrong.

I got along with people at school/college etc but nothing that felt like a friendship I was fully invested in. I wouldn't really get to speak to them much outside of those environments.

It was all change when I was 22 and I started a job (working as a runner on a TV show). It was a tight-knit crew and very pally, and I felt more welcome there than I ever did anywhere else. The problem was that I didn't know the line between friendly acquaintances and friends. While I was lucky enough to meet up with three of them outside of that job, I strained other relationships (and even those relationships aren't what they were). 

It's hard to really know if we naturally drifted apart or, unbeknownst to me, I pushed them away. I'm leaning towards the latter. I tended to be very intense, needy, and at this stage I didn't really know what I wanted.

When I was 23, I started using Twitter a lot more and engaging with the community there which worked for a while. Directly and indirectly I made connections I genuinely felt were strong. However, I still overloaded myself. Before long, I realised there were 30 people I considered 'friends' based on a very narrow definition.

I used to keep spreadsheets and stuff like that to keep track. I used to assort people based on closeness and how we met etc. I thankfully got rid of that eventually because it's embarrassing. I thought it would help me understand what I want better but it didn't, it stressed me out even more.

I was too mechanical with it all, instead of listening to what I personally felt more comfortable with, but I just couldn't identify that. Eventually I decided that all these categories were too much and I'd just keep it to 'friends' and 'acquaintances' but I wasn't being open enough to really navigate that in a healthy way.

I was desperate to meet people in person, do calls etc. I ended up putting pressure on people, chasing them and I put pressure on myself to hold friendships together. I would go out of my way to do nice things for people (because I wanted to) but I didn't always have the best intentions; there was a touch of 'I hope they'll return the favour' rather than just doing it because I wanted to.

I was embarrassed to speak up and say 'I need your help' because I thought I was being difficult. As a result, things just manifested. Unbeknownst to me I just kept ruining the goodwill I had built up from people by pushing too hard. I would have people who already liked me for who I was and I would still neglect them in favour of someone who was nice to me once and I idealise a friendship with them, even though there is not a natural connection there. There's a balance between that and developing something with someone where there clearly is something there that I didn't really strike.

I almost wonder if I just became self-destructive. I never really knew how to handle having friends and so I ended up completely ruining it. I didn't want to but it's almost like there's a part of me that didn't believe I deserved any of that. I had created a mess and I didn't have the maturity or self-control to clean it up.

It all came to an end a few months ago because I did something stupid but it has allowed me to really reflect.

Did I inflict this on myself? Perhaps I needed a bit more handholding, so to speak? Even the friendships that were actually really pleasant and easy, I inflicted more stress on myself instead of just letting things flow naturally, and I'll always give myself a hard time for it.