I am really trying to be an adult about this, but it's hard. In my small group from church, we got on the topic of how I am really not a people person but how I seem to be constantly be involved in things that help other people connect. I am overcompensating, in a way. I lack something that most people have, and I've read enough and known enough people to recognize this. As the dispassionate outsider, maybe I'm somehow better equipped to help other people connect? I don't know.
Anyway, the group members all did the sharing-not-so-secret-grins-and-eye-contact that says, "Ha ha, you say this, but you are exaggerating, and we know the real you really like people and are just shy." They dismiss all my hard work in fighting my nature pretty much every second I am around them (and everybody else). It is reeeeeeallllly annoying. And it makes me want to do nothing more than what I really want to do: withdraw and be blessedly alone, no matter who I have to hurt in the process. Ignore invitations, blow people off to hibernate as much as possible, read when I want to, not have to be with people.
I mean, I really don't want to waste time on all these things that I do because they are good things to do. I do them because they help others and show my commitment to to follow Christ and love the people He puts around me because He asks me to love them, which I can only do through my choice of will and my actions of denying myself and my desires. And people basically thinking it's a big joke that I say this is such hard work make me want to throw in the towel.
But, you know? That would be really childish and immature. I am not, ultimately, doing this for their approval. I have higher reasons. So even though giving in sounds glorious (I cannot tell you how wonderful it sounds or how much I want it), I will keep going to meet with them and will try my best to ignore their knowing smirks that don't, in fact, know anything because I know who I am, and God knows my heart, and that's really all that matters.
