I've been feeling really uncomfortable with a group of friends recently, and things came to a confrontation with one person.  Seems to me to me that she is very controlling and she recently got very angry because I had afternoon plans and could only hang out with her in the morning and not the entire day.  I've pretty much had it, between her and her cousin, whom I've been friends with for many years, they really are good people but they behave like children.  I've had it with the rages and temper tantrums, acting like Karens toward service workers, calling me to rant and rave over ridiculous garbage.  Over the past several years I've often thought about moving on.

I decided to just step out of plans with this month, and by some serendipity, I was out one evening and ended up really clicking with someone.  We get along great and are really having fun. She may not stay living here in this area, but it is so much easier and I am so much more relaxed, she's a very nice person, not angry, nasty and controlling.  I don't have to listen to tirades or be walking on glass.  I don't have to wait for some nasty commment to come at me. It's a very easy and natural flow.

It's strange how you meet people when you really aren't trying at all.  It seems that when you are trying that's when it doesn't work. I'm much better at meeting and connecting with people than when I was younger.  I think I've grown and mellowed.  Just very interesting to see the contrast between personalities.  I feel like the original relationship/friendship I'm referring to is more a relationship of force, at least it feels that way, and there is a definite difference.  When I was hanging out with my new acquaintance I found myself opening up more, feeling much freer to be myself, confiding a bit a revealing sides of myself that my current friends have no idea about. What does that tell me? That maybe we aren't totally a match or that I'm really not that comfortable with them. Maybe on some level I know I have to keep my guard up.  

Now to find that romantic match as well. Replace the ex! I felt like I was walking on glass around him too.  I think on some level all relationships have a certain core, whether romantic or not. There are basic dynamics that go on between people. Some of them are healthy and some are not.