Confessions

You wanna know something I just figured out about myself? I'm so severely frightened of being judged for decisions that I make, that I make friends with people, enjoy being approved of by them, and then only talk to them every once in a while for fear that I will say or do something that they will not like, and therefore we will not be compatible. I know in theory that you cannot please everyone, that there will always be something about me that a person will disagree with, but in practise, I find it very hard to be around people who disagree with anything I do. I feel that I have to explain my reasons for making the decisions that I make, like there has to be a 'right' way to do things, and I have to have approval to feel ok with what I'm doing.
So, I make friends, and don't really keep in touch.
Kim said something the other day about friends. She said that she doesn't think that it really works too well to have a lot of acquaintances. She thinks that a friendship requires lots of time to grow and survive, and with the time we have in this life, you either make a lot of acquaintances, or have a few friends. I guess I'm trying it both ways to see what works for me.
In high school I had just a few friends. In the early years of my marriage to recently, I had another set of a few friends. Within the past two years or so, I've been making friends by pouring my troubles out to people, but not really keeping in touch with them any more than once every 6 weeks or so. It's like I'm afraid to call my already made friends for fear that they are not going to be available (which would feel like rejection), or that we won't have anything new to discuss and our talk will turn to gossip or judging each other.... Wow, what a negative and fearful view I have of the world! :/
My confession is that I am a friend dropper. I am a user. I get sympathy, start a relationship with someone, and then we lose contact... but is this all MY fault? It's not like these people are contacting me either... I certainly don't want to continue this pattern... but on the other hand, it's not like I don't still like these people either. And who says that you can't make a new friend, and then only talk to them once every 6 months? If I stopped making new friends just because I was afraid that I "won't have the time to keep up with them", then I believe I'd be missing out on the human connection. So maybe I'm not a friend dropper, just a friend finder! I do want to work on not fearing being judged, and what better way to do that than to expose myself to lots of different viewpoints and practise tolerance?