Mrs Buttons v the timid

The captain is currently on a voyage of self discovery, so this column has temporarily been taken over by the brusk mrs buttons.  feel good normality will be restored soon...in the meantime...

Dear Captain Buttons

I'm worried that I may never get the social scene. If I don't have friends, I am upset and feel alone. If I do have friends, I don't know how to act around them if they say something out of line. I also feel overwhelmed, which makes it harder to be friendly. What do I do? Is there something wrong with me? I don't know if I could be honest with people I consider friends out of the worry I may lose them. How should I go about being truthful without hurting peoples feelings?

Thanks for hearing out my worries.

anonymous

Dear anonymous, Geez Louise all this worrying is starting to make me nauseous.  While there is no indication of your age in your letter I can safely assume that since you’re old enough to compose your thoughts to words you must be able to get yourself out of bed, dress yourself, probably prepare your own meals and do most other things living people do.  With that in mind I’m not really sure you’d be able to do any of that with all the worrying going on.  First and foremost friends, just like you, are real people with real feelings, insecurities, fears and any other assortment of emotions that real people have.  They need love and care and sometimes they need to be told how important their friendship means to you.  Friends are friends because they can share any number of emotions with each other without fear of judgment or ridicule.  You don’t want to lose the people you consider your friends?  Tell them just that, tell them how important their friendship is to you and that having them in your life is the greatest gift you could have ever asked for, chances are if they really are your friends they will reciprocate the feelings you have shared with them and then you all can get onto more important things like taking walks through the park or going for coffee or doing whatever it is that friends do.

Mrs, goddamn straight talking, Buttons