I (29F) realized I don’t share as much with my friends (20s-30s) and I think it’s affecting my relationships with them.

I’m quite a private person. I rarely let my guard down even among friends. I have two close friends I’d share almost everything with but other than that I vent to my family. I do have friends—a smattering of friends from high school and university, mostly. When we get together it’s a little slow to start but then we pick it right back up.

Today one of my close friends from high school made a comment that I could share nuggets about my boyfriend more. And it’s true with that group of friends I haven’t talked about him a lot. (My local friends have met him more times to count and we hang out). We haven’t seen each other as much this past year because a couple had babies. (As an aside, I’m learning how to be inclusive of friends and not to assume they are busy.) I think my news isn’t as important. And I also didn’t know how to drop “I have a boyfriend now!” casually.

Now it’s so awkward because I’ve dated my boyfriend for a year and a half and I told one about him only a few months ago. He’s met a few high school friends only briefly at a party nobody could hear each other. One friend we hung out a bit more together. I also feel like I see these friends so rarely that I don’t want to impose my guy on them. But to arrange a whole thing for high school friends to meet him seems overkill?

Granted, part of this was because I wasn’t 100% sure about this guy earlier on in the relationship and I didn’t want to cloud my friends’ judgment on him. But now I’m feeling a lot better.

I want to be more vulnerable so I can have closer friends. I want my friends to know my significant other so that it’ll make sense at a wedding (really not there yet but at some point). I realize that as one ages lives take over and you can’t see each other as much. But my lack of sharing has gone on for far longer.

How do you... share things with friends you don’t see often?

Tl;dr I don’t share much with friends and I realized I have shared very little about my boyfriend with them mostly unintentionally and now it’s weird. I just want to be “vulnerable” and need help.

Submitted December 29, 2018 at 06:18PM by birdbybirdont http://bit.ly/2TdawUy