An Unfollowed Impression

I enjoy General Conference. I feel that if there are any men a solid two generations older than I am that know what they're talking about, the General Authorities would fall into that category.

After the Sunday morning session, I went to my friend Linda's house to watch the final session. Linda is a Catholic lady from New Mexico that I met when going on splits with the missionaries that pertain to my home stake. She had the TV on a channel that was two hours late, playing the end of the morning session before the afternoon session was scheduled to start. President Eyring was speaking.

For some reason something he said caught my attention on the second listening. I'll confess that it's hard for me to listen to President Eyring--maybe I just can't keep up with his train of thought. But when he admonished to reach out to those who felt lonely, a distinct thought came to mind:

Reach out to Joseph.

Ugh! That's the last thing I want to do right now!

That's also the very first thing I want to do right now!

But I'm tired of our one-way friendship. I'm tired of never hearing from him unless we visibly see each other. I'm tired of having to keep moving my pawns because my opponent won't get off the john.

I want him to reach out to me for once.

Then my frustration at my social failures hit me again with some great force. I don't want to think about him every single day. I want to move on. But the emotional state that throws me into makes it difficult to find motivation to do anything other than waste away in front of mind-numbing video games, like I have for the last two days.

I feel horrible after reactivating my dormant addiction to video games. The remark of another blogger that "the antithesis of addiction is connection" has really resonated with me, and explains the psychology of my thought process over the past year. But that connection is a tricky critter to find.

Long story short, I went home before I could change my mind that Sunday afternoon. That impression I received that "Joseph does not need your space" keeps ringing in my head. But I can't help but wonder if I'm imagining things. My intuition has been spot on where he's concerned in some instances, yet in others, I am left empty handed with unanswered questions of what could have been if he had just reciprocated the I-just-want-to-be-friends side of my interest in him. Overall, I'm prepared for the very real possibility that I may simply never hear from him again if I stop making the effort.

I just hope it doesn't take an eternity for me to stop thinking about him every single day.