Someone I admired stayed in touch with the other peers but not me

What bothers me most and the other thoughts in my head

A few years ago, I came across someone very cool in my (then) office. You know how some people are not just very attractive on the outside but also in their conduct — they are energetic, honest, with the best communication skills, and then they have that dressing sense, minimal yet the best accessories, and they don’t follow — they lead. Well she was just “cool coded” in my eyes. She would speak distinctively, she was confident, affirmative, she could make constructive arguments and was an absolute professional. She would always ask for the right amount of time for a particular work, and was not afraid to call out an issue. She never for once entered the office looking dull, was comfortable in her skin, had classy choices, ate healthy and the right amount, was well-informed, and oh the humour. She had it gosh… she was funny. I was so moved that I even found a book on humour and read it during the time, trying to cultivate it in me. The book didn’t work and to me it felt as if — maybe — to be funny is a rare art — not everyone can be so witty — or that maybe one has to at least (partially) be born with it. I don’t know.. I would very much like to be wrong about this.

There is so much I liked about her. Of course she moved on and works at an amazing place, and no wonder she went for higher studies. I admired all this then and I admire all this now, but I always doubted myself whenever I approached her — I never had the confidence — and the lack of it was fortified with the number of months my follow request laid ignored on her Instagram before she finally accepted it. Then there were incidences when my other colleagues would tell me about how they met her as she reached out to them making a plan.

I wish she were friends with me too. She chose not to and that hurts.

Having said that, it’s not like nobody stayed in touch with me. There were other good people and I am grateful for them. But it’s been a recurring pattern in my life. All the people I ever admired while I was 10, 14, 17, 24, 28 — chose to not remain friends or even be friends with me in the first place.

And believe me I know my boundaries, I’ve never creeped them out. I have always (always) complimented people and looking back I feel that maybe complimenting so openly made them not trust my words or take me for granted. But that’s how I actually felt and keeping it to myself felt wrong at the time. Cut two. Now I’m so afraid of complimenting people that I just resist, and I remember a couple months back when I met an old friend of mine, and she told me that I was looking good, while I should have said that first thing to her, because she really did. I didn’t know what to do or say.

Anyway, this absolutely cool person that I talked about has just been kind enough to not delete my number yet, and I do see her status posts once in a while and instantly share that ❤️ only to be ignored. And I share more or less the same dynamic with all those other cool people too.

If there’s anyone who can relate, can you tell me what exactly is going wrong here. I know it’s not necessary for anyone to want to be friends with me but I just want to be looked at with some dignity, even if there’s distance..