Disturbing thoughts

I'm not entirely sure that I know how to make/be friends with people. This bothers me, but I'm beginning to understand why that may be the case:

1. Personality problems: I am fully aware of the fact that I tend to be prickly, awkward, and melancholic. This does not easily lead to friendships.

2. Conflicts of interest: I have odd taste in things. For instance, at the used CD store the other day I bought 4 cds: Voices of Light which is artsy and medieval; I'll Lead You Home by Michael W. Smith, a contemporary Christian album; The Long Black Veil by the Cheiftans (Irish band) with other artists; and The Dirty Boogie by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which is big band plus rockabilly plus hard rock. So yeah, weird tastes and interests.

3. Sheer lack of practice. I realized the other day that I'd spent the 13 years from age 5 to age 18 without many friends of any kind. In fact, I think I only had one real friendship in that time period, and that one was on-again off-again anyway. I just don't know how to be friends with people very well.

There are all of these people in my life, and I'm desperate to tell them how much I like them and want to be around them, but I find myself incapable of doing so. I simply don't know how to tell them. Some of this fear and shrinking may be due to the fact that for most of my life when I told someone how much I liked them, they tended to not speak to me for years afterward (if ever again). The vast majority of my social memories before college are of not being good enough, or pretty enough, or rich enough, or talented enough, or athletic enough, or with the right taste in movies and music. Of being too intense, too smart, too sad, too ecstatic, too bookish, too large, too individualistic, and too shy.

I am beyond grateful for the love I've found in my friends at college and church, but I'm beginning to think that certain parts of me have been damaged beyond repair: 13 years alone is a very long time. I honestly don't know how to let people in; I've never had to do it before. I don't know how to tell people I love them; I've gotten mostly rejection when I tried before. I don't know how to tell people that I want to spend time with them, because I honestly can't believe that they would want to spend their valuble time with me. That sounds pretentious, but it's true: I've tried to believe it, and can't.

I have always resonated to the line in the Evanesence song My Immortal: "there's just too much that time cannot erase." Is that true? Are these things that can only be healed in heaven? Like a bone that's been broken, and healed crookedly?

Dear God, if you want me to get close to other people, You'll have to break down my defenses Yourself; I can't do it.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed.