If You Never Say Your Name Out Loud to Anyone, They Can Never, Ever Call You by It

There are certain people I see every day in school that I never, ever talk to. Or, if I do, our conversations are brief, fleeting--moreso a passing word or answers to questions than anything else. Every day I see them, every day in the hall in the cafeteria in the parking lot in the gym. You'd think with so much regularity there might be an actual connection.

Sometimes I want so badly for there to be one. Even if we have nothing "in common," we have in common those quick, passing moments, and surely isn't that enough?

Why is it so much harder to get to know someone once you've known them for a while? That doesn't make sense, but I guess what I mean is why, once you've been acquainted with someone just by coincidentally sitting diagonally across from them in class or meeting once because she's the friend of your friend, is it so infinitely harder to become friends? Maybe we think the reason we're not friends with these people is because they don't want to be friends with us. I feel this all the time, like some unexplainable insecurity on my own part inhibits me from even testing the waters.

I think, sometimes, we feel limited by our friends, maybe not directly by them but certainly by the little bubble or aura or orb or sphere or whatever shape I mean, certainly by this casing that surrounds our comfortable group. When we have friends with us, it seems an infinitesimal issue that we extend our branches. Yet when we know no one in a class, we reach out to that maybe-someone sitting next to us and remember how easy it is to invite people into our lives.

I want to invite these people into my life. No reservations, no R.S.V.P.s, no prerequisites.
Just....come on in. My door is OPEN.