Friend or Pest?

Whenever I sense something wrong with my friends, I immediately ask questions.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

I cannot help it. I must. I dislike being unable to help, the feeling of helplessness.

But there is a limit to caring, apparently. Sometimes caring becomes pestering. Sometimes the other person just wants to be left alone. Sometimes even the closest brothers and sisters can want her or his own privacy.

There was one point in time when I thought that I was good at the art of distraction—I could talk to a person who was visually upset and then slowly steer clear of that topic, eventually leading to jokes and having that person forget all about their problems. I don’t know if I’ve lost my touch, but recently it seems that I have been more of a nosy bastard than a caring friend.

On the flip side, I also feel that some of my closest friends distrust me sometimes. Because of their reluctance to share with me their personal feelings, I feel that they do not trust me as much as I trusted them. It is not a very good feeling, though, I realize that not too many of my friends have actually heard my personal problems either.

I can’t tell if it’s because I’m so mellow or it’s because I don’t show my feelings most of the time.