Perks of Being a Wallflower

You never really know how you're doing until someone tells you


I finally finished reading Perks of Being a Wallflower. 


Sam says to Charlie: 

"Charlie don't you get it? I can't feel that. It's sweet and everything. But it's like you're not even there sometimes. It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder. What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things...Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want."

Sometimes I can relate to Charlie. I think he spends too much time thinking and worrying about how other people may think or whether they will be happy, so much that that becomes the priority-- so much that it doesn't matter anymore what he feels as long as things go as planned and everyone has a good time. I don't think he realizes that by not making himself vulnerable to his friends and showing them himself and what he needs and wants and cares about, he creates in himself a person that is just there, among other people. You can see him, talk to him, hear him, laugh with him but really that is all because he is not really there.