(no subject)
"Darlene, that's disgusting!"
"What? It's just a flower stem."
"But you're eating it! Right out of the ground! How do you know if a dog hasn't peed on it, or..."
"If a dog had peed on it, it would be dead."
We were close like that, Darlene and I. Still are. But man, we were so different. I was the nerdy looking Asian girl complete with glasses, stringy hair, mismatched clothes, and about 30 pounds that I really didn't need. She was the short, spunky one with Sailor Moon balls on her head, black bands on her wrists, and what teachers might have considered a "rebellious nature." We didn't even hang with the same crowd. She had her punk friends--the ones who would eventually end up gay, goth, and in porn (in that order), the ones who liked to talk about pushing sharp objects through their penises, the ones who actually had drinking problems since before middle school. I had my ubernerd friends--the ones who went around school getting the teachers to recycle, the ones who hung out with teachers at lunchtime, the ones who stayed afterschool to hang out with teachers, the ones who went with me several years in a row to Latin conventions. But we were close, and we got along famously with nary a fight between us.
We've often wondered about how the hell we became friends, and why the hell we were still friends. Really, the Odd Couple only happened on t.v. We finally decided that it was because despite our outward differences, we were the same person inside. Inside, we squealed with girlish glee every time Obi-Wan (Episode 1, 2, 3) swung his light saber. We both squirmed in our seats every time we saw Lestat in Queen of the Damned (another awful movie). We both had the same sense of humor, and we both had open ears for one another.
Well, that's why we became friends, but that doesn't help to explain why we stayed friends. You know what it comes down to? We understand each other down to the smallest detail. She knows that it bugs the hell out of me when she uses netspeak, so she doesn't do it around me. I know that it drives her up the wall when I get neurotic, so I tone it down for her. In the end, we're friends because we've learned to understand and accept each other's idiosyncrasies.
To understand the other person's idiosyncrasies IS to understand that person. It's to know them and to accept them. It may seem like a small thing, but really, everyone would have a lot more friends if they could just get this down. But that's just it. With most people, the friendship falls apart before you even get to that stage of appreciation. So here's a little activity for all of you.
Tell me about ONE of your little quirks. If I'm already close to you, then tell me something I don't know. And if it's personal, well...you can e-mail it to me.
"What? It's just a flower stem."
"But you're eating it! Right out of the ground! How do you know if a dog hasn't peed on it, or..."
"If a dog had peed on it, it would be dead."
We were close like that, Darlene and I. Still are. But man, we were so different. I was the nerdy looking Asian girl complete with glasses, stringy hair, mismatched clothes, and about 30 pounds that I really didn't need. She was the short, spunky one with Sailor Moon balls on her head, black bands on her wrists, and what teachers might have considered a "rebellious nature." We didn't even hang with the same crowd. She had her punk friends--the ones who would eventually end up gay, goth, and in porn (in that order), the ones who liked to talk about pushing sharp objects through their penises, the ones who actually had drinking problems since before middle school. I had my ubernerd friends--the ones who went around school getting the teachers to recycle, the ones who hung out with teachers at lunchtime, the ones who stayed afterschool to hang out with teachers, the ones who went with me several years in a row to Latin conventions. But we were close, and we got along famously with nary a fight between us.
We've often wondered about how the hell we became friends, and why the hell we were still friends. Really, the Odd Couple only happened on t.v. We finally decided that it was because despite our outward differences, we were the same person inside. Inside, we squealed with girlish glee every time Obi-Wan (Episode 1, 2, 3) swung his light saber. We both squirmed in our seats every time we saw Lestat in Queen of the Damned (another awful movie). We both had the same sense of humor, and we both had open ears for one another.
Well, that's why we became friends, but that doesn't help to explain why we stayed friends. You know what it comes down to? We understand each other down to the smallest detail. She knows that it bugs the hell out of me when she uses netspeak, so she doesn't do it around me. I know that it drives her up the wall when I get neurotic, so I tone it down for her. In the end, we're friends because we've learned to understand and accept each other's idiosyncrasies.
To understand the other person's idiosyncrasies IS to understand that person. It's to know them and to accept them. It may seem like a small thing, but really, everyone would have a lot more friends if they could just get this down. But that's just it. With most people, the friendship falls apart before you even get to that stage of appreciation. So here's a little activity for all of you.
Tell me about ONE of your little quirks. If I'm already close to you, then tell me something I don't know. And if it's personal, well...you can e-mail it to me.