Friends
I feel like I have no friends. Maybe it's not that I don't have any friends, it's just that I feel like there aren't any people who want to hang out with me. No one invites me to things. I suppose it's a hard balence between inviting people to hang out and being invited. I suppose I haven't really invited anyone to hang out with me on a regular basis. I guess I just don't want to intrude. I feel lame because I never really have any grand plan. "Come do something exciting with me!" No, I normally just call and try and say, "Please come over so that I have someone to talk to." By "normally" I mean that I just call Reed once in a while because he's not my roommate and he's not crazy.
I suppose I really miss Kris and Jordan for that reason. Even though Jordan didn't always have the best timing to call me up and invite me to coffee (like 11am when I'd gotten to bed at 6, not that he could have known that) or go hiking or up to Canada. I suppose I'm not very good at planning adventures and then getting people to make them happen. I find that if I plan anything where a whole load of people come to me, no one really comes and it's not that much fun. That's not to say that I haven't been able to successfully entertain more than 2 people at once, but it's just never planned more than a couple minutes in advance.
Also, I suppose there's also that delicate balence with your friends of how much you care and want to spend time with them and be involved in their lives, and how much they care about you and want you to know what's going on. It's easier to pour your heart out to strangers or even aquintances than it is your best friend sometimes, because you know that those strangers will never get jealous. They will never feel left out of your life just because you were off having a life without them. Maybe they can even look at the situation more objectively and shed new light. I like to think that I'm really good at doing this for people that I'm not heavily emotionally involved with, but maybe that's just because I'm arrogant.
Also, strangers will never get mad at you because you didn't tell them about the situation sooner. I'm not saying that I'm having problems like this with my friends (or Reed, because he's my only real "friend" right now and I hate that) it's just that watching my roommate go though it with his friends is making me think about it. It's also hard when your friends start hanging out without you. You know, when you introduced them and then they cut you out of the picture. That happened with Alicia and Geoffery. I introduced them and the next thing I know they're living together though. However, I think life has a way of working itself out because now they're both in a lot of trouble because Alicia's crazy. I'm glad that I didn't really try and get inbetween them and just remained quietly jealous because it really worked out in my favor. Things are a mess and I'm not involved at all.
That's another thing. Those two people were pretty, as my mom would call them, toxic people. They just pool negative energy and selfishness. I find that I often befriend these people hoping, arrogantly, that I can help them see that life isn't always hard and painful or out to get them or whatever, but they have a way of getting out of my life (most of the time) without too much damage being done to me. Either I move or they do. Brynne was a toxic person. Maybe I just get out of their lives once I realize that I have nothing to offer them and they have nothing to offer me. I feel like the only really messy time I had to get a toxic person out of my life is with my roommate's ex. Part of me feels like I didn't give her a big enough chance, but I think that's because I see how she treats my roommate and once she started treating me like that, even a little, I just got scared. I just don't think that I can have both of them in my life and not be miserable.
They make each other miserable and I can't shoulder all that. I don't want to play messenger either. I don't think Livejournal should play messenger either. Boy howdy, Livejournal is not a very good secret keeper. The internet has such a strong way of connecting people together sometimes, even if they don't want to be connected. I think blogs are very telling too. They're even better than friendster in the way that you can connect with someone who's distantly connected to you. An even scarier thought is they allow you to get to know the friends of your friends without them knowing who you are. Such as, I was reading my friend, Char's blog one day and I was bored and she had another blog connected to it. So, I went there and started reading this guy's journal that was super entertaining and then got bored another day and clicked on one of his friend's blogs. I know know a lot about two people who have no reason to know me at all. It's kind of weird in a way. It's like celebrities. The information only goes one way.
I don't think that friendships should only go one way though. You can't have one friend know everything about the other and leave the other in the dark about your life. If you don't want them to know what you're up to and what you're doing because it will hurt them, then you either need to stop being friends with them because obviously you don't want them in your life anyway, or don't do the things you can't talk about. I know it's hard to tell someone who cares about you something that they don't want to hear because it hurts them and then there's a big ordeal, but I think there's a bigger ordeal if let them hear it down the grapevine. I didn't tell Doug that I cheated on him until I dumped him. I didn't tell him while we were still dating because I knew it would hurt him and I felt guilty keeping it inside. I didn't want to relieve my guilt a little and make his life more complicated. If I discovered that I still wanted to be with him, then no harm was really done. I guess I was really young and my mom had once told me that if you want to be with someone and you end up cheating on them then you shouldn't tell them because it would just make you feel better and them feel awful. I don't really think that anymore. Anyway, I told him when I dumped him because I knew that being dumped hurt, but I didn't want the wound to be reopened when one of his friends told him that I cheated on him. I thought he should hear it from me.
Also, it's really easy to not tell someone something that will hurt them and then let them find out through other means and then completely ignore the whole situation, which makes it worse. If you tell them then you have to deal with it. Hopefully, you're strong enough to deal with it in one sitting so it's not a big long stretched out drama. And if it happens all the time, maybe you shouldn't be friends.
I don't think that there's any way to end a relationship where one party really cares about someone who doens't return their feelings. Ideally, I think the end of friendships are not defined or messing. Someone just moves or stops talking and it's a mutually understood thing. I think that maybe Beth's right in you shouldn't have to have, "This is the function and nature of our relationship" talk with your friends. Then again, some people are dense when it comes to that stuff. Or maybe too arrogant to think that someone who you were once close to doesn't want to be close to you anymore. People are damned complicated.
In conclusion to this mini novel that I've babbled, I can't wait for school to start. I can't wait to actually be around when plans are being made so that I might have a chance of being a part of those plans. I can't wait to be so busy, I don't have time to think about anyone else's problems for longer than the conversation about them. I can't wait for new people. I have a feeling that new freshmen that I hope to meet are way cooler in my head then they're actually going to be, but I like meeting new people. It's exciting. Maybe I'll rediscover my friends and then not feel so lonely anymore.
I suppose I really miss Kris and Jordan for that reason. Even though Jordan didn't always have the best timing to call me up and invite me to coffee (like 11am when I'd gotten to bed at 6, not that he could have known that) or go hiking or up to Canada. I suppose I'm not very good at planning adventures and then getting people to make them happen. I find that if I plan anything where a whole load of people come to me, no one really comes and it's not that much fun. That's not to say that I haven't been able to successfully entertain more than 2 people at once, but it's just never planned more than a couple minutes in advance.
Also, I suppose there's also that delicate balence with your friends of how much you care and want to spend time with them and be involved in their lives, and how much they care about you and want you to know what's going on. It's easier to pour your heart out to strangers or even aquintances than it is your best friend sometimes, because you know that those strangers will never get jealous. They will never feel left out of your life just because you were off having a life without them. Maybe they can even look at the situation more objectively and shed new light. I like to think that I'm really good at doing this for people that I'm not heavily emotionally involved with, but maybe that's just because I'm arrogant.
Also, strangers will never get mad at you because you didn't tell them about the situation sooner. I'm not saying that I'm having problems like this with my friends (or Reed, because he's my only real "friend" right now and I hate that) it's just that watching my roommate go though it with his friends is making me think about it. It's also hard when your friends start hanging out without you. You know, when you introduced them and then they cut you out of the picture. That happened with Alicia and Geoffery. I introduced them and the next thing I know they're living together though. However, I think life has a way of working itself out because now they're both in a lot of trouble because Alicia's crazy. I'm glad that I didn't really try and get inbetween them and just remained quietly jealous because it really worked out in my favor. Things are a mess and I'm not involved at all.
That's another thing. Those two people were pretty, as my mom would call them, toxic people. They just pool negative energy and selfishness. I find that I often befriend these people hoping, arrogantly, that I can help them see that life isn't always hard and painful or out to get them or whatever, but they have a way of getting out of my life (most of the time) without too much damage being done to me. Either I move or they do. Brynne was a toxic person. Maybe I just get out of their lives once I realize that I have nothing to offer them and they have nothing to offer me. I feel like the only really messy time I had to get a toxic person out of my life is with my roommate's ex. Part of me feels like I didn't give her a big enough chance, but I think that's because I see how she treats my roommate and once she started treating me like that, even a little, I just got scared. I just don't think that I can have both of them in my life and not be miserable.
They make each other miserable and I can't shoulder all that. I don't want to play messenger either. I don't think Livejournal should play messenger either. Boy howdy, Livejournal is not a very good secret keeper. The internet has such a strong way of connecting people together sometimes, even if they don't want to be connected. I think blogs are very telling too. They're even better than friendster in the way that you can connect with someone who's distantly connected to you. An even scarier thought is they allow you to get to know the friends of your friends without them knowing who you are. Such as, I was reading my friend, Char's blog one day and I was bored and she had another blog connected to it. So, I went there and started reading this guy's journal that was super entertaining and then got bored another day and clicked on one of his friend's blogs. I know know a lot about two people who have no reason to know me at all. It's kind of weird in a way. It's like celebrities. The information only goes one way.
I don't think that friendships should only go one way though. You can't have one friend know everything about the other and leave the other in the dark about your life. If you don't want them to know what you're up to and what you're doing because it will hurt them, then you either need to stop being friends with them because obviously you don't want them in your life anyway, or don't do the things you can't talk about. I know it's hard to tell someone who cares about you something that they don't want to hear because it hurts them and then there's a big ordeal, but I think there's a bigger ordeal if let them hear it down the grapevine. I didn't tell Doug that I cheated on him until I dumped him. I didn't tell him while we were still dating because I knew it would hurt him and I felt guilty keeping it inside. I didn't want to relieve my guilt a little and make his life more complicated. If I discovered that I still wanted to be with him, then no harm was really done. I guess I was really young and my mom had once told me that if you want to be with someone and you end up cheating on them then you shouldn't tell them because it would just make you feel better and them feel awful. I don't really think that anymore. Anyway, I told him when I dumped him because I knew that being dumped hurt, but I didn't want the wound to be reopened when one of his friends told him that I cheated on him. I thought he should hear it from me.
Also, it's really easy to not tell someone something that will hurt them and then let them find out through other means and then completely ignore the whole situation, which makes it worse. If you tell them then you have to deal with it. Hopefully, you're strong enough to deal with it in one sitting so it's not a big long stretched out drama. And if it happens all the time, maybe you shouldn't be friends.
I don't think that there's any way to end a relationship where one party really cares about someone who doens't return their feelings. Ideally, I think the end of friendships are not defined or messing. Someone just moves or stops talking and it's a mutually understood thing. I think that maybe Beth's right in you shouldn't have to have, "This is the function and nature of our relationship" talk with your friends. Then again, some people are dense when it comes to that stuff. Or maybe too arrogant to think that someone who you were once close to doesn't want to be close to you anymore. People are damned complicated.
In conclusion to this mini novel that I've babbled, I can't wait for school to start. I can't wait to actually be around when plans are being made so that I might have a chance of being a part of those plans. I can't wait to be so busy, I don't have time to think about anyone else's problems for longer than the conversation about them. I can't wait for new people. I have a feeling that new freshmen that I hope to meet are way cooler in my head then they're actually going to be, but I like meeting new people. It's exciting. Maybe I'll rediscover my friends and then not feel so lonely anymore.