Later Thoughts

[oceanhawk]

I know this is going to sound pretentious but I will say it anyway: I can't decide if friendship is a series of learned behaviors. Or not.

I forgot to put on my glasses for this.

I finally finished Cat's Eye yesterday after three or four years of having it on my shelf, following me to college and home again, back and forth. Now my thoughts are

Comments

[oceanhawk]

Like...okay...so I have my friends here in Buenos Aires, right? And as I'm beginning to talk to my friends from Bard again that I hadn't had too much contact with, I realized that I'd forgotten how to behave around them. I was behaving how I behave around my Buenos Aires friends, which isn't too different, but just enough that I think it weirds out my Bard friends. In a lot of my friendships, getting to know someone seems to also involve the process of learning what behavior will elicit a positive response and more conversation, and which ones will do the opposite. It's not even in terms of subject conversation or jokes, but more general than that...attitude, physical gestures, even physical contact. I don't know if I'm making much sense.

I was thinking about this the most because there's a girl here who I consider a friend, and I have "learned" how to treat her, but it's so exhausting and annoying that it just isn't worth it.

By the way, I'm not saying all of this is a bad thing or whatever, like "woe, the fall of our modern society into meaninglessness" I was just thinking about it.

[chewy01234]

I agree and disagree. I agree that friendships involve a series of learned behaviors but I don't think they ARE a series of learned behaviors. You know what I mean?

All social relationships involve learned behavior. That's kind of how societies work!

Sometimes you can fall into a routine sure but many times a friendship is thrust into new territory where there is no routine to fall back on. I remember one time Katie Burke had to break some bad news to me and I was basically sobbing on the phone to her. I had never broken down like that in front of ANY of my friends before but she handled it so well. She helped me through a real difficult time in my life and I'll never forget that.

I guess it's those once in a lifetime moments that really show who you really are.