Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

By popular demand, I read Hilary McKay’s A Little Princess sequel, Wishing for Tomorrow, and I’m happy to say I quite enjoyed it! I read the whole thing in one evening: the narrative force tugged me along so fiercely that I almost forwent an ice cream excursion because I wanted so much to keep reading

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Ermie! Dear God.

my standards for friendship really aren’t impossibly high.

Let me tell you an anecdote that hopefully isn't too tl;dr.

When I was an undergraduate, which was exactly 20 years ago, I got in a fight with my then-best friend. I'd had some crisis (I forget what it was) and called her on an emergency basis, and she wouldn't come because she had a date. Particularly back then, it was extremely rare for me to ask anyone for the sort of favor that would seriously inconvenience them, and it may have been the first time I'd ever asked her for anything of the kind. So I was pissed off and felt abandoned when the ONE time I asked, she wouldn't help me with my giant crisis because it would have disappointed her boyfriend.

She told me that I shouldn't and couldn't expect a friend to drop everything and come to my rescue, and that that was the sort of thing that people only did for family or romantic partners. And it was particularly unreasonable to expect anyone to cancel a date with a boyfriend to help their platonic girlfriend.

I said, "But I'd do that for you."

She said, and I still recall how frustrated she sounded, "I know you would, but you're the only person who would! You can't expect other people to be like you! That's not a reasonable thing to expect from a friendship!"

Needless to say, I was completely crushed and not only felt abandoned, but like a freak.

That was 20 years ago. I now have friends who WOULD cancel a date if I was in trouble. I have very literally risked my life for my friends.

The moral of the story is that if you have high expectations of friendship, you will end up with friends who feel the same way.

[asakiyume]

I'm going to copy this message and send it to my younger daughter, who needs to see it. And osprey_archer she feels the same way you do about friendship.

[osprey_archer]

I feel like I have better luck finding people who feel this way about friendship on the internet than IRL. It's a pity we can't all congregate in one place and befriend each other.

[osprey_archer]

I don't know why canon characters with perfectly reasonable names so often get terrible nicknames in fic. I think the worst is in Les Mis movie fandom, where it has become a thing to shorten Enjolras to Enjy. Enjy.

Although Enjy is still not as bad as Ermie.

And wow, that was a wretched thing for your friend to do. Sometimes I feel like having expectations of friends - any expectations at all, not just high ones - is seen as asking too much. Because the point of friendship (as opposed to other family or romantic relationships) is that there are no obligations, or something like that.