More On Making Friends
It was only four days ago I posted my last entry? Huh. It feels longer.
Anyway, here I am to talk more about making friends. (Yaaaay.)
I said in my last entry that I don't know how to make friends. Well, more or less that's what I said. But I did note the important factor in the friends I have made, which is of course interaction. It's hard to be friends with someone you never interact with. You could admire them from a distance, respect them, even (if popular fiction is anything to go by, heh) love them, but you can't be their friend. Friendship--the making and the maintaining--requires interaction.
So, when putting together a grand plan to create a friendship, the first step seems clear. Interact. And since my goal here is to actively make a friend, not just let a friendship happen, it stands to reason that rather than waiting around for interactions, I should be more proactive. I should make interactions occur.
First, easier said than done. Second, talking in abstracts like this is getting ridiculous.
Side-note: The actual real first step of making a friend would of course have to be finding/choosing the person I would want to be friends with. That step was completed long ago (for relative values of long). And here's where I try to decide how much I'm actually saying here. On the one hand, like I said above, talking only in abstracts would be really annoying for everyone involved. I probably don't actually have that much to say about friendship in the abstract, and I would assume most of the people reading this are at least a little bit also interested in my actual life--i.e., how my actual friend-making efforts are going. On the other hand, this blog is completely public. I have never friend-locked or otherwise filtered an entry and I don't intend to start now. Further, it's not like this blog is a secret from people on campus. There are people who know about it, people who might randomly decide to check it--some of whom might, upon discovering new entries, spread the word to others. And some of whom who might, upon reading these friend-related entries, wonder where they fit in all this. "I thought he considered me a friend!" they might cry, "but he says he has none! Oh, I am wounded!"
Yes, just like that. I only know melodramatic people.
And there is the mostly irrational fear that the very person I am pursuing in the name of friendship might read it, actually realize that they are such person, and... honestly I don't know how one would react to that kind of thing, but in my mental weighing of possibilities, "honored" is rather out-massed by "creeped out."
Luckily for you, dear readers, my predominant mood of late is one that encourages writing out all my thoughts. Unluckily for you, this will result in long entries that occasionally get side-tracked. Like this one. One upon a time, this entry was actually about making friends, not about people reacting to entries about making friends...
So, yeah. Suffice for now to say that there is a specific friend I am trying to make.
In line with the goal above of making interactions occur, I sought reasons to extend lines of communication. To be fair, most of the time they were perfectly valid and reasonable reasons. But sometimes there was just no good reason, and here is where my problems begin to arise. See, let's look at an excerpt from the list of Things I Am Not Good At:
-Engaging in small talk.
-Conversing for the sake of conversing.
-Being the impetus behind social events.
-Thinking of social events.
-Being social.
-Not being awkward.
...And so on.
When excuses to communicate were not handed down to me, I struggled. I thought to myself, "What would a person who's good at making friends do?" And I thought, "Well, they might reach out to talk just because. They might invite people to spontaneous gatherings. Heck, they might just start hanging out somewhere and the sheer gravitic force of their sociability would create a sphere of hangingoutness around them."
I didn't actually think that. I'm not that cool.
But the point was clear. No excuse to communicate? Who needs an excuse? Just communicate! Chat! Fabricate--no, invent--no, create reasons to hang out! People do it! It works!
...Of course, those people probably have a social visibility of greater than, like, 0.1.
(Have I ever talked about my theory of social visibility on here? It's nothing fancy, just me assigning fancy labels to concepts that are pretty obvious. In a nutshell, I have an extremely low social visibility (for reasons I won't get into this entry), which has its advantages--I can listen in on conversations that would never have happened right in front of me had the people talking actually stopped to realize I was right there. But it also rather hampers my ability to make socialness happen. Probably also a factor? The way I consider socialness a thing that happens, rather than just a normal part of my day.)
It's not that the communicating is actually difficult. I have a phone. It sends texts. It also receives them. Voila, communication one 160-character message at a time. I could, in theory, pick up my phone right now and send a text that says simply "Hey. What's up?"
I would never do that, of course, because I never use "what's up" as a greeting, but more importantly, what would the actual purpose of the conversation be? I wouldn't have one! I would probably receive a reply, but then what?
You may point out that the rules of polite conversation require that I be asked in return what is above me, but this is texting we're talking about. Whole different etiquette. But even if I am--what do I say? "Nothing, just wanted to chat." ... ... ... Chat about what?
This is why I'm bad at small talk. Also talking in general.
By the way, anyone who's less socially inept than me can definitely feel free to offer advice.
Anyway, yeah, so the problem isn't the actual act of communicating, but rather the content--or lack thereof and therefor need for. Which can at times be difficult.
Compounding factor: I can't read minds. No, see, I'm trying to make this friend. Every interaction is meaningful to me. From the other direction, though, I have no idea how I am perceived. It's possible I'm perceived as that cool upperclassman who's so fun to hang out with. (...Unlikely.) It's equally possible I'm perceived as that loser guy who keeps sending annoying texts and why won't he just shut up and stay away? But most likely, I'm just one person out of many who is enjoyable enough to spend time with, but not terribly exceptional at all. But because I have no idea where on that spectrum I fall, it's hard to know just how pointless a communication I can get away with. If I'm at the positive end, a small-talk text would probably be welcomed. At the negative end, obviously, it would not. But if I'm in the middle... I don't know. And I feel like I should, but I just lack the experience to know what's considered a normal amount of small-talk among people of that level of acquaintanceship. Add to the difficulty the fact that my overall goal is not just to be tolerated but to actually develop a reciprocal friendship...
...Okay, this entry is getting way too long and unwieldy. And dense. If you're actually reading anymore, good job? I'll try to be less whiny next time. And not overanalyze everything like a crazy person.
...Yeah, right.
Anyway, here I am to talk more about making friends. (Yaaaay.)
I said in my last entry that I don't know how to make friends. Well, more or less that's what I said. But I did note the important factor in the friends I have made, which is of course interaction. It's hard to be friends with someone you never interact with. You could admire them from a distance, respect them, even (if popular fiction is anything to go by, heh) love them, but you can't be their friend. Friendship--the making and the maintaining--requires interaction.
So, when putting together a grand plan to create a friendship, the first step seems clear. Interact. And since my goal here is to actively make a friend, not just let a friendship happen, it stands to reason that rather than waiting around for interactions, I should be more proactive. I should make interactions occur.
First, easier said than done. Second, talking in abstracts like this is getting ridiculous.
Side-note: The actual real first step of making a friend would of course have to be finding/choosing the person I would want to be friends with. That step was completed long ago (for relative values of long). And here's where I try to decide how much I'm actually saying here. On the one hand, like I said above, talking only in abstracts would be really annoying for everyone involved. I probably don't actually have that much to say about friendship in the abstract, and I would assume most of the people reading this are at least a little bit also interested in my actual life--i.e., how my actual friend-making efforts are going. On the other hand, this blog is completely public. I have never friend-locked or otherwise filtered an entry and I don't intend to start now. Further, it's not like this blog is a secret from people on campus. There are people who know about it, people who might randomly decide to check it--some of whom might, upon discovering new entries, spread the word to others. And some of whom who might, upon reading these friend-related entries, wonder where they fit in all this. "I thought he considered me a friend!" they might cry, "but he says he has none! Oh, I am wounded!"
Yes, just like that. I only know melodramatic people.
And there is the mostly irrational fear that the very person I am pursuing in the name of friendship might read it, actually realize that they are such person, and... honestly I don't know how one would react to that kind of thing, but in my mental weighing of possibilities, "honored" is rather out-massed by "creeped out."
Luckily for you, dear readers, my predominant mood of late is one that encourages writing out all my thoughts. Unluckily for you, this will result in long entries that occasionally get side-tracked. Like this one. One upon a time, this entry was actually about making friends, not about people reacting to entries about making friends...
So, yeah. Suffice for now to say that there is a specific friend I am trying to make.
In line with the goal above of making interactions occur, I sought reasons to extend lines of communication. To be fair, most of the time they were perfectly valid and reasonable reasons. But sometimes there was just no good reason, and here is where my problems begin to arise. See, let's look at an excerpt from the list of Things I Am Not Good At:
-Engaging in small talk.
-Conversing for the sake of conversing.
-Being the impetus behind social events.
-Thinking of social events.
-Being social.
-Not being awkward.
...And so on.
When excuses to communicate were not handed down to me, I struggled. I thought to myself, "What would a person who's good at making friends do?" And I thought, "Well, they might reach out to talk just because. They might invite people to spontaneous gatherings. Heck, they might just start hanging out somewhere and the sheer gravitic force of their sociability would create a sphere of hangingoutness around them."
I didn't actually think that. I'm not that cool.
But the point was clear. No excuse to communicate? Who needs an excuse? Just communicate! Chat! Fabricate--no, invent--no, create reasons to hang out! People do it! It works!
...Of course, those people probably have a social visibility of greater than, like, 0.1.
(Have I ever talked about my theory of social visibility on here? It's nothing fancy, just me assigning fancy labels to concepts that are pretty obvious. In a nutshell, I have an extremely low social visibility (for reasons I won't get into this entry), which has its advantages--I can listen in on conversations that would never have happened right in front of me had the people talking actually stopped to realize I was right there. But it also rather hampers my ability to make socialness happen. Probably also a factor? The way I consider socialness a thing that happens, rather than just a normal part of my day.)
It's not that the communicating is actually difficult. I have a phone. It sends texts. It also receives them. Voila, communication one 160-character message at a time. I could, in theory, pick up my phone right now and send a text that says simply "Hey. What's up?"
I would never do that, of course, because I never use "what's up" as a greeting, but more importantly, what would the actual purpose of the conversation be? I wouldn't have one! I would probably receive a reply, but then what?
You may point out that the rules of polite conversation require that I be asked in return what is above me, but this is texting we're talking about. Whole different etiquette. But even if I am--what do I say? "Nothing, just wanted to chat." ... ... ... Chat about what?
This is why I'm bad at small talk. Also talking in general.
By the way, anyone who's less socially inept than me can definitely feel free to offer advice.
Anyway, yeah, so the problem isn't the actual act of communicating, but rather the content--or lack thereof and therefor need for. Which can at times be difficult.
Compounding factor: I can't read minds. No, see, I'm trying to make this friend. Every interaction is meaningful to me. From the other direction, though, I have no idea how I am perceived. It's possible I'm perceived as that cool upperclassman who's so fun to hang out with. (...Unlikely.) It's equally possible I'm perceived as that loser guy who keeps sending annoying texts and why won't he just shut up and stay away? But most likely, I'm just one person out of many who is enjoyable enough to spend time with, but not terribly exceptional at all. But because I have no idea where on that spectrum I fall, it's hard to know just how pointless a communication I can get away with. If I'm at the positive end, a small-talk text would probably be welcomed. At the negative end, obviously, it would not. But if I'm in the middle... I don't know. And I feel like I should, but I just lack the experience to know what's considered a normal amount of small-talk among people of that level of acquaintanceship. Add to the difficulty the fact that my overall goal is not just to be tolerated but to actually develop a reciprocal friendship...
...Okay, this entry is getting way too long and unwieldy. And dense. If you're actually reading anymore, good job? I'll try to be less whiny next time. And not overanalyze everything like a crazy person.
...Yeah, right.