friendships

so, admittedly, friendships are quite a large part of most peoples lives. unless, of course, you're some kind of hermit like emily dickenson . . . but that's neither here nor there.

for a long period of my life, i obsessed over being popular . . . or at least having friends. i was extremely concerned with whether or not people liked me and would go to almost any length to ensure that everyone did.

and now i'm sitting here thinking back on it and wondering if that was incredibly stupid.

why am i thinking about this?

well, i learned not long ago that someone--an acquaintance--finds me dull. me. ME. brian alan king. called dull.

the nerve.

obviously, i was highly offended, my ego bruised. this person had behaved particularly rudely to me on one occasion and i had no idea why. when i asked someone else about it (a mutual friend) they said that the reason for the individual's behavior was that they found me boring.

first of all, does thinking someone is boring give you an excuse to be rude? i don't think so. i wasn't raised that way.

this person's behavior troubled me deeply for the better part of a day. thoughts of "i'll show him" and "how dare he" filled my mind.

then--as i was pacing outside behind the library on campus--it occurred to me.

does it really matter what this person thinks?

i know i'm not boring. i find myself rather charming and witty, actually. ;)

and i do have a decent number of friends to prove it. so what does one person's opinion matter? especially someone who i have only been around twice.

if he wants to write me off like that, so be it. not my problem.

his loss.

so i shrugged it off and moved on.

whatever my actions were in the past regarding other people, it was always out of a desire to please them, to make them happy. usually with the ultimate motivation of making them like me.

but i don't live my life for other people. not anymore.

i live my life for me.

which segues rather nicely into my next point. well, less of a point than a musing.

and this isn't much of a segue, either.

but moving right along . . .

do you have those people who always expect something from you but never give anything back?

because i really seemed to be plagued with them. probably because of my aforementioned past role as a people-pleaser.

but really . . . i can think of one person that only calls me every 2 or 3 months when her life is going badly. she talks about her problems and i listen, try to help, but when i start talking about what's going on in my life . . . "oh, hey, i gotta go, bye." and she's gone.

and i'd like to be friends and i want to help her . . . but i'm really beginning to have trouble caring.

there are other people who i talk to much more frequently who just talk, talk, talk about themselves. all the time. and i listen, trying to be a good friend, but never really getting anything back out of them.

isn't a friendship supposed to be mutual? doesn't it go both ways?

and my biggest question right now is . . . how much of this am i supposed to put up with before i bail?

aren't you supposed to have fun with friends? aren't they people you are supposed to make memories with?

so what's the point in being associated with someone who is more interested in sharing their own memories than making new ones with you?

it doesn't seem like there really is one.

at all.

and yet, if i do withdraw from these people, i'm labeled as unsociable and selfish. people get upset because i don't care about every little thing going on in their lives.

what do these people want from me?

and where does that fit in with what i want for myself?

i mean, i know there's a balance . . . and compromise. that's what any friendship--or relationship--is based on.

but if we're really friends, won't we want to know what is going on in each other's lives? won't it come out naturally without me feeling like i am doing some sort of charity by listening to a person? shouldn't i enjoy it?

maybe i don't really have any friends. maybe it's just that i don't know how to handle the ones that i do have. or maybe i just don't know what they want.

but i know what i want.

i want to be myself and spend my time with people who i enjoy being with . . . and who enjoy being with me.

is that really too much to ask?

isn't that what friendship is?

just wondering . . .

bk