Smoke Screens

While lyming on Friday I explained to friends how it is that I have gotten girlfriends in the past, and just how the process works for me. I said to them that, despite the fact that most of the times the friendships which resulted in the relationships I've had had only been about 1-2 months in length, I had already learned a great deal about the girl in that time. And I'd done it by constant communication, and more specifically, by asking the right questions.

A conversation I had with another friend very recently had me thinking about this issue of getting to know other people. I feel like in my life as of late I've been making friends at a more rapid pace than usual, but making really really good friends at a much slower rate than before. I intentionally said 'really really'. Yes, I've made some good friends, perhaps some really good friends, in recent times, and particularly this year. But when I think about it deeply, there's so much about me that so many of these people don't know. I mean, the deeper things, the kinda things that explain how my mood is, or why I'm so against a particular concept, or what makes me tick, or what drives me. But other than that, there are the simple things. Do you know how many siblings I have? What do my parents do? Why do I wanna be what I wanna be? Do I even know what that is?

The reality is, our conversations may be very surface-deep if these are questions you can't answer. These are simple things that a really good friend should know about his/her friend. Now I'm knocking any of you readers, because the truth is I'm not much better on the other end of the stick. But that's not how I used to be. I could say anything I want about the status of the friendships I have now with my crew from Com C. But it doesn't change the fact that we really knew, understood, and cared for each other. Even now they may better be able to relate to me than many people I've spoken to alot more in the past four years. And to me that's sad.

You may say I make alot of fuss re people and friendships. But that's just me. On the weekend I found myself in reflection mode, thinking about things like these. I asked a few people, 'Which do you prefer, intimate one-on-one conversations or a group setting?' I guess that's what was on my mind- the fact that in a group we may be close, but individually, relationships are many times based on the most shallow relations. The sad thing is that, most of the time we really don't notice it. We're so misled about what our friendships really are.

Well, maybe we do... the word is 'choice'. That sort of lifestyle is OK for some people, but it's never really been for me. It bugs me that at the present moment I struggle to find anyone who's really current on the status of my life, all aspects of it. My friends are compartmentalized, separated hopelessly by the interests they share with me. So old classmates are old classmates, church brothers are church brothers, pan people are pan people... rarely, if ever, do the groups intertwine, and rarely does any one person know or understand how my life is affected by all the groups, regardless of which group they themselves fall in.

There's no written law that dictates how your life must be lived. So what you expect out of others is completely up to you. I just get the impression that some of us expect more of ourselves than we're giving and more of others than we're getting, and we don't even realize it.