November 13, 2001

Friendship

prev home mail archive next Momentary Thought There's something fundamentally wrong with me. The other night a good song came on the radio, and I started dancing to it, or trying to. My movements felt stiff and stilted. I've forgotten how to dance. Good God, I need to fix that. High/Low High: The drug manufacturer is no longer producing my rescue inhaler, which I was dissatisfied with anyway. Low: My doctor has yet to prescribe me a replacement. Current Obsession Refinancing our mortgage. Grin Source "Everybody Loves Raymond" last night - "At least your moustache is distracting me from your cellulite!" Singing Nothing, really. A Year Ago More or less I was having a bad Monday. Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes

I've been having an e-mail conversation with a friend of mine today, about a problem she's having with a friend of her's. It made me start thinking about what I want in a friendship. What my expectations are toward the other person, and what my expectations are of myself as a friend. I've never been a "group" type person. I've always been the type to make friends hard and fast with one or two people, keeping everyone else on the periphery. In grade school, up until fourth grade, my "best friend" was Trisha. Then she moved, and I switched schools, and from 5th grade to 7th grade it was Elizabeth. Then Elizabeth said something mean about me in a phone conversation with a boy, that I was listening in on (God bless three way calling), so that ended that. In retrospect, what *is* it about adolescents that they want to do that "Call such and so, don't tell him/her that I'm on the line, and ask them what they *really* think about me" thing? It almost never ends well. Carrie joined our school partway through 7th grade, and we were best friends through to the end of 10th grade. Then her parents decided to home school her, and I met X(m), and spent the last year of highschool (I combined 11th and 12th grade) in a fog of pre-nuptual stupidity. X(m), of course, *had* to be my best friend because! he's! my! husband! Feh. I met Calvin soon after X(m) and I moved to Arizona. He and I became fast friends, during and after my relationship with X(m). The rest, as they say, is history. Calvin's been my best friend for six years. And *not* just because he's my significant other. Now, I fully believe that your spouse *should* be your best friend, but your best friend isn't necessarily your spouse by default. Did that make sense? It's that "lion named Leo/every Leo is a lion" logic circle crap. Moving on. The expectations I had of friends when I was a child is the same in some respects, and different in some respects, than the expectations I have now as an adult. I expected loyalty then, and I do now. I expected honesty then, and I do now. I expected shared interests then, and I do now. As a child, nothing was more devastating than finding out that I liked someone more than they liked me. Somehow, that just doesn't play into things any more. I like hanging out with the folks I hang out with, they still consent to hang out with us, so I figure they must like us. Why couldn't it have been that simple in my teenage years? Why did there have to be definitions and scores? Why did we have those damned conversations of "On a scale of one to ten, where do you rate your friendship with me?" Heaven forfend if I said "8" and they said "4". I'm much less hip-pocket than I used to be. "Living in one's hip pocket" means constantly being around them, or having them around you. Lord have mercy, if a friend decided to hang out with someone else on the weekend instead of me, it was a Portent of Doom and Gloom. Now, it didn't usually happen, because the friends I had were just as hip-pocket with me as I was with them. But with friendships that intense, you have some pretty passionate fights, too. Which meant that if we weren't "speaking", neither one of us were doing *anything*. No other friends to hang with, and really no desire to do much until we "made up". Which usually was a matter of hours, or days. Until the Final Break, which was usually a fight of epic proportions. Then, the person you declared to be best friends with until you died became your mortal enemy that you "never really did like much anyway". Children are such creatures of extremes. Nowadays, friends drop off the radar for days and weeks at a time, and we drop off theirs. And it's no big deal, because we know we're all a phone call away, and if either of us can't accept an invitation to do something, it's not a personal slight. We just try again the next time. Being judgemental came up in a shallow way as children, in as far as who was hanging out with which person, and the clothes they wore, and the music they listened to. You were either cool or you weren't, and your personal tastes were dissected. It's just the way of things basically from age nine until the end of high school. But being judgemental as adults is something I simply don't tolerate. Be my friend and offer me advice if I'm doing something that you might see as harmful. I'll do the same for you. But don't make the offering (and sometimes refusal) of advice as pivotal to whether a friendship can be continued, if it's not something that I'm doing to harm *you*. My life, my decisions. You have that same right as my friend, and it's something that I expect of myself as a friend. To nutshell this, what I expect from a friend, and what I expect of myself as a friend, are the same. Loyalty, caring, honesty, and similar interests (though diverging interests can make for interesting conversation and learning). No judgement. No pressure. The ability to socialize on a hit-and-miss basis, without feeling neglected if time goes by without contact. But, the wish that we *could* spend more time together (could, not should). Comfort, support, and generosity. That's what I want, because that's what my friends will get from me.