friends 4eva

Guys,

It's Sunday afternoon and I just got home from the laundromat, which I suppose is a suitable place to think about loneliness, if not friendship. While loneliness might be a state of mind, as per Julia's post, I think that people seek out friends not only to combat loneliness, but also to avoid looking lonely. Because even more than people don't want to actually be alone, people don't want to appear friendless. It's why even for me, who likes to be alone, it's hard to eat out as a party of one, or admit to staying in a weekend night yet again.

It's funny, I have this vision of myself as a loner, but when I look back now, there were only a few years of my life where I actually was a loner, and they were all when I was a sad little gay in high school. Since then there was you guys in college and living with Michelle for the past two years and I guess I kind of have to abandon that descriptor now. Of course living with a significant other is kind of a cop-out. You always have a friend with you, even when you move to a new place or are abandoned by your group of catty girlfriends (about that? I'm with you Alex, I don't think I've ever seen that trope in action), the flip-side being that you can go through life never seeking out new friends because you already have one. I understand how people end up abandoning all of their friends when they get a new boy/girlfriend - when it feels for the moment like all of your social needs are being met by the one person - but for me actively seeking outside friendships has only resulted in good things for my relationship and my own mental health within the relationship.

As a result of my active decision to seek friends, my friend-making is one ability I think I've improved in myself in the last year or so (adulthood!). I totally agree with you, Alex, that making friends takes lots of effort, (so much chatting! so much doing things out when you'd rather be on your couch reading!), but funnily enough the effort is usually expended on the ones who aren't going to work out. I mean, who wants a friend who takes that much effort? It's the weeding out that ends up being difficult, because the ones you'll end up real friends with are the ones who are easy to be with. I would not have been wandering down to your room in Max to play with your cellphone first year if you hadn't been easy for me to be around. We gravitate toward the people with whom it is easy to be. I suppose some people like a combative or anxious friendship, but comfort is one of my priorities in life, and I prefer my friends to come that way.

Ease of togetherness is one of the reasons I think our third year was a really ideal friendship situation for me. That's not to say the four of us always got along, or there was never tension about one thing or another. I've glossed over a lot of that in hindsight, but even without any glossing there was a level of comfort in being together that is markedly different from the happy hours and witty gatherings Alex described. An added bonus is the network Rita was talking about. Another added bonus was Beatrice. And Buffy.

Like Alex and Julia, most of my close friends now are girls. The only time in my life when the majority of my friends were been male was in high school. This pretty much means that it is possible, at least for me, to be friends with members of the gender to which I am attracted. There's also not much of a difference between my friendships with straight and gay women. I have never had much of a romantic interest in someone who was already a friend. The one time in my life I had mostly male friends was when I was coming to terms with my sexuality. I don't really remember, but it would make sense that that was one time I would have been less comfortable in friendships with women.

Time to put away the laundry.

xoxo,
Becky

p.s. Is anyone else addicted to the puppy cam?