Subtitle: My posts know what you did in the dark!
Sub-subtitle: Some people represent the antithesis of what you want in life.
I think once you reach a certain age or point in your life, you understand the importance of quality over quantity: people, time spent, goods and services, etc. I had lunch last week with a friend and she told me about her friend, Nina, who she typically sees only three or four times a year. They are both busy and have time-consuming family obligations. They can’t hang out more often than that and don’t feel particularly compelled to. They text and email regularly, but the in-person visits don’t happen often. The reason why that was on my mind is because I had a similar encounter today. I had lunch with a friend that I typically see maybe twice a year. We email several times a month (unless something major is going on and we wind up talking more often). But it’s fine to let it be what it is. In a different time in my life, I would not have been content that way. Appropriately enough, he is a friend who cautioned me in my last relationship to let things happen or not happen naturally; it’s not a project or a work assignment. (Oy vey, was he ever right!) Candidly, I find that I am much happier this way, too. When you have such an obsessive focus on one particular thing (love, career, finances, friends, church, whatever), it puts too much of your life in one compartment. Then, if something goes wrong, rather than feeling a sting of disappointment, you feel a devastation total. Susan Jeffers talks about this in her book Feel the Fear and suggests that people make a grid with several areas. (http://gymandtonicie.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/wlg1.jpg) If one area is in a rough spot or falls apart, you have many others to see you through. Your “whole life” is not one particular thing but many significant things. As my friend last week said wisely, “There is a difference between someone you might hang out and have a beer with now and then versus the person you would call when you have a breakdown on the side of the road at 2am.” Absolutely. And it’s OK to let those things be what they are. I have a vivid memory of talking to my friend, Marion, in college and she tried to persuade me that not every friendship needs to be a “best friendship” and friendship need not require daily contact. I didn’t completely understand at the time. I was too young and immature to see the bigger picture and comprehend the point she was making. You don’t know what you don’t know. As time has gone on and I’ve had more life experiences, however, I get it now. This is going to sound like a total introvert thing but, in all naked honesty, a lot of people I meet are not people I’d want to be in a close friendship with. My friend from today’s lunch is also an introvert and he said, “I don’t seek out social interaction. Most of the time, I’m fine to be left the hell alone!” LOL, I know that feeling. Looking back on it and seeing things from a different perspective, I think a lot of the social media sites and the drive to have a huge social network stem from things like loneliness, insecurity, vanity, an indulgence of fantasy, and a fear of insignificance. It reminds me of that Brad Paisley song “Online” about the dude who lives with his parents and has no real life but online he’s like Vampire Eric. (Mmm. Vampire Eric.) You can get on Facebook and attempt to convince the world that you are Billy Bad-Ass but that doesn’t make it so. I would have to imagine that is a depressing existence—to be a lazybones in real life and have to gain some manner of validation by creating a faux identity online. “I have a bunch of Facebook friends/Twitter followers and I am trying to convince the world that I am an avant-garde hipster. Please notice me!” And I say that with no fake pathos, but with genuine sincerity. How sad. I’m somewhere between an ISFJ and an INFJ, which are both rarer personality types. I’m a rare bird and I embrace that. I really appreciate tightly knit friendships and the ones I have I try to hang on to. There have been times when I’ve offered advice or tried to “help” friends in situations and I shouldn’t have. I should have butted out and minded my own business but that’s tough when you care about someone and you can see him/her headed for a giant train wreck. Or when that person bitches relentlessly about his/her life but does nothing proactive to change it. I have gotten better about being able to identify and trim those people from my life. (“Ain’t nobody got time for that!”) I may start out with a good intention, but it devolves into a stressful, tense situation and it makes the other person feel judged and goaded. No thanks. If having melodramatic meltdowns in the company stairwell or hoarding cats or being on every dating site known unto man or trying to will it to be 1994 again is your personal bliss, go forth and follow it—just leave me the fuck out of it.
And here’s the good news: when you get to a healthy place emotionally and your self-esteem is good, those people are not attracted to you and you find it easier to avoid choosing them in the first place. I laugh thinking about DJT calling Karl Rove “a total loser.” If you look at someone and think of him/her as a total loser (better when said aloud in your best DJT imitation), why do you want that person around anyway? What are you really getting out of it? I’m a bit ashamed to admit it, but I had a longstanding frenemy relationship that was pretty ridiculous. Being part of it was doing neither of us any favors or service. I think a lot of chicks have at least one particular friend that causes them to grit their teeth and get aggravated yet they keep this person around. Why, I don’t know, but we tend to do it for waaaay longer than we should. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/08/24/tf.why.women.have.frenemies/) I look back on it now and hang my head. When I think about my cadre of people now in comparison to, say, a year or two ago, it’s different in a great way. Some of those friendships have grown closer and some new ones have blossomed. I don’t try to manage it or stress over it; I let things happen as they will. It’s scary to walk into the unknown and wonder what will happen. The Anxiety Demon will tell you all sorts of lies about worst case scenarios, gloom and doom. It’s not true though. There’s a platitude about being the type of person you would want to meet. Cliché or not, when you do that, things change. Not overnight, but sooner than you might expect. I caught myself in an old, destructive pattern the other day. I was reading through some information about a person I didn’t even know and immediately found myself in critic mode. “Hmm. I don’t know about this and that.” Nitpicking. And I forced myself to stop and say, “Nuh-uh. You used to spend too much time like a harpy with your bitter harpy friend dissecting every little thing about people. No more. Find something positive about this woman.” And I did. Turns out she’s a cool chick with the same passion for sustainable farming and gardening as me. I would’ve passed that conversation by if I had approached things negatively.
Life’s good.
