[Face Down] – The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
So as I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve made a new friend. This post is about making friends…and keeping them.
Not to go on some emo tirade or anything, but I have noticed in 2010 that I went through quite a lot of friends. Mind, I kept the same group from the start of the year, but the separate individuals were worked through really quickly. It got to the point where Jen called me a friend-whore.
If you’ve been reading all my posts this year, you might have noticed that a few names had come and gone. That’s the thing that I want to talk about today: the fact that the names are so noticeably there, then so noticeably missing.
When I first make a friend, I’m on it 24/7. I’m fun, I talk lots, I discuss all sorts of topics, I talk about them all the time. Then, after what I suppose is the “honeymoon period” for friends, it just dies out.
I think, though, it’s more to do with how I made friends with them in the first place that really dictates if the friendship “goes the distance” or if it’s a “one-week-stand” sort of deal.
Take for example, the friends I made at the start of the year at uni who I’m still friends with now – Josh and Anna, and by some abstract extension, Annie and Jen, seeing as Arts sort of made us a renewed group; the Melbourne Uni lunch group (Mandy etc) – were made as a matter of course. Josh and Anna were doing my course and because Anna knew me and Josh knew Annie, naturally we became a sort of group. Mandy etc I met through Dot, who I’ve known since I came to Australia, so when I saw Dot at uni of course I went to say hi, and thus met the rest of the huge-ass PLC and MHS collection I now have.
The new friend that I made, I made through a friend who I made through another friend who I made through a friend who I made through being suspended. (I loved writing that sentence, I really did.) I can’t reveal the first two friends’ names seeing as they’re not online and I can’t ask for their permission, so I’ll hide their names to Es- and Jan. The last two friends as you probably can guess are Lily and Meghan.
The thing about Es- is that we only became friends through coincidence. I was talking to Jan on Skype and she just happened to receive a call from Es-, and so Es- went on Skype as well and we hit it off teasing Jan, and so we became friends. It became very apparent recently that Es- and I have close to nothing in common with each other – if anything, our tastes in music, film, TV and celebrities are polar opposites. But we still manage to get along.
Jan and I have almost everything in common (save height and other physical attributes…oh and music taste but that’s my next point). I guess it’s too early to say because I’d really only started talking to her 2 weeks ago but so far our friendship has been coasting on the fact that whenever there’s a dull moment, we start discussing FRIENDS, the catalyst of our friendship.
What I’m trying to sketch here is that, perhaps, at least for me, opposite really do attract, and similarities, while fun at the start, ends up being not enough.
Okay, another example: Dani and I are pretty close. We have a lot of similarities…NOW. But when we first met we were very different to each other, and it was through being friends for 4-5 years that we developed a similar music taste and social belonging.
Jen and I, Annie and I, we’re STILL immensely different people, even after 4-5 years of being around each other and getting to know each others’ likes and dislikes. Catherine and I – apart from her awesome music taste – are almost two sides of two completely different coins, but when we hang out it’s just nice and easy. Josh and I had some similarities but I think it was because of our similar views on issues that we got along.
Music, though, I think music is a huge sticking point for two people to get along. For example, Es- and I have completely different taste in music but so far we’re just avoiding the topic. At some point, I’m pretty sure, the fact that she hates some of my favorite songs will come up in a very ugly way that we can’t laugh over. I can’t be sure of it, seeing as she’s practically the queen of Meh, but you know, it’s a huge deal. Lily had said, upon giving me a CD full of RnB, that it’s almost a “make or break” for our friendship whether I like those songs, even though we’d already established a firm friendship based on her love for Maroon 5.
It sounds sucky, but so far it seems that the friends I make out of them being there, instead of the ones I actively sought out, are the ones I manage to keep around the longest (I COULD view it as a comment on my skills as a friend finder but that’s just depressing). They don’t necessarily have the most in common with me, or agree with me on a lot of points, but they’re the ones whose friendship didn’t burn out super fast and die.
It’s a problem, because I do envision my ideal partner as someone who has a lot in common with me and they like all the things I like and we finish each other’s sentences…but maybe I can still get that, they just might not start out that way.
Personal growth wow.
Alex.
I especially like how sometimes, because the flavor isn’t distributed properly, one particular popcorn would taste saltier and greasier than the others. Mm, cholestrole…
Okay that wasn’t quite the one I was looking for, but it’s close enough.
Because you don’t look stupid enough on the train bopping to your music, but to actually be trying to suppress a very creepy smile when listening to Hamish trying to read Fred Baset while being chased down by cars…
(Whoever was playing that during the screen shot is an epic noob…I mean LOOK AT IT!)
And finally, I know this is a waste of time, I’m addicted to uberly long phone calls. I’ve been calling (or have been called by) Catherine for nearly every night and we’re just chatting and chatting and I’m not letting her study. Which is shit for her because she has an exam on Wednesday. But phone conversations are awesome, and as Train said, “Can you imagine no…five hour phone conversations, the best soy latte that you ever had, and me?”
I thought that was a funny picture, because that’s what Catherine’s probably doing every time.
Could her shirt BE any more open?
the life and laughs of me 