Photo by Ian Schneider taken from Unsplash.com
A reminder for you to pause, breathe, and remember all the (not-so) simple things
Please read with a light heart and a cup of coffee
I love to answer stuff in Quora. Basically, a place where all the civilized, smart people live, without the dirty anonymous stuff (glaring at you, Ask.FM and CuriousCat).
A question I answered a while ago was, What are things that you don't know how to do that most people know?
Some answered lightly. Ranging from the inability to follow direction to disorientation and to tie a tie and using the chopstick. My answer?
How to make friends and keeping them.
Really. Everyone is friends with everyone. Everyone is getting along well with everyone. My friends became friends with my other friends and I'm being left out. A stranger wanted to be a friend of me then completely vanish, removing their social media connections with me. Etc. Etc.
27 years of living and I still don't understand how this thing named friendship work. I lost too many friends that my fingers can count. I left so many friends I couldn't keep. I left all of the toxic friendships I can't bear to see myself in. I left all of the toxic people who did nothing but laugh upon my downfall, told people that I have schizophrenia, and left me when I needed them the most. I lost the friends I cherished dearly, be it on the internet and real-life, but I also happily left the friends who didn't cherish me dearly. I don't need them.
Maybe it has something to do with me being an INFP. Maybe it's my attitude. Maybe because I'm a homebody. Maybe we no longer share the same hobby and interest. It's a-me. Maybe I just don't quite understand how.
Or maybe I demanded too much. Maybe I made it harder for us to meet in the middle. I have wants and needs and I can't bear to be alone. I'm fucking clingy. I demand attention when I need one. But I also have trust issues. I can't get comfortable easily in a day or two. Hell, I don't even feel comfortable yet with friends of five years because I think we're not that close. Having been left by so many people made me broken. Having faced too many rejections made me feel unworthy as a person. I fear for them to leave. I fear for them to forgot my existence as if I don't face existential crisis 24/7. All those lead to thoughts that maybe I don't deserve to be loved by anyone. That maybe I deserve to have all this loneliness until the day I die.
But I do know what I want in a friendship.
I'm a selfish loving asshole of a friend who wants to confide my hopes and dreams as well as my doubts and fears because I want my friend to share them with me too. Text me on 3 AM in the morning while you're crying in bathroom floor because the world came crashing down on you because I'll do just the same to you. Call me when you're happy that your crush finally asked you out, that you finally get the rare Pokemon, how the election result made you cry, how you're close to getting hit by a truck this morning. I'll tell you why Bucky should be together with Steve, why Indonesia need to maximize their maritime resources, a cute cat I just met this afternoon on my way home, and how much I hate boys' attitude in general. I'll cheer for you at your graduation, your job promotion, and I'll standby, offering tissues and endless supplies of warm tea when your dog dies, your marriage failed. Share me your happiness and your sadness. Because I'd do the same for you too.
I'm invested in this friendship and I damn well want you to know it. I might not show it. But you'll definitely know in one way or another.
Do I want a friendship that runs deep and unconditional? HELL YEA. But if that's not my friends' thing then I'm okay with that too. I have friends who catch up to me like, once in a blue moon. I have friends who thought my mom is still alive (it happened, fam), I have friends who only come to me when they have a problem with their boyfriend and leave me once it resolved, I have friends who didn't invite me to their weddings. Guess what? I'm okay with them. Probably should've called them acquaintances, but yeah. I can take it.
Bottom line is, I'm comfortable with you, my friend. And it's all that matters.
And probably one day, you'll be comfortable with me too.
And we'll see each other again when we're old, hairs all white, wrinkles on our faces and grandchildren tagging along. We'll swap stories when we're apart and reminisce when we were young. I'll laugh at your toothless smile, and you'll laugh at me back because my brows aren't on fleek anymore.
And that day, I can finally say that yeah. Maybe I have figured how this friendship works.
Post a Comment
Drop me a nice one (+ cupcakes. Pretty please?)