Sunday, April 15, 2007
personals
| 23yr old female, genuine, good sense of humour, seeks friend for idle banter, coffee outings, op-shop crawls and sharing of deepest secrets. Non-smokers, social drinkers preferred, VTPR. Honestly, I'm a pretty shit friend. My track record is littered with broken hearts, mine included. I've shed more tears over lost friends than lost lovers and my photo albums are filled with pictures of people I no longer want to see. I forget to write, I don't return calls, and a lot of the time all I want to do is sit alone in my room and knit, thinking bitter twisted thoughts about the evil pricks who've wronged me. There's a fair measure of self-loathing thrown in and I'll write some scathing poetry on my MySpace page. Looking back on the parade of best friends, confidantes, acquaintances, nemeses and other people who've chosen to hang out with me, I've come to realise that finding a good friend is vastly more difficult than finding a romantic partner. The process is much the same. Perhaps you're sitting in a tutorial at the beginning of term and another girl sits down next to you. You shyly introduce yourself. Maybe you end up working on an assignment together. Perhaps - amazingly - you share a passion for obscure Uzbekhistanian folk embroidery. This is where it gets serious; you get her phone number. How long should you wait to call? Don't look too eager, you don't want to appear desperate, a loner, someone who actually needs a friend. So a week later you call her up and meet in town. Sparks fly, one thing follows another and before you know it you're sharing a bottle of wine and revealing your deepest secrets to your new friend. The catastrophe is complete. Only, with friends, you don't get that extra ingredient of lust that can make it easier to form a romantic attachment. You have to genuinely like each other and share some interests. Balancing friendships can be a juggling act, requiring dextrous management of time and a seemingly inexhaustible energy. I've never been good at this part. I always seem to neglect someone or seem to take more than I give, yet irritate others with my penchant for servo runs at times better reserved for sleeping. I'm either too much of a friend, or slack in my friendly duties. And when the inevitable breakup does come, it's like a part of your life is ripped away. That person who changed schools, moved away, got married and disappeared in a mountain of dirty nappies, or simply decided you weren't worth the effort anymore ended up just as soul destroying as any vile ex-boyfriend. Sometimes, years later, you cross paths as different people and realise that there was actually a reason you liked hanging out with each other. You can start again knowing that time spent in each other's company isn't wasted. It's a good feeling to have. Purely selfishly, it means you don't have to start from the start all over again. Now I just have to learn how not to piss off my friends so much in the first place! I've perpetrated unforgivable things like forgetting birthdays, spreading scurrilous gossip, holding grudges long after their use-by date and lusting after forbidden boyfriends. But for some reason I've managed to hang on to some friends. We've insulted each other in the nastiest of ways, knowing we don't mean a word of it. I can forget to write, or call, and when we see each other again it'll be like only days instead of months have passed. For some reason people still want to hang out with me, so I mustn't be a complete douchebag (or maybe it's just because there's always food and beer in my fridge). Who knows, it's a mystery. ****  In less introspective news, I went on a sewing binge yesterday. It was so nice to find that my green vintage Husqvarna, bought for $5 at a jumble sale, doesn't throw a hissy fit when confronted with 9 layers of interfaced twill. <3 <3 <3 My back, however, is not feeling the love at all. Ow! |
posted by Enken at 5:00 AM
