A question of silence.

I really like getting asked good questions.

By good question, I mean really open-ended questions, like "I heard you like this. Why do you like it?" Not questions like "How was your day?" Or the inane "What's up?"

When people ask me those sorts of questions, I really feel like they want to know me.

Well, it feels like I don't get asked a whole lot of questions. I'm not sure what to make of it sometimes. I'd like to think that people just don't know how, but I also don't want to insult there intelligence, since it's pretty elementary to know how to ask a question that has an answer other than "yes" or "no."

Sometimes I get talked at a lot. I suppose that's a sign that I'm a good listener, but after a while I wonder if the other person would give a hoot about me if I had no ears. What's worse is, later when I get to spend time with a good listener, like one of my best friends Brian, I talk his ears off. Then I feel bad because I'm a hypocrite. :(

I think worse than that, though, is just plain silence. When someone you know hasn't spoken to you in a long time, and they just won't. You wonder if they care that they say they want to spend time with you and don't follow up. They pretend like they are not all talk and they never promised you they'd be in touch...

I'm really grateful for the handful of people I know who really seem to want to spend time with me and know me. I suppose that you really can't make people your friends - all the people who still talk to me are none of the people I spent a year and a half trying to love. I will never understand how people can accept kindness and pretend nothing's wrong when there is no return gesture and no sign they even care to talk to you.

I suppose I've given up on trying to hide that I'm hurt, at this point. I'm always afraid that people will think I want attention. I just want to get this out in the only way I know how; by writing.

I'm mad at the fake friends I spent a year and a half pouring out my love and energy trying to befriend and understand and be there for. I'm tired of being the only one to follow through with my words and really invite people and welcome them into their lives, only to never have any of it reciprocated. I'm really really angry that my experiment in just giving up on doing all the work in the friendship ended in a bunch of half-hearted invitations to hang out that end up being forgotten. I feel like I'm an idiot because I can't just appreciate the friends that I've managed to keep all these years and forget about the few people that have hurt me.

I hate how I feel like my relationship is just wearing me out and I don't know how much longer I can take it. I hate how I can never forget about girls I used to like and how I still really care about them like a brother after all these years and they can still treat me like crap and I never care because I just want to know they're doing OK.

I hate how I've been fooled into believing I had a lot of friends and wasted so much of my time on people who really don't care about me.

I'm also tired of my postscript. There was no dream that I dreamed. It's all a lie. I'll never be another Aragorn. I'll never be a chosen hero like Link. I'll never even be a cool, hip, electric Pope like John Paul II. I'll always be me, except in my imagination. That's where my dream has always been - my imagination. And my imagination is not real.

I hate how I know I'm going to regret this post and I'm nihilistically posting it anyway.

Secrets.

I am fascinated by silence.

Most of my day today has been filled with silence. My social plans fell through, and so I ended up spending a lot of time alone with a book...I went on a long walk. I even went into church and hung out with Jesus for a while (I intended to go to mass, but it turns out they had adoration and moved it to 7).

Silence often speaks louder than noise, and gets the point across better. When you don't have the distraction of things on the outside whistling for your attention, you can better hear your voice on the inside. You can more easily reflect, stop and think. God finds it easier to talk to you, too.

I'm even more fascinated by silence when it comes to the way people interact. The things we are unwilling to say to one another...the one "secret" that everyone knows but will not discuss. Silence really does speak loudly.

I found out today that most people are oblivious to the observations I make of other people. Sometimes I can tell how people feel about me, or other people, just in the way they walk, the way they look at what's around them, the way they position themselves, their expressions, what they say and how they say it. Sometimes I'll move people like chess pieces into entering a situation or conversation where they will unconsciously reveal something they're thinking, all without them ever knowing it. It's not an exact science, but it works most of the time. Am I manipulative or just clever? Or perhaps you think I'm bullshitting you. I'm not out to convince anyone of anything, so make your choice any way you like!

This sort of thing has come into play in my life recently. I have a group of friends who I am sure all know what I know, but none of us are willing to say anything about it. It truly is for the best, since it just wouldn't be prudent to talk about it at this point, but it still fascinates me how we all hint to each other our knowledge but never quite openly speak about it. It makes me literally giggle sometimes!

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that silence was given its proper respect.