Considerations of reorganizations.

I never thought I would miss having only a few friends.

But I do. I miss the days when I only had one or two real friends. Because in those days, my friendships were real and valuable. But for a long time now I've been stuck in this trap where I have lots of pseudo-friendships where I'm the only one who is reaching out to people. I do all the work in the friendship, they just show up. I'm tired of it.

Back when I only had a few friends, we hung out all of the time. I felt like I was missed when I was gone. I called them, they called me, I was invited to places, everything. I thought having more friends would mean I would have more friends like this. But I was wrong. I only found that I would, in effect, lose all of my friends, because a one-sided friendship is not a friendship at all.

I think I'm going to reorganize how I spend time with people. I have a small list of people whom I really believe I connect with (my girlfriend is of course included in this list of friends) and I am going to be dedicated to regularly spending time with. Anyone else...take them or leave them. If they reach out to me, I will reciprocate that and invite them back. But if people don't contact me anymore, don't do half the work of keeping a friendship together, I won't try anymore. Because frankly, it's exhausting.

How many times have I found out when people are available, painstakingly fit them into my schedule, picked them up, took them somewhere and led conversation? How many times have I tried to make them feel welcome in my life, to encourage them to reach back? How many times have I watched them do this to anyone but me, and I would wait and wait to see myself treated likewise only to be disappointed?

Now you might think that I'm just a special case, and not everyone just reaches out to people like I do. And you would be wrong, because they do. I would think I would at least have one friend who would be a "special case" like me and be "into" asking people out. But I don't. I can't remember more than about two instances where people did that for me. Maybe you are also thinking that many of my friends just don't reciprocate the kind of friendship I feel for them and would just like to hang out with the people they like best. And that's fine, but that would mean I have no friends. And I just can't accept that.

So, for the select few close friends I have, I will be patient with them and their busy schedules and eagerly await when we can spend time together, and if other people reach back out to me like I have to them alone for over a year, then I will continue to be their friend. But I am a grad student now, and I have a job, and I'm busy and I will not stand to be ill-treated anymore.

Perhaps someday I will feel differently and change my mind. But until then, this is the law.

I expect I am saying a lot of goodbyes now.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for no more faux friends.

On types of friendships.

Here are some of my observations on friendships.

Some friendships are those that just sort of flop. You hang out with them at some part of your life and then at some point you just stop seeing each other around anymore. They were a part of your life for a little while and then they become a stranger again.

There are also those friendships where you see each other all the time but never really talk. You're friendly and warm but you're not really friends.

Then there are those friendships which are like the previous two. One day you're close and then another you kind of wonder whatever happened between you two, and you never really hang out anymore. You're always nice and talk about how you should see each other again, but only one person or neither is really willing to reach out and reconnect. If this happens to you a lot, you kind of wish you had friendships like the next category...

...which I lovingly call the "best friends forever" category. These sort of friends are very enthusiastic about each other and "inseparable." I wish I had these sorts of friendships, but I can't ever really recall having a friend like that. Or, well, at least an instance where it was mutual, which is just uncomfortable.

Then again, I am very lucky to have the best sort of friendships, which are the friendships frozen in time. You know when you have a friend and don't see them for a while, but when you do, it's like nothing ever happened in between? You just sort of pick up where you left off and everything is like it once was.

That's what a real friendship is like.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream for friendships frozen in time.