what is friendship?
So nearly a week after I went goofy in the head freaking out about how to cope with the Return of Melba. (melba toest is maureen's clown name) Now I'm finally able to really ask the question, what the fuck do I want anyway? What do I want from her? You know, if you start interacting with some people you're going to pretty much adopt them. what I mean is, they're so incredibly needy their needs with overwhelm you and take over too much of your focus. Occasionally driving someone to the ER is a friend's job but some folks will need you for these "intense crises" on a frequent basis! Monthly or worse! Whether it's that they're always broke and leaning on you for the resources needed to visit (your coffee, food, house, smokeables, car, movie money, etc or sit around being poor with them) or that they're always calling you because nobody else is available for the bazillion stupid things humans don't like to do alone.
I think the problem here is I perceive an inequality that isn't in my favour. That's a problem right off the bat. That I percieve comparisons at all, that's unfortunate. But let me describe the inequality. Firstly it can be said that Maureen was very generous with me in the early years. I was the poor friend with empty hands coming by mooching whatever might come down the pipe. From recent comments, the impression I gave of graspingness was quite definite. So while my old bitch perception may not have the memories to examine or the long view to catalogue it, I know without needing proof that I owe the world for a good 15 years of being a whiney mooch. it's why I don't try and get out of it when I need to step up for someone else. Maureen and the community of which she is a part paid it forward through me and I owe it back out. That's how that crap works.
So back to why I think I can't cope with being friends. I really need to sort out what happened to me because it will happen again if I don't. I can't live with that outcome, it's too disabling and it's not okay to just bull through it and count the crazy days as lost.
lets see, a woman I've always loved, who just spreads sunshine wherever she goes, returns to town. Oh I know she's a church mouse. She'll need support if she becomes an actual friend because she needs right now! I guess part of my upset was thinking I'll be called on to provide heavy support and then, after, ignored again for years.
BINGO! It's being ignored after being used that pisses me off so bad and sets me on an emotional hurricane of tears. Yep. I feel it inside. She's capable of that! So I need to stop thinking of my energy output as anything other than the activity of the moment. Like I tell myself when it happens. I mean, I have that part right. It's this part, where I reflect on the results of my efforts. I don't seem to focus on the pleasure that the moment gave me. It's like I can't feel it the next day anymore. Instead I go on and on trying to figure out how or if I can create a repeat asap. Like young lovers discovering each other, one round of pleasure just sets you up for the next. Next morning you're already getting started on another day of begging off work to mostly sit around talking about eyelashes and fingernails and body parts you like. If your paramour is busy for a week or two it's pretty devastating. I think for me, knowing i couldn't go by and just carry on enjoying all the compliments (I really need to put a stop to that if they are going to keep it up) and the comedy. Yeah, Maureen and Mark laugh a lot, riff off jokes well, start jokes well, play straight and goofy well, and when it's them and myself the comedy can really get flying, even to the point of doing song and dance numbers together.
THATS why it matters to me. I need to focus on that, and how to make that happen frequently enough without being so pushy I get in their faces and become unwelcome again. I WANT those moments. Yep. I need to heal the anxiety that screws me up before and after. I need to throw out the social abacus that has me quantifying what people do for each other and understand what I'm after does not have to mean becoming instant family to each other.
I guess I only have two modes, acquaintance or family. You are one or the other, and that's something people don't like. There's a third option where you're somewhere in between the two and I never understood that dynamic. If I like you, you're my family and I want to just care about you and for you! I want to be there when you break your toe and need a ride. I sabotage myself in the moment by resenting the lack of prior notice. Need can't be scheduled. I also easily get to where I'm just putting myself out for others and since it rarely happens in reverse (I never call, I'm always feeling unworthy or too ill to reach out) I quickly start getting resentful of exactly what I wanted to occur in the first place!
I owe Tom an apology for the lack of grace I displayed at the start of the night. I mean, I know I made him feel shittier than the event itself made him feel, and that he already pretty much felt like a heel, and I shouldn't have done that. I should have thanked him for the opportunity to be a good person.
I'm so glad all this is happening here on a blog, quickly, and quietly. I'd hate to share all this crazy with the people named herein. Well, I wouldn't hate sharing it, they would, and I'd hate that.
I think the bottom line and slogan I need to use is "nobody needs to know what others think of them."
It's not the content of intent that matters, or the private tired thoughts that matter, it's the actions. Insofar as Maureen and Mark are concerned, they acted in a loving and caring way to give me a nice time and that is the act of someone who does care. They just can't be expected to carve out a slice of their lives for me every other day or even every week and I just don't have enough people around to not want it. Frankly I wouldn't. I would get tired of even Maureen being around I'm sure. Well, no, I could marry that ditzy blonde and she still wouldn't annoy me. Ok, I don't mean I want to marry her, I mean in the sense of being that tied down and stuck with her. I've never thought of her romantically, unlike some women I've known. ~giggle~ she's not my type I like them young, skinny, fragile, and innocent. Boy it's good I was born female and pursued a heterosexual direction. I had a choice, unlike so many homosexuals. I am bisexual and could choose the easier path.
Yeah, there's a childish part of me wants to own the fairy, contain the clown, keep the pretty lady to myself. That's pretty horrid and it's part of the emotional complications. Like a little thorn under the saddle making things just a bit more exciting. Ok, so.
I need to realize I don't need that, probably would regret it if I got it, and it's not available to me anyway. I need to realize that all I really want is more exposure to these cheerful people and if I just can tone myself down I can even reach out and be a person they actually do want to know.
I think that's part of it too. I really want to be someone people want to know. I want to be seen as cheerful, useful, and a source of wonderful surprises like my chocolates. That's who I want myself to be and that's who I become when I'm relaxed and feeling loveable. Okay, so it comes with a side order of little girl babbling noise which when parsed becomes ridiculously deep analysis of things best left ignored. Even so, you know you could just smile and say "shut up now please." Then hand me another bucket of paint because there is never a time I wouldn't rather be working on something.
I'm going to saddle up that courage horse this winter and go over to that house and see if I can make myself useful or get invited along on something. I'm going to give myself once a month to make contact. I'm going to teach my child self to stfu and put away the social abacus.
right now I"m going to go compose a proper apology and thank you to Tom.
I think the problem here is I perceive an inequality that isn't in my favour. That's a problem right off the bat. That I percieve comparisons at all, that's unfortunate. But let me describe the inequality. Firstly it can be said that Maureen was very generous with me in the early years. I was the poor friend with empty hands coming by mooching whatever might come down the pipe. From recent comments, the impression I gave of graspingness was quite definite. So while my old bitch perception may not have the memories to examine or the long view to catalogue it, I know without needing proof that I owe the world for a good 15 years of being a whiney mooch. it's why I don't try and get out of it when I need to step up for someone else. Maureen and the community of which she is a part paid it forward through me and I owe it back out. That's how that crap works.
So back to why I think I can't cope with being friends. I really need to sort out what happened to me because it will happen again if I don't. I can't live with that outcome, it's too disabling and it's not okay to just bull through it and count the crazy days as lost.
lets see, a woman I've always loved, who just spreads sunshine wherever she goes, returns to town. Oh I know she's a church mouse. She'll need support if she becomes an actual friend because she needs right now! I guess part of my upset was thinking I'll be called on to provide heavy support and then, after, ignored again for years.
BINGO! It's being ignored after being used that pisses me off so bad and sets me on an emotional hurricane of tears. Yep. I feel it inside. She's capable of that! So I need to stop thinking of my energy output as anything other than the activity of the moment. Like I tell myself when it happens. I mean, I have that part right. It's this part, where I reflect on the results of my efforts. I don't seem to focus on the pleasure that the moment gave me. It's like I can't feel it the next day anymore. Instead I go on and on trying to figure out how or if I can create a repeat asap. Like young lovers discovering each other, one round of pleasure just sets you up for the next. Next morning you're already getting started on another day of begging off work to mostly sit around talking about eyelashes and fingernails and body parts you like. If your paramour is busy for a week or two it's pretty devastating. I think for me, knowing i couldn't go by and just carry on enjoying all the compliments (I really need to put a stop to that if they are going to keep it up) and the comedy. Yeah, Maureen and Mark laugh a lot, riff off jokes well, start jokes well, play straight and goofy well, and when it's them and myself the comedy can really get flying, even to the point of doing song and dance numbers together.
THATS why it matters to me. I need to focus on that, and how to make that happen frequently enough without being so pushy I get in their faces and become unwelcome again. I WANT those moments. Yep. I need to heal the anxiety that screws me up before and after. I need to throw out the social abacus that has me quantifying what people do for each other and understand what I'm after does not have to mean becoming instant family to each other.
I guess I only have two modes, acquaintance or family. You are one or the other, and that's something people don't like. There's a third option where you're somewhere in between the two and I never understood that dynamic. If I like you, you're my family and I want to just care about you and for you! I want to be there when you break your toe and need a ride. I sabotage myself in the moment by resenting the lack of prior notice. Need can't be scheduled. I also easily get to where I'm just putting myself out for others and since it rarely happens in reverse (I never call, I'm always feeling unworthy or too ill to reach out) I quickly start getting resentful of exactly what I wanted to occur in the first place!
I owe Tom an apology for the lack of grace I displayed at the start of the night. I mean, I know I made him feel shittier than the event itself made him feel, and that he already pretty much felt like a heel, and I shouldn't have done that. I should have thanked him for the opportunity to be a good person.
I'm so glad all this is happening here on a blog, quickly, and quietly. I'd hate to share all this crazy with the people named herein. Well, I wouldn't hate sharing it, they would, and I'd hate that.
I think the bottom line and slogan I need to use is "nobody needs to know what others think of them."
It's not the content of intent that matters, or the private tired thoughts that matter, it's the actions. Insofar as Maureen and Mark are concerned, they acted in a loving and caring way to give me a nice time and that is the act of someone who does care. They just can't be expected to carve out a slice of their lives for me every other day or even every week and I just don't have enough people around to not want it. Frankly I wouldn't. I would get tired of even Maureen being around I'm sure. Well, no, I could marry that ditzy blonde and she still wouldn't annoy me. Ok, I don't mean I want to marry her, I mean in the sense of being that tied down and stuck with her. I've never thought of her romantically, unlike some women I've known. ~giggle~ she's not my type I like them young, skinny, fragile, and innocent. Boy it's good I was born female and pursued a heterosexual direction. I had a choice, unlike so many homosexuals. I am bisexual and could choose the easier path.
Yeah, there's a childish part of me wants to own the fairy, contain the clown, keep the pretty lady to myself. That's pretty horrid and it's part of the emotional complications. Like a little thorn under the saddle making things just a bit more exciting. Ok, so.
I need to realize I don't need that, probably would regret it if I got it, and it's not available to me anyway. I need to realize that all I really want is more exposure to these cheerful people and if I just can tone myself down I can even reach out and be a person they actually do want to know.
I think that's part of it too. I really want to be someone people want to know. I want to be seen as cheerful, useful, and a source of wonderful surprises like my chocolates. That's who I want myself to be and that's who I become when I'm relaxed and feeling loveable. Okay, so it comes with a side order of little girl babbling noise which when parsed becomes ridiculously deep analysis of things best left ignored. Even so, you know you could just smile and say "shut up now please." Then hand me another bucket of paint because there is never a time I wouldn't rather be working on something.
I'm going to saddle up that courage horse this winter and go over to that house and see if I can make myself useful or get invited along on something. I'm going to give myself once a month to make contact. I'm going to teach my child self to stfu and put away the social abacus.
right now I"m going to go compose a proper apology and thank you to Tom.