Tuesday, February 6, 2007

The Authenticity of Friendship, or how give up on it

By this hour I promised to be seriously working on my paper but somehow I feel the necessity to unload what has been bothering me for the last few days. On second thought, I think I’ve been disturbed by my realizations for so long but was too scared to face the facts. Correct me, people, if my insights are rather too pessimistic. But I strongly believe all of us must be practical enough to veer away from our emotions and the ways we have been raised.


 


I grew up surrounded by different lives, people in different shapes, colors and sizes. My mom kept a lot of friends and I was raised to believe every individual, no matter how different from us they may be, deserves the true and never-ending friendships we have to offer.


 


I will not go over detailed accounts of the misfortunes and disappointments I have had with regards to “friends” I have kept and taken care of all these years (and months). But I guess enumerating the lessons I got from painful and shocking experiences can help me and others in handling personal relationships better. I’m sharing all these lessons, partly to myself to let them sink in into my stubborn and sometimes irrational head, and to everyone and anyone who has yet to see examples that they truly happen in real life.


 



  1. The triviality of friendship: Lately I have discovered some things that I never thought I would encounter with people I call “friends”. Yes, even best-friendship may be as trivial as acquaintance. Sometimes it’s even better to relate to your neighbor coz a neighbor is a neighbor by the mere essence of the name. You won’t call neighbors the first time you get laid nor when you discovered you mother was a mistress. Reason? You won’t expect neighbors to sympathize. Then who would? Of course besides family the immediate answer is a friend. But mind you, it could be very misleading. Some people might be there for you one time or even all the time then betray you the next.
  2. The necessity of standards and requirements: Certainly there has to be categories. You can’t label everyone as “friends” just because you spent hours and hours of serious talk, not even when you shared emotions in distress and in happiness, not even when one person has been there for you all these years (or so you thought), not even spending time together has become a daily routine. And in all these confusions, time is never a qualifying factor. Time does not prove truthfulness, nor does it reveal authenticity.
  3. Being true to everyone does not necessarily mean everyone is true to you. It’s a two-way traffic. I used to believe my being true to people and my generosity to share my thoughts and confusions will pull the strings. But whoa, it’s possible for people to use anything you said against you, just to save their asses (and without even bothering to inform you that they used you as an excuse).
  4. It’s a big no-no to assume your so-called friends understand you, your motivations, your intentions and your principles, even if they tell you and swore to you they do. Birds of the same feathers flock together --- piece of crap! It is never helpful to assume the people you give importance to are in the same frequency as yours.
  5. Benefit of the doubt can only bring you trouble. Sometimes we refuse to judge because we think there has to be a very important reason behind every action and we hope that in that reason we will come to understand the people we value. We love to justify. But with further analysis, the benefit of the doubt is selfish. Selfish because it comes from the fright to get hurt. I was always afraid to lose anyone. I was afraid to think bad about the people I care about. And so I give the benefit of the doubt. But the doubt hindered me from making rational conclusions, thus, always stopped me from taking a stand. If you ask what I have become from giving infinite second chances, I’d admit to you that I am one person who failed to discern what is right from wrong. Now I regret giving away benefits of the doubt over and over.

 


I’m partly saying these to myself to wake my self from a winter-wonderland dream. I wish all is just a joke, or that I’ve lost my mind. But reality, statistics, make it clear, too clear that I can’t believe I was so stupid to hold on to my ideals. Honestly, I don’t know where to start now. I refuse to subject everyone I know to a true-friendship test, but it scares me to think that the numbers are being drained. There are a few people left, but it’s so damn hard not to anticipate another pain from a handful of neat friendships especially at a time when even the neatest of them already managed to stab you nonchalantly.

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