Early Morning Musings on Friendship :No Strings Attached

So I lied. I might blog again today, but rather than go straight into the challenge, I thought I'd take this time to muse. I mean, the house is quiet aside from the Seether blaring from my ihome. But it's not really blaring, because I have the volume down to 1, maybe my ears have just adjusted. That's how quiet the house is right now. It's weird: even being right across the hall from my sister and down the hall from my parents it's still so quiet at night. Last night, in a moment between sleep and waking, I could hear a train because apparently the tracks are right across the street from our neighborhood. It wasn't like I'd imagined it would be; I slept through most of it, the walls didn't shake and no one else here at home woke up to the sound of it heading off into the distance.

I've been musing about a lot of things lately. One of them: friendship. One of the biggest transitions in coming home has been realizing that many of my close friends here have no time for me in their lives...well, mostly just one close friend. Before I start to sound like a drama queen (again), I'd like to point out that I understand that people have significant others, jobs, hobbies...whatever. I understand I am not, nor can I be, their number one priority or the center of their universe. I get it, which is why when this friend cites her job or her boyfriend as reasons for why she doesn't have time for our friendship, I'm willing to be understanding...but here's the thing: my other best friends have all of those same things in their lives...and somehow they make time for our friendship too. My other best friend is planning an amazing study away to Italy, just applied and got into a graduate program, was dealing with some relationship issues and still manages to find time for me and my crazy...and I love her for it. I love this other friend in a different way, because she's always made it clear our friendship was only important "to a point."

So question of the morning: Is it okay to be a friend "to a point?"

Can one say, "hey, let's be friends, but just so you know...I have lots of other friends, I don't like to get too serious when it comes to friendship and you will often get pushed to the side for other things?" I mean, is it okay to tell someone you want to be friends, and then just be friends, no strings attached?

Is it possible to be friends, no strings attached? I mean, I've never thought of my friends as just people I go to when I have a problem or when I need to vent. I don't go to one of them, vent and then leave with a weight lifted off of my shoulders and not call them again until I have another problem. I know I'm guilty of venting too much and sometimes being a cray cray, but I also care a lot about my friends and would do anything to help them and stop them from getting hurt. The whole "no strings attached" thing might work in casual romantic relationships, and make for a HILARIOUS romantic comedy (seriously, watch it), but I don't think it works in friendship. Arguably, the no strings attached theory is inapplicable to even those situations. Like so many other relationships, friendship involves give and take. It takes two people to maintain one or two people to destroy one...but it still takes two. Being an inactive friend is just another form of being a bad friend...I'm still trying to decide where I go from here. This is just another hiccup in the post-grad path to life. And hey! I was actually on-topic for most of this post, because this relates back to my blog topic. Yay me! Progress!

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