posted 2005/11/18 at 16:25
Someone left a fortune from a fortune cookie on the lab computer I'm working on right now that reads, "You are what you think about." So does that mean I am sex? Sigh.
Anyway, I had my first counseling session in a few weeks just now, and I had a chance to talk with my counselor about what friendship means to me. Hear me out here.
When it comes to people who I call friends, I tend to have some pretty strict guidelines. I mean, most of the people I knew back when I was in Spectrum I could call "friends," but there were only a few people I really considered true friends, the kind of people I'd actually make an effort to hang out with outside of Spectrum. (These people probably would have stuck by me after the shit that went down this past Spring, but unfortunately they all either graduated or went away to study abroad this year.)
I think there's a certain amount of chemistry I have to feel from someone to consider him or her a true friend, but I think what I get most drawn to is a feeling of great empathy on the part of the friend, not just for me but for others as well. Perhaps this is because I need to know that someone shares the same overarching concerns I have -- not just for my friends, but the communities I belong to, and the world in general -- to be able to really trust someone. Right now that basically leaves me with Christina, Milena, and Penny, and that's it. Maybe I could add Jessi and Lara and Jboy to there as well, but I haven't really been able to hang out/talk with them enough to get a good feel for them.
What seems to get me in trouble is that when I find true friends -- people who I can really feel comfortable around -- I tend to latch onto them too much, and try to draw them too much into my life. This has especially been the case as of late, now that I don't have anyone locally to confide in except for my counselor and my family. (I'm not even sure if my family fully counts, since I can't confide in them about everything.) The thing is that when I do meet someone who is so good of heart, I want to do everything I can to help him or her, and I know that in the past this has made some of my friends uncomfortable. I guess it's just my mothering instinct gone into total hyperdrive.
This last counseling session has given me a lot to think about here. Hopefully now that I'm more conscious of some of this stuff, I can start to check myself when I'm doing stuff that I shouldn't be doing, and maybe I won't have such a hard time keeping friends in the future.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon