Tag: friends

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Friend DNA

Double Helix DNAWhat makes some people more interesting than others? I know generally from the first few moments I meet someone whether or not they will mesh with me as friends. Yes, I believe in friends at first sight. There’s just a connection that is either made or not right off the bat, and I think that’s true of most people, actually. I know that some of my best friends throughout the years have shared that similarity. That’s not to say that some friends I’ve met didn’t share that connection from the start. Those are what I call “hardworking” friendships. But there’s just something about the friend DNA.

DNA is the basic component of life. It accounts for not only the color of one’s skin but also for the level of one’s temperament. It affects a person’s sense of humor, musical ability, and competitive spirit. That also means some people are hardwired to be shy around newcomers, to be afraid of public speaking, or to be outgoing. It can even affect the filters we have when it comes to ourselves. Are we delusional about our strengths and weaknesses or do we own up to them and fight through those weaknesses to become stronger as individuals?

All of that can affect what kind of friend we end up being, or what kinds of people will complement us as friends. Notice that I used the word “can,” because no one can predict what will happen when people come together, but just like when addictive personalities get together, the result can be negative for both people involved.

So what does your friend DNA say about you? Do you get along better with people who are most like you, people who are most unlike you, or people who are in-between? Is there even an absolute? Continue reading “Friend DNA”

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Heather-Marie

Women-ProfileEven her name was an enigma. I always imagined her parents battling it out over a particularly long game of canasta. “I want to name her after my mother, god bless her soul, she died when I was 6 but there was no greater saint!” her mother had probably argued. Not to be outdone, her father contended with, “She has to be named after my sister who took the cloth and is serving as a missionary to Africa.” And because neither one wanted to back down they compromised as couples often do, saddling their lone child with the name of Heather-Marie.

Now don’t get me wrong. It is a lovely name, both parts of it. Heather reminds me of beautiful flowers blowing in the breeze on an autumn day, and Marie is the girl who everybody likes, the quiet, self-assured angel with the killer smile. Together the names should have been magic, but no one explained this to Heather-Marie.

I met her in the midst of my longest summer. My heart had just been crushed by the woman I thought would be my forever and I was in what I felt was eternal pain. Amazingly enough, Heather-Marie became my salvation, but not at all in the manner that I had intended. And it all began with a band. And the internet. And the fact that I couldn’t drive. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This post isn’t about me. It’s about Heather-Marie.

She was an aerobics instructor at a gym, and as a result she was one of the fittest people I had ever met. I was fresh out of adolescence and my metabolism was working overtime, so I thought I could do pretty much any exercise even though I wasn’t quite in shape. It’s what I told her during our first phone conversation, when I was bragging about still living with my mom and never getting my driver’s license. Oh, and it’s also when she told me she went to a nudist camp once.

I liked her at once because she was brutally honest, even from the start. She also had absolutely no problem with picking me up and taking me somewhere, or even that I still lived with my mother. The age difference, though, that gave her pause. You see, I was 20 and she was 28, and she worried that even though we seemed compatible over the phone that her advanced life experience would cause problems for us in the “real world.” Luckily for me that wouldn’t end up being a problem. Nor would our difference of skin color. Yeah, she seemed like a perfect match.

But then life went into fast-forward, we had about 10 more phone conversation, and our first date was finally staring us in the face. Go figure, Heather-Marie hit it off with my mother, who was entranced by her tales of teaching spinning class. I think she would have signed my mother up on the spot if I hadn’t hurried her out of there. We had an amazing time, too. The meal was great, the conversation sparkling, and I believe I even made her forget all about the age difference. We went on a long walk and the words kept flowing. I felt that spark that I hadn’t since my relationship had fizzled earlier that year. It went by way too quickly, though. Continue reading “Heather-Marie”

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Friends With Benefits

friends_with_benefits_c“What exactly does that phrase mean, ‘friends with benefits?’ Does he provide her with health insurance?” -Sheldon Cooper

I have no idea who coined the phrase, but it’s one that I’ve never felt really fit: friends with benefits. Of course I know what it means. It’s been bandied about a lot in the past ten years or so, yet I’m curious who the people are who honestly believe that having sex with friends is supposedly advantageous. I have always been of the opinion that sex complicates things that used to be easy, which is no benefit, no benefit at all.

True friends are hard to find, and even harder to keep, at least for most of us. Friendship is a complex construct that forges a connection between individuals who may be as distinctive from each other as snowflakes. And it can be quite tenuous as well, with the smallest differences driving a wedge between people. But the one thing that a friendship should give you is a sense of community, that acceptance that few things can give. So why jeopardize something that is so delicate and worthy of protection at all costs? Continue reading “Friends With Benefits”

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They Look Like Me

172ed83726173dc62f915b2c297cdfafHow do we recognize others? By a walk, by a tone, by a cadence in their bones. By a feeling we get when they enter a room, or the smell of them, like cologne or perfume. By the way their smile reaches their eyes, and how seeing them makes the time fly. By the reflection of them we see in ourselves, or the hope that blooms, the spring that wells. Do we recognize others in the things that they do? Or do they all just look like you?

We spend our whole lives walking around in a world full of people who are as different from us as night is from day. We talk to them, and laugh when them, and cry with them too. They do us favors, and we return them. We connect with them on a certain level, and depending on who they are as individuals, they relate to us on the same level. And while we are all different, it is human nature to search for ways of connection, for the ways we are the same, and we cling to those similarities because those are mirrors that reflect ourselves back to us. Because human nature is also selfish.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that every person in the world is selfish. Many people work extremely hard to be selfless, or to care for others above themselves, and that’s highly admirable. It is those people we usually recognize because they’re different. Their souls resonate in a different way to us because their caring is evident. But the vast majority of people we come in contact with aren’t that way, so we can relate to them, we can dissect them and find the parts that work like ours. They are familiar, and that’s comforting. Continue reading “They Look Like Me”

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Freewrite #8

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Now? Now? How about now?

I’ll tell you a secret. Now, you can’t tell a living soul because I would be absolutely mortified if anyone ever found this out about me. Okay, good. Here it is. Sometimes I’m awkward. You know, socially. Sometimes I walk into a room and see three separate groups sitting in three separate areas. So I sit all the way on the other side of the room by myself, hoping one of the three groups reaches out to me and makes me feel warm and safe in their cocoon. Otherwise, I bury my head in the book I always have along so I don’t seem like a pathetic idiot (um, yeah) and count the minutes until I can get back up and exit the room. Usually, though, one of the groups reels me in and I feel loved. Yeah, that’s all it takes.

It’s not like I don’t feel comfortable in social situations. For the most part I do, but there’s this in-between area when I’m uncertain of what’s expected of me, times when I feel like Sheldon Cooper and I have no idea what others are trying to say or do, or what they want from ME. And I hate that, that uncertainty. I deal in absolutes so much of the time that when there’s ambiguity I freeze up. Why do I do that? I’m sure others are judging me too when I do this, shaking their heads and whispering about me behind my back. “Why can’t he just understand?” “What’s up with him?” “He seemed pretty cool before.”

Then I start thinking about this mysterious “before.” When was I actually cool? Continue reading “Freewrite #8”