Tag: friendship

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The Friend Initiative

friendship-quotes-4-3452Friends are interesting creatures because each and every one of them is different, even though they share the same classification. When I say I’m “doing things with friends” each and every time I let it pass my lips I’m saying something completely different. And when I see them randomly in public there are different reactions and expectations with each one. I love the idea of friends because they’re like cards in a Rolodex. You can flip through and so many memories come back to you.

My first memory of someone I called a friend was when I was in kindergarten. I looked up to Robert and Joseph. They were both bigger than me, physically, and they had a quiet confidence that is lacking in most kindergartners. They seemed sure of themselves, and I wasn’t even remotely there, so I followed them around and tried to insert myself into their conversations. It wasn’t until later in the year that I realized they liked me being around because I was good at figuring out things. I guess my brain was analytical even then. But the point was I thought they were doing me a favor by teaching me a way to be when they appreciated the way I already was.

Be-yourself-be-yourself-27231879-499-333We were inseparable for the rest of that year, the three of us, and they helped me to value what I can bring to a friendship — my individuality. And since then that’s what I have attempted to do. Instead of trying to be like others in order to strike and maintain a friendship, I just try my best to BE myself, to show who I am from the very start so they’re not shocked when I finally show my true colors. It took me an eternity to really get it down, though, because my first instinct is to gravitate toward how the other person is, and what I think they want from me. If they like a certain type of music I tried to force myself to like the same music, even if I didn’t. If they enjoyed a type of food, I became a connoisseur of that food, even if it made me gag.

Being a good friend means being good at understanding who I am and what I want out of the friendship.
Continue reading “The Friend Initiative”

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Friendversations

“True friends know your deepest, darkest secrets, but they never hold them against you. They listen while you breathe, and they breathe with you.” ~Theodicus I think listening has become a lost art form along the lines of hieroglyphics and cubism, as neglected in the 21st century as html language and refrigerator school. And I … Continue reading Friendversations

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Fair Weather

“Behold seven years of great abundance are coming in all the land of Egypt, and after them seven years of famine will come, and all the abundance will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will ravage the land.” ~Genesis 41:29-30 We all know them. They’re the ones who “got your back” … Continue reading Fair Weather

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Friend-vitations

friend2Remember all that talk a few days ago about how I try not to judge others? Well, I thought about it some more, and I realized I most decidedly do judge some people without even knowing I’m doing it. Let me tell you a story…

When I first moved to Newport a little over 12 years ago I was very aware that I was the only black person living in the village, and that was okay with me. I made my decision to be with the woman I love and I wasn’t looking back, but it was hard not to notice that I was the only black person who lived here. Just walking down the street became an experience, and it didn’t hit me until later that I enjoyed the attention.

But, as time went by the area became slightly more diversified, and I found myself one of three black people living in the village, one of whom married a woman across the street. So, instead of being uniquely different I became just another someone who has lived here for 12 years, and I guess I blamed this other guy for that. Of course it wasn’t his fault that I had internalized being the only one as part of my identity, but trying to reason it away was to no avail.

He took to me right away, too. It was almost like he was a drowning man clutching on to a lifeline when we first met. In fact, I had been walking down the street at the time, and he had driven by in his SUV. Suddenly he stopped and waited for me to reach his car, rolled own his window, and this was our first conversation.

“How’s it going, brother?” he asked me in a loud voice.

“I’m okay,” I answered warily.

“You know, we brothers gotta stick together,” he said, undeterred.

“That sounds about right,” I said, taken aback.

“So when are we gonna do something?” he asked.

“We’ll figure it out,” I answered. And I walked away.

I had no plans whatsoever to do anything with this man. In fact, I made up my mind that day that I was going to avoid him at all costs. What? He felt a kinship with me just because we happened to both be black? Or was it that we both have children of mixed race? Whatever it was, I felt like he wouldn’t have been making the overture, or he wouldn’t have been overly familiar, had I been just another guy walking down the street and didn’t look the way I look. And I took offense. I judged him for it. Continue reading “Friend-vitations”

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Friend 2.0

chatI’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t always a good friend. There was a time in my life when I was so incredibly selfish that I took advantage of people who I called friends, telling them what I thought they wanted to hear, making them feel special for the moment, and then forgetting all about them when the next one came around. Oh, and did I mention that during this time most of my friends were of the online variety? Or that I was 19 back then?

When I was 19 I was in a state of flux. College was on hold but I was still working at the campus library, I was still able to use my college ID to get into the computer labs, and no one had canceled my email accounts so I was all set to talk to people from all over the country, and indeed all over the world. My friend Anthony had gotten a hold of some pirated internet chat software called Homer. I’ll never forget it because it had a drawing of Homer Simpson on it. He gave me a disk and kept one for himself. And I was in business.

Now, you might not know how things were on the internet back then, still in its early stages, but it was all about messageboards, actual email conversations, and places called chatrooms. A chatroom was a place you could connect to at any time of day or night and others would more than likely be there… chatting. I was fascinated by chatrooms when I first found them. There were just so MANY of them it was daunting at the start, but then I got totally into it. At my apex I was spending up to eight straight hours sitting in a chair at an old-school Mac with the Homer disk in talking to people from all over the place.

I made so many friends it was incredible, and I called them friends, not “friends.” I mean, I spent more time talking to them through IRC (internet relay chat) than my own family, and my two real life friends. It was so easy, being so far apart from them, to embellish things about myself, and before long it was impossible to tell the real me apart from the various versions of me that I created to suit each other person. Then I started emailing them. They wanted to talk apart from chatrooms so I obliged. I began getting and sending a cubic ton of emails.

Then the phone calls started and I really couldn’t keep things straight. Continue reading “Friend 2.0”