Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Friends?

I got to know a wonderful girl over the last year and only recently we talked about how great it is to have found a friend in each other. Why the validation? And why so late?

I broke up with my boyfriend and when we saw each other for the first time since our last fight the topic of friendship came up. How can we even try to call each other a friend? Is it just an avoidance? Is "friend" status the ultimate demotion? Or is it the stamp of mutual clingyness?

What about all those people who fall into the grey areas... the friends that turned into lovers and back into friends? The boys that became a momentary lover and have been demoted into friend status in order to avoid any further hurt or regret? The people with whom instant connections have been made and yet time and schedules have ceased any regular contact? Who are all these people and why do they all get the same blanket title?

We fall in and out of love, we meet surprising new people, we connect with strangers and turn a one night stand into a long term understanding, we see our coworkers turn from a chat near the dishpit to a bar down the street on a weekly basis....

They all mean something different and are in my life for very different reasons and for that the term friend doesn't seem to apply to any of them. Friend is tossed around so loosely and sometimes without meaning, other times for all the wrong reasons. It seems to devalue why I love the people I do.

How can you go from wanting a sign saying "just married" to forcing a sign on the relationship saying "just friends"?

It makes no sense. No sense at all.

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