And now for something slightly different.

I take a lot of relationships for granted, and have taken a lot of relationships for granted.

I mean this both in the oblivious, not fully aware sense (until such people suddenly disappear from my vantage point of life) and also in the kind of aware but placed in the back of my mind sense. I want to particularly emphasize the "until such people suddenly disappear" part because it gets to happen fairly often when you've met enough people. For another social media analogy, it's something that can be characterized by the hundreds of Facebook friends I have and the large enough subset of those who've either defriended me or who I don't really talk to in the first place anyway. In that respect, I've come to expect this as inevitable; who can really expect to keep up with that many people in their life anyway?

Even then, I can't help but feel a small pang of regret whenever I notice these things.

Back in college, I served in hospitality team for my Christian fellowship my senior year, and it made me ever more conscious, or should I say paranoid, of who was present/not present on any given week of the people I knew, even while I myself never quite entirely felt like I fit in to begin with (but that's another story). And although my role was largely focused around the experience of new, incoming folks who were much more likely not to stick around for too long in the first place (and whether or not hospitality team actually worked is a completely other subject of debate beyond the scope of this post), I would still notice when folks who'd been around for a while disappeared as well.

And I guess to a certain extent my role in this group resulted in a conflict of interest, particularly if I hadn't really interacted with these people much outside of the normal context of this group. Would it still be appropriate, or rather, would it be right to try and keep in contact with these people when I hadn't really done it much before? Would they see me as trying to proselytize them or just bothering them when they didn't want to be bothered? Why did I want to contact them in the first place, if we hadn't really established that sort of connection? Or to put it more bluntly, why did I never really talk to these people that much in the past to begin with?

Sometimes you don't realize the value of the presence of another person until they're gone.

One other thing I appreciated about my fellowship, or in particular my small group, was that it provided a regular context for which I could see people who I might not regularly be able to see or talk to otherwise (regardless of how much I actually talked to these people normally outside of that context, because as Ryan L puts it I'm like a sponge who soaks in the presence of other people... but don't take that analogy too far because that image is a little too much for my taste). But at the same time, I realized after a while that I took for granted that responsibility the group took on. For what about when the group ended, as it inevitably did with the end of college? How many of these people would I still actually keep in contact with, like I do with some of my closer friends in college? How many of these people would still feel comfortable having a conversation with me years later?

At this point, I've been both in a central position of a social circle, and also somewhat on the fringes of another one, multiple times each. I know what it's like to be feel included and left out, to feel both connected and disconnected, to feel like I've contributed something or other times feel like I'm taking up space. I acknowledge that the best kinds of relationships are the ones that last long beyond the context they originally started in, but at the same time I can still see value in the ones that only persisted for the duration of that context. I still find it difficult to accept the latter case sometimes when it happens, though.

These thoughts come to me now as I start to see some of my existing social circles undergoing a recognizable state of flux, as past ones have done: people coming and going as their own personal life circumstances change. I might not ever see some of these folks again, or at least not for a long while. I've wished I could've been closer to some of them even though I find my own ability to do so a bit lacking, since it becomes much more difficult to establish close relationships with people  in your life as you grow older. These kinds of relationships take effort and work to start and then maintain; they aren't generally the kinds of things that you can simply leave alone until the person on the other line arbitrarily decides one day to hit you up again out of the blue (as much as I would love to be on the other end of that line...). Well, technically it does happen sometimes, but usually only with the people with whom you've established a precedent for allowing that interaction to occur in the first place, like good old friends.

Presently, I've grown accustomed to holding most people sort of at arm's length for lack of consistent and persistent contact compared to what I had in college combined with growing accustomed to living alone, which has made it rather more difficult to develop the close kinds of relationships I've enjoyed in the past. So when people in my current circles for example tell me about how they don't feel as connected or comfortable with the way a group is, it sort of takes me by surprise because I'm already used to that sort of detachment and maybe don't mind it as much.

Sure, in the past I've wondered why I still bothered coming out to some events myself, but that never really stopped me from coming out in the long run- I think that's partly a function of how my personality is, if anything. I could still find something worthwhile out of the moment even if I didn't really fit in the same way that others did. But after hearing from other people who don't experience these things the same way, it makes me wonder how much I've overlooked the concerns of these individuals for the sake of some group, let alone those who I haven't really talked to that much. How much did I take the mere presence of these people for granted, rather than see if I could try to engage their own social and personal needs just as I was getting mine own fulfilled already? You should already be able to tell from this blog how preoccupied I often am with my own thoughts; seems like hardly enough attention is given to the concerns of others as it is.

Engaging people on their own terms means a willingness to put oneself out there as available, to sometimes be willing to lend an ear, to listen to another, even when that person isn't necessarily expecting to be heard in the first place. I've often stumbled before ever getting to that point, out of fear out of offending another person or coming across as being too pushy or just not knowing where to start or if I should even bother trying why am I thinking about this I should just go home and mind my own business like everyone else does. But really, this just ends up with conversations years later of some people asking me, "how come you never talk to me?"

Because I'm complacent with a status quo where I only respond to people who reach out to me first (but if you do reach out first, I'd love to respond!... in a somewhat delayed fashion). Because I'm afraid of risking the possibility of being rejected by you the moment I try to reach out. Because I often overthink these things and focus mostly on how I feel and not about how you're feeling or doing. Because I worry more about how what attempts I might make to communicate with you will affect your perception of me (do I come across as too persistent or annoying to you?) than I do about how they might help maintain our relationship. I take you as a friend for granted.

And I'm sorry for all of that, honestly.

...But I also feel that saying sorry is not enough, and have even been told as much before in the past, because I have a shallow tendency to say sorry all the time even for things I shouldn't be sorry for or am not actually sorry for. And for what it's worth, writing these words on this blog won't really matter all that much, when they probably won't even reach the people they ought to be meant for (I'm presuming if you're still reading this blog, you're probably likely to still be in contact with me in some form or another even if only once in a while) and won't make up for what's happened in the past, what I did or didn't notice. And as my last post put it, maybe there just wasn't much there to develop to begin with, and I'm just making much ado about what could've happened scenario in my head, rather than accepting the past in all of its imperfection for what it was.

My real hope in writing this thought process out is to make myself more conscious of these issues whenever they inevitably do happen around me, and to step out of my comfort zone of pleasant detachment from the lives of other people for once. And that these words wouldn't simply be laid to rest here, but would serve as the root for some actual action at hand to be taken.

Now if only I had more time to do something other than maybe read something quick and sleep. I originally felt like writing something about goodreads (see link in sidebar) but then this came up. Another time. Good night!

Insomniac Musings, The Inaugural Edition

I'm starting a new label here for the stuff that prevents me from falling asleep whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, which seems to be happening a lot lately. There may or may not be some overlap with the already overinflated Thoughts label, as whenever I wake a second time after, these thoughts already feel like a dimension away, except that the source is still there somewhere in me.

(warning: this post entails excessive use of the word "friends" and may tread over previously blogged territory. I have memory issues nowadays, what can I say.)

Once upon a time when I was younger and presumably a lot more naive (I would like to imagine I'm less naive now, but I never really know), I had this crazy idea that I wanted to be friends with every person I knew. Maybe not so extreme in the sense of the "all-roommates-are-best-friends" aura that I seem to recall inhaling from my first roommate, but at least good enough friends to be able to talk and hang out with them semi-regularly, or even on a whim. This applied to anyone coming from any walk of life, regardless of race, gender, origin, background, etc.etc. Very idealistic sounding, right?

Of course, over the course of a decade, this wound up becoming in practice:

- wanting to befriend whoever my existing friends were friends with ("the friend of a friend is a friend"), regardless of how well I could actually get along with them. There was also an overall preference towards people who were well liked by my other friends in general.

- trying to get involved with a few groups of people who I never really fit in that well with or didn't really know how to talk to, but still enjoyed their presence for whatever the reason.

- feeling left out or discouraged whenever I wasn't invited to something involving people I felt even marginally close to. this would prove rather more distressing later when friends who I'd inadvertently helped introduce to each other wound up hanging out more often than I did with either. this is part of the reason why I despise cliques even though they inevitably happen (and I've been part of them myself).

- feeling left out or uncomfortable whenever I was in the presence of friends talking about a subject that I wasn't privy to knowing about. especially girltalk (note: I know guys who are good at girltalk. I am not one of them.)

- becoming jealous overall of the closeness I saw in relationships between people who I'm not as close to.
(I make exceptions for dating couples because those are already a given, although I do enjoy third-wheeling when they allow me to. :P)

Essentially, that initial idealistic thought or impulse gave way to a lot of anxiety and distress, but almost entirely self-generated and self-centered. Moments where I had trouble talking to people or discovered other social events or knowledge that I wasn't privy to turned turned into blows against my own pride, for making me realize how much I wasn't the easily relatable, well-liked guy I wanted to be, or else sleights against myself, for there must be something wrong with me if this person won't tell me what's really going on. The one time that someone who I personally felt close to confided in me that they couldn't really... confide in me (ironically) for personal reasons, I had an emotional breakdown shortly afterwards and spent the rest of the night walking home in tears and then crying in bed. All for reasons I can't really put into words... but you can probably gather from what I've written so far. And I couldn't simply appreciate what good relationships I did have already, because evidently those weren't enough to satisfy me.

Every once in a while I end up recalling my past failed interactions up until now, the people I ultimately wasn't able to befriend or become as close to in the manner I'd liked, the words left unspoken (or should I phrase it more accurately as the "things people wouldn't tell me"), and the ways in which I wound up becoming more of an annoyance to those whom I incessantly tried to be around even though we weren't that close to begin with. From that first time someone told me to "go away" for implicitly obvious reasons in middle school (ironically, wound up being decent friends with that person for a while), to the times I invited myself to other folks' personal conversations or activities whenever I saw them in college, to the limbo state I find myself in with some social circles even now- these memories tend to creep up when I least expect them, especially in the middle of a sleepless night.

And with the kind of identity complex that I have, it's never been about what these other people did to me (...did they even do anything? did they even really notice?) so much as it's been about what I did wrong or what was wrong with me in general, like it's because I'm too quiet or too introverted for us to establish that kind of open communication. I may make it sound humble when I put it that way, but I mean it in a completely opposite, self-centered way. I even tried to make light of it in my head by noting that I've never really held grudges against anyone involved or even hated or disliked someone for what happened in the past, but that notion in itself meant only to salvage my own pride more than anything. And it makes me wonder if I ever really potentially cared about these people to begin with, or if I only cared about maintaining friendships with them as a way of making myself look better as a person, like "look at how many awesome and unique friends I have thereby making me also awesome and unique!" (I think the social media phenomenon that corresponds to that today would be what, Klout?).

After years of mulling over this, I can write about this now in a somewhat detached fashion and pinpoint where it all came from. To be honest, it doesn't feel like I feel anything right now other than a vague sense of regret, but something more on the level of forgetting my wallet at home and not on the hyper-induced midway to panic attack level I generally experience in the middle of the night, let alone the actual panic attacks I've had. But at the same time, this level of detachment combined with the passage of time has helped at least in making me recognize how problematic my "ideal" view of myself has been over the years, when in reality I shouldn't expect to be able to befriend anyone and everyone even if my own friends are capable of doing so with the same folks. I'm only human and should only expect to be able to achieve so much.

It's been a gradual process for me, learning to accept the current state of the relationships I have, to become thankful for the people who are still present in my life, and to make the most out of what is there to the best of my capacity. Folks will come and go throughout my life, inevitably; better to seize the opportunities that are present with them with an expectant heart, rather than continue to lament over what isn't there or perhaps never really was to begin with. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my own mind that I forget.

"The only way to make a friend is to be one."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson? (although I first heard this as a child from a Wee Sing video or something -_-)

And to be one means much more than serving your own heart, in this case.

addendum to the last post

Tonight was the most fun I've had from swing dancing in a loong time, literally. A reminder to not become subservient to my moods, especially when they discourage me from enjoying the good things in life.

Also to eat less spicy food before dancing because ow my intestines.

anti

In the midst of an anti-people mood.... which is not to say that I hate people right now, but rather, I don't feel particularly inclined to talk to or see anyone right now and would rather just sit at home and read books all day.

Which is why I'm going swing dancing tonight for the first time in a year and heading to SF this weekend to see people. Sigh.*  (*not an 'I don't want to' sigh, just more a sigh at my ongoing mood. I like people.)

It's like when you start to recognize patterns or extra voices in your thoughts contrary to... other present patterns or voices. One that speaks of the things that depress you, and another that speaks of how pumped and excited you are to do things, like you're reclaiming your life for the first time again.

It's also like the book I'm reading now, Ulysses. It's got an undertone of painful seriousness wrapped within a crazy nonsensical sense of humor that pokes fun at death and the oddities of the English language. And it's also incredibly difficult to make sense of at times... because stream of consciousness.

Waking up to the knowledge that nothing in your life is perfect, and the notion that it unlikely will be as idealistically great as you want it to be. So make of it what good you are able to while you still can.