friends

Friendship is an odd thing for me. I am a naturally introvert person. I have trusting issues caused be something in my childhood that I will never bring up here. There are very few cases even now that I am certain that a group of people that I have hung out with that I can call friends. With today being a lot of things dealing with online and I am a little internet-ly challenged in some cases. I do not go on Facebook often. I still know for certain that the group of people that I was friends with in high school I am still friends with. I still hang out on Spring and Summer break last year a few times. Yet this is not about that. I still do not know when it can be counted as a friend. I do not know if someone I talk to online could be considered a friend as well.

I stayed back in first grade. I although it was due to me not understanding what was happening, looking back at it now I view it little bit as karma. I was a little bit of a bully. Years later the person I was a bully with, bullied me in high school. It was my past coming back to haunt me, my sins finally coming back, while his never left him. Each year after I stayed back my friends changed regularly. It seemed like they were trying ways constantly to get rid of me or leave me out in the games we played. The greatest example that I can think of was in the summer between fourth and fifth grade.

Where I am from there is this thing known as School Choice, which means if you are out of the school district you can still go to that school. The school in my town was not the greatest. So all the people I went to school with lived in several towns away. So, during summers I would not really be able to see them.

In my town there was a sort of day camp. You basically go in the morning and then leave in the late afternoon. A lot of kids where in the town go to school together, and it is divided by grade so people of the same grade play with one another. There were these kids I called my “friends.” Compared to back then I really believed we were friends. Looking back on it now, it was clear it was a lie.

The grounds of the day camp were the town’s high school. The bathrooms that we were allowed to go to were the locker rooms, which had lockers obviously. So in order for me to be one of them I needed to stay in the locker for ten minutes. They ran off, and since they did I went to find them. They were of course surprised I followed them. They did not know that the lockers could be opened from the inside, since there was no padlock for them. I did not realize this until years later it was just their way of trying to get rid of me.

Now that I am a junior in college I am still uncertain for people that I can call my friends. Being online now here at the Reviewer’s Corner, I am still uncertain if I can call any of the people I talk to on Twitter as friends, since we mostly met through here on my blog or on one of their posts. I have always been confused with that. When do you go from acquaintances to friends?

I am even uncertain about the people I have met in my classes if I can call them friends. I have tried. I have found people I have some things to talk about. After that class, we just stop talking. We do not see each other after that. Even if we add one another to Facebook we still do not talk to one another after that.

I mentioned I tried to join the anime club at one point. Although this is more of a story for another day, I found it hard to talk to people there. I could not really fit in. I joined a club last semester, and although I get along with my club mates, since it is a very small club, I do not know if they are considered friends either. Outside the club I do not talk to them, with the exception of when they are in my class. I am not really sure what to call them. They do not feel like acquaintances, but they do not feel like friends either, just something in between.

confused
The equivalent of me being confused.

Friendship is rather confusing. Looking at my stories, some things tend to mimic my natural life. Sure there are some characters that are known as the childhood friend, and thus why they are friends has been established for some time, a part of it is due to the fact I have not seen my childhood friend in years and she more than likely does not remember me. The other characters join the team or are forced to know one another due to circumstances. They become friends naturally, but the transition feels like it happens behind the scenes. I will not touch upon dating, since I am equally confused with that, but I do not want to talk too much about the fact I have never been on a date at twenty two, since that has nothing to do with this particular conversation.

I am not really sure what dictates friendship. I know it does not have anything to do with what you have in common, since all my friends from high school we have very little in common. We are a bunch of rag tags thrown together. One was on the football team, another on the track, one is a redneck and will admit it, and one is a Marine, and so on. We just get along, it is that simple. Other than that I am not sure. Looking back on it now I have no idea how I became friends with all of them.

In my last year of high school I worried about the fact that I would not have any friends come college. We were all going our separate ways. The “Redneck” went to the same school as me, which was a huge sigh of relief for me, only we did not have time to talk to one another during the week, we did somehow by a miracle share a class together, which was nice. After that semester though he decided to drop out and go to a different school. He was also switching majors constantly as well. After that I was alone.

I will admit I became more used to the isolation. When I see other people all that is on my mind is how I want them to talk to me. When people finally do talk to me I wish they did not. People naturally form into groups in classes, yet I can never seem to get into any of them. No one tries to include me in their group either. Even if it is only for that class, I still cannot simulate having friends for that short amount of time or have the opportunity to form a natural bond that could be considered friendship.

The world is not meant for socially awkward people. I hate to say that but it is true. Human beings are naturally social by nature. I will not deny once I finally warm up to my surroundings, which seemingly has to reset after each semester, it can take a month or two to get used to the people around me and talk. It is always too late though. We are creatures that crave to be recognized and talk to one another. It can be odd sometimes. At the same time when you are alone you can realize things that people that are together would not have realized. I never know what to say to people. I never know what to do to start a conversation or hop into one that I could easily talk about when I hear people talking about it, although it more depends on the place and even how many are talking.

One thing I know, it all comes down to that courage to take the first step. At the same time when that first step is taken, I do not know what happens after that. Life is always confusing. Yet, it is also about taking that first step no matter what it is for, whether it is to make friends or something else entirely.

That is all that is on my mind for now. So, until next time, hopefully next time is a more uplifting one.

-Joe