Social revelations.
So I was planning on updating this LJ periodically to talk about various things that I've done during college / this summer, since I actually had some time to this summer. Well, I guess I still have some time left. But this entry is something that's been bothering me for a bit. (Caution: long entry ahead)
I've been home since Thursday, August 13. Today is Tuesday, August 25. In that period of time, I have seen one of my friends from home, and been contacted by one other friend saying we should hang out. The first person is the same friend that's actually bothered to make some sort of effort to keep in touch with me over the past year. (And when I say the past year, I mean continuously throughout the whole year- not just a little in the beginning that we all did because it was what we were used to.) In this period of time, the people that I considered my friends from home have all been chatting away and hanging out and acting just like old times.
"Acting just like old times." And that's what I have a problem with. "Acting just like old times" means hanging out with each other and not bothering to invite me along, leaving me as an afterthought if I ever even entered their minds at all. It wasn't always this way. In elementary school I was part of the group. We all were, equally, except for some people that floated in and out because they had some other friends. We got to middle school and the group got some new people, but I was still a part of it. Something changed around the end of middle school. There was a power shift, and I got shafted. When all my friends would go out to Applebee's and then into town some Friday nights, I stayed at home on the computer, wondering when I was finally going to get invited out. and it's not like I didn't make an effort. I confronted the person who I was the closest to in that group, saying that I would really like to hang out with them too, because I was still their friend. I didn't know if they didn't invite me out because they thought I had other things to do, or because they thought I didn't like them anymore, or because they didn't like me anymore- nobody would tell me why. But every time I said something, I got the same, "oh yeah, I don't know why you don't ever come with us. You should come next time." And then when next time came, I had no idea they were going, because I once again, was not invited.
And any one of them looking at this now would probably say something like "Dana, that didn't mean anything. You're just being bitter." And for years, I have been bitter, and for years I've felt that I shouldn't be. I should be forgiving, because how could I be friends with people if I was mad at them? It didn't make sense to me. So I continued to sit at home on Friday nights and sit with them at lunch tables. All the while, we continued to distance. My best friend at that moment didn't go to our elementary school. Even though she hung out with us, she wasn't part of the original group. For some reason, I fit in better hanging out with her than with my original friends. So it didn't bother me as much if I wasn't hanging out with the group as a whole, because at least I had one friend that seemed to appreciate me.
There was another reason that I started to become okay with not hanging out with that group. There was a gradual transformation that had been occurring ever since those elementary school days of being a tight-knit, equal, democratic group. One of the girls was a bit more spoiled than the rest of us. I recognize her now as being incredibly insecure and needy, but then, I saw her as knowing exactly what she wanted and doing whatever it meant to get it. I also saw her as a spoiled brat. This girl actually got everything that she wanted. She completely trampled all over her parents, asking for money and material things and being rude in return. She had no sense of "thanks." For some reason, she felt she deserved everything, and since her parents almost never told her no, it just got worse and worse. She had the highest allowance out of all of us, and took great pleasure in shoving that in our faces. She had the master huge bedroom in her house, with two beds, even though she was an only child. And she always wanted to be the leader of our group. Now in elementary school, none of us felt like we needed a group leader, and she wasn't very pushy about it. But I guess the feeling remained for her, because over time, she was able to take great control over the group. All of the Friday night Applebee's dinners were dictated by her; she made the majority the group decisions about where and how we would hang out. Most of this was because she was just so needy. If anybody hung out without her, she would get super pissed. She would yell at you and tell you you were a bad friend. She wanted to be included in everything, and the only way she could be included in everything was if she dictated it all. So that's basically what happened. Now somehow, I'm not really sure how, but somehow, I was free of her master grip. She didn't put nearly as much effort into controlling me as she did into everyone else. So as a result of that, I didn't get to hang out with my friends as much, but I was free. The problem with being free at that point in time was that all that freedom meant to me was not really being able to see my friends as much as I wanted to because they were hanging out separately. And I guess this is how I made some of my other friends. There were a few people that were always on the outskirts of the group- that were friends with some of us, but not the ringleader (whose only friends were those in the group). These people, at least at that point in time, were all welcoming, loyal, good friends. These people were much more like me than some of the people in the group. They were smart, but also with good social skills. Most of them sang or did theater with me. I still stayed close with some of the people in the group (which was always adding new people, but somehow I was never one of them), but by the end of middle school, I wasn't really part of them anymore.
The best part about not being part of that group was that I didn't have to deal with the Leader. The people in the group that I was still very close to did not like her. And I knew through them that most of the other people in the group didn't like her either. I was the person that they would come and complain to about how annoying and unreasonable she was being. She always demanded to be a part of everything, and would get mad at you for things that didn't matter at all. Since most people didn't like her, the obvious solution was just to not be friends with her anymore. Start over. Let her reform her ways. She should be friend with us only when she deserves it. But of course this was an impossibility. First of all, how do you just stop being friends with someone? Especially when this someone has enough power to demand to the school administration that she have as many friends in her classes as possible, and actually get her way. They couldn't talk to her about it- she would probably just laugh in her face. And besides, this girl planned all of their social engagements. She did all of the work. Without her, they would actually have to work at maintaining friends. So, throughout middle and high school, they would come to me and complain about her, and be so thankful that I was such a good friend that would listen to their complaints. And of course, I would spend all this time wondering why they would rather hang out with her than me, because she was a controlling bitch and I was a loyal friend. But I figured that eventually they would figure it out, so I just became the listener, the person they could vent to. It didn't bother me too much, because as long as there was venting to be done, I was still a part of their lives. They needed somebody outside to talk to and I fit that role perfectly. And meanwhile, I had other friends that I could hang out with that were at least kind of normal.
Now, about these other friends. We never had a real solid group. My group changed a lot from year to year in high school, depending on who had the same lunch period I did. There were a few people that remained constant (mostly because I was in chorus or band with them, and so we would always have the same lunch period.) There was one girl, though, that has to get mentioned here, because this entry would not be complete without her. I became friends with her at the end of elementary school because we were in district chorus together. Then in middle school, when we actually went to school together, she became my best friend pretty quickly. We were both outsiders of the group, and we had a ton in common. We were two of the smartest girls in our grade (I think many people would agree that we were the two smartest girls in our grade), we both sang, we both did theater, and neither of us had any strange social quirks. We were both well-liked by most people, although I would never have been considered popular (she could have). It was nice having a best friend, because the girl who had been my best friend in elementary school stopped considering me her best friend after 3rd grade, when a new girl moved into town. Suddenly, my first real friend no longer put me first. But I dealt with it because I liked them both and they both liked me, and it seemed like both of them would have put me as their second best friend, which was better than nothing. But in middle school, I had a best friend of my own. It was great. The problem was that we had two different perspectives on our social place. I had accepted that as a smart girl, I would never be part of the popular clique. They were all pretty and fake tanned and loved by almost everyone (because somehow, my middle school did not get the message that the popular girls are supposed to be mean. These girls were actually really nice people.) And even though my grandmother insisted that I was beautiful, it didn't really seem that people my age felt the same way. However, my best friend wouldn't take that. She wanted to be popular and have as many friends as possible, and so that's what she was going to do. She already acted like the typical popular girl. She had perfect hair and makeup and had no problem talking about other people behind their back, and having me look and see all the negative traits of people that were supposedly below us. So in our first year of high school, the two of us got a whole new group of friends, some of whom we had known for a while but weren't close with, others who we had just met. At lunch we would go back and forth between sitting with this group and with our chorus friends. But it was clear that this group liked her more than me, and eventually, she started to feel the same way. She got progressively more and more distant towards me and closer to them. But for some reason, I had trouble seeing it. When I look at it now, I realize that she was trying to get rid of me in the nicest, smoothest way possible, trying to make it seem like a natural split. But at the time, I hardly noticed we were distancing. She was my best friend, and that's just the way it was. One day at the end of the school year, she was talking to some of the other people in that group, and I went up and tried to join in. But I was completely ignored. Well, almost completely. She acknowledged my presence, and that was it. Just enough so that I knew that I was being consciously ignored. At that point, I realized we were no longer best friends.
My former best friend also "broke up" with several other of my friends. Notice how I say several. Not all, just some of us. The ones that had nothing left to offer her. She kept ties with a few of us (The Original Best Friend, The One I Later Realized Never Really Liked Me, and The Intelligent One With No Common Sense), but the rest of us soon fell completely out of her life. Over the rest of high school, I noticed that her group of friends kept shifting. She would get bored with her current group of friends or they would realize that she wasn't actually a very nice person, and then she would just move on to a new, prettier, meaner group of people.
So now at this point, I had no best friend, no real, solid group, and still, somehow, a faith and loyalty in friendship. I went through the rest of high school with all of my chorus friends, my robotics friends, the two from the original group, and The Quieter One That Was Always Friends With Everyone In The Group But Somehow Always Forgotten. I was never really satisfied with my situation, but I dealt with it. I loved the idea of Best Friends Forever, and I really wanted to hang on to my friends. I couldn't bear to lose them, even if I was annoyed about not being included in things with The Group. Nobody considered me their best friend, and I didn't really know who to consider mine. If somebody asked, I normally would just answer The Original Best Friend because we were still close, and I had nobody else to say. The problem was, The Original Best Friend was impossible to maintain as a friend. Because she was part of The Group, she had this sense that all of her social engagements should be set for her. If I wanted to make plans with her, I usually had to initiate it and figure out most of what we were doing. It was like this for most of my friends, actually, but nobody more than her. But since I was a loyal friend, I obliged. And by this we were able to stay very good friends throughout high school. As long as I was willing to put in a little more work on my end, I had somebody that I could consider my best friend. Plus, it's not like she made me do all the work. She wasn't a bad friend at all. We talked and had sleepovers and she seemed genuinely interested in me. We did theater together and would just hang out and we always had a good time. Plus, I knew her since we were 2 years old. Even though everyone liked her more than me because she was prettier, funnier, and tried harder to please everybody, she was still pretty good to me (at least by the standards I had then.) I had this faith in her, in all my friends, that once we got to college everyone would realize what a loyal friend I had been through everything, and that I was the one that they should all be trying to keep in touch and hang out with, not The Leader.
At the end of high school, it seemed like there was only one person that had the same sense of loyalty that I did. We had a lot in common. We were both very ambitious, loyal, and had been ditched by people we thought were our best friends. We did chorus together and we had been really good friends all through high school. We had a lot in common. When we made plans, we made them equally. It never felt like one of us was working harder than the other to maintain the friendship. It just worked. It was a nice feeling. I don't know for sure that she considered me her best friend, but that's what we were. Unfortunately, we didn't realize it until there were only a few months left in high school, so it didn't last very long.
Then came college. I had hoped that everything would change in college, and for the most part, it did. I made new friends- true friends. Friends that considered me their friend just as much as I considered them mine. It was remarkable, finally having a best friend who considered me her best friend too. Somebody who cared about me enough to actually bother trying to make plans with me and hang out. Somebody I could call and not feel like I was imposing. Somebody who wouldn't try to hide plans with other friends from me. Somebody that is reading this entry because she cares enough about me to do so, not just because she's bored. And it's not just her. I made other friends that also enjoyed my company. Now for most people that feeling is completely normal. Why would you be friends with someone if it didn't seem like they enjoyed spending time with you? Why would you be friends with someone if they don't ever bother trying to make plans with you? I don't know, honestly. But it's something I did, and something I am still doing. But it's wonderful to know that it's not a problem with me- that I'm not pretty enough or not funny enough or I try too hard or I'm too much of a pushover. If somebody doesn't appreciate me, that's their problem, because now, there are plenty of other people that do.
And now this brings me to today. I've been home since Thursday, August 13. Today is Tuesday, August 25. In that time period I got to spend time with my best friend from home, and a few days ago, after sending a link to an interesting news story to one of the people from The Group that I stayed friends with, she told me we should hang out sometime. And I hope we do, because I do like her. I like all my friends from home. They're all good people. I left a message for The Original Best Friend but I haven't heard back from her yet. At this point, I just have to accept that if she doesn't respond, then that's her problem. Maybe one day she'll realize that there was more that she could have done to stay my friend. Maybe she won't, and it will just end, and we'll both move on and have good lives apart. Or maybe later today she'll respond and tell me she misses me and we should hang out. But whichever of those things happen, I just have to accept that that's the path our lives are taking. And if my friends from home want to hang out without me while fully well knowing that I am home, then so be it. In a week, I'll get to return to school and experience life with people who I appreciate and who appreciate me equally. I can be patient for a week.
For a while, I was thinking that it was very self-absorbed of me to be upset that my friends are doing things without me while I am just waiting for them to contact me. After all, friendship is two ways, and maybe they're also just waiting for me. But somehow, I don't think that's the case. I'm sure that if I went and made the plans, they would follow along and have a good time and be happy that I made them. But I can't force somebody into being my friend. And I just feel that if these people really wanted to see me, really cared about me, there would have been an effort at some point on their part to check up on me, to see how school is going, what kinds of things I'm doing. I did it for them, for a while. But I always felt like the person leading the conversation, asking the questions, doing all the initiating while they just got to sit and answer. That is not a two-way friendship. Even if it wasn't very often, I still checked up on the people I cared about. Nobody checked up on me. So really, is it selfish of me to wait until they contact me before I hang out with them? No, I don't think it is.
And then this brings me to one more point. I got my tonsils out Friday, August 14. On Wednesday, August 19, I noticed on facebook that another girl from my school also got hers out. For me, the sensible thing to do was to send her a message letting her know that I had gotten mine out also and wishing her a recovery as good as mine had been. Now, this was a girl that I wasn't very close to. We were friendly towards each other but I don't think either of us would have considered the other one a friend, although we both had good opinions of the other. But even so, my good friend instinct kicked in and I sent her the message. And she was surprised and grateful. I know in that circumstance that I did the right thing. What I wonder, though, is if any of my high school friends would have done the same thing, had they been in my shoes. Or, would they have seen it and said "oh interesting" and left it at that. I really don't know. And it's not particularly relevant to my case. I would hope that if they were me and I was the other girl, that then they would say something, but even then I don't know for sure whether they would. They probably would. Actually, when I first got tonsillitis, The Leader posted on my wall that she had it also and she felt bad, or something like that. So maybe everyone has a bit of that instinct, even if they aren't the greatest friend. So as to whether or not they would have said something, I still leave it as a maybe. Maybe I'm the better person. I don't know. But I think I'm doing a pretty good job. Whether or not other people want to see that is up to them.
I've been home since Thursday, August 13. Today is Tuesday, August 25. In that period of time, I have seen one of my friends from home, and been contacted by one other friend saying we should hang out. The first person is the same friend that's actually bothered to make some sort of effort to keep in touch with me over the past year. (And when I say the past year, I mean continuously throughout the whole year- not just a little in the beginning that we all did because it was what we were used to.) In this period of time, the people that I considered my friends from home have all been chatting away and hanging out and acting just like old times.
"Acting just like old times." And that's what I have a problem with. "Acting just like old times" means hanging out with each other and not bothering to invite me along, leaving me as an afterthought if I ever even entered their minds at all. It wasn't always this way. In elementary school I was part of the group. We all were, equally, except for some people that floated in and out because they had some other friends. We got to middle school and the group got some new people, but I was still a part of it. Something changed around the end of middle school. There was a power shift, and I got shafted. When all my friends would go out to Applebee's and then into town some Friday nights, I stayed at home on the computer, wondering when I was finally going to get invited out. and it's not like I didn't make an effort. I confronted the person who I was the closest to in that group, saying that I would really like to hang out with them too, because I was still their friend. I didn't know if they didn't invite me out because they thought I had other things to do, or because they thought I didn't like them anymore, or because they didn't like me anymore- nobody would tell me why. But every time I said something, I got the same, "oh yeah, I don't know why you don't ever come with us. You should come next time." And then when next time came, I had no idea they were going, because I once again, was not invited.
And any one of them looking at this now would probably say something like "Dana, that didn't mean anything. You're just being bitter." And for years, I have been bitter, and for years I've felt that I shouldn't be. I should be forgiving, because how could I be friends with people if I was mad at them? It didn't make sense to me. So I continued to sit at home on Friday nights and sit with them at lunch tables. All the while, we continued to distance. My best friend at that moment didn't go to our elementary school. Even though she hung out with us, she wasn't part of the original group. For some reason, I fit in better hanging out with her than with my original friends. So it didn't bother me as much if I wasn't hanging out with the group as a whole, because at least I had one friend that seemed to appreciate me.
There was another reason that I started to become okay with not hanging out with that group. There was a gradual transformation that had been occurring ever since those elementary school days of being a tight-knit, equal, democratic group. One of the girls was a bit more spoiled than the rest of us. I recognize her now as being incredibly insecure and needy, but then, I saw her as knowing exactly what she wanted and doing whatever it meant to get it. I also saw her as a spoiled brat. This girl actually got everything that she wanted. She completely trampled all over her parents, asking for money and material things and being rude in return. She had no sense of "thanks." For some reason, she felt she deserved everything, and since her parents almost never told her no, it just got worse and worse. She had the highest allowance out of all of us, and took great pleasure in shoving that in our faces. She had the master huge bedroom in her house, with two beds, even though she was an only child. And she always wanted to be the leader of our group. Now in elementary school, none of us felt like we needed a group leader, and she wasn't very pushy about it. But I guess the feeling remained for her, because over time, she was able to take great control over the group. All of the Friday night Applebee's dinners were dictated by her; she made the majority the group decisions about where and how we would hang out. Most of this was because she was just so needy. If anybody hung out without her, she would get super pissed. She would yell at you and tell you you were a bad friend. She wanted to be included in everything, and the only way she could be included in everything was if she dictated it all. So that's basically what happened. Now somehow, I'm not really sure how, but somehow, I was free of her master grip. She didn't put nearly as much effort into controlling me as she did into everyone else. So as a result of that, I didn't get to hang out with my friends as much, but I was free. The problem with being free at that point in time was that all that freedom meant to me was not really being able to see my friends as much as I wanted to because they were hanging out separately. And I guess this is how I made some of my other friends. There were a few people that were always on the outskirts of the group- that were friends with some of us, but not the ringleader (whose only friends were those in the group). These people, at least at that point in time, were all welcoming, loyal, good friends. These people were much more like me than some of the people in the group. They were smart, but also with good social skills. Most of them sang or did theater with me. I still stayed close with some of the people in the group (which was always adding new people, but somehow I was never one of them), but by the end of middle school, I wasn't really part of them anymore.
The best part about not being part of that group was that I didn't have to deal with the Leader. The people in the group that I was still very close to did not like her. And I knew through them that most of the other people in the group didn't like her either. I was the person that they would come and complain to about how annoying and unreasonable she was being. She always demanded to be a part of everything, and would get mad at you for things that didn't matter at all. Since most people didn't like her, the obvious solution was just to not be friends with her anymore. Start over. Let her reform her ways. She should be friend with us only when she deserves it. But of course this was an impossibility. First of all, how do you just stop being friends with someone? Especially when this someone has enough power to demand to the school administration that she have as many friends in her classes as possible, and actually get her way. They couldn't talk to her about it- she would probably just laugh in her face. And besides, this girl planned all of their social engagements. She did all of the work. Without her, they would actually have to work at maintaining friends. So, throughout middle and high school, they would come to me and complain about her, and be so thankful that I was such a good friend that would listen to their complaints. And of course, I would spend all this time wondering why they would rather hang out with her than me, because she was a controlling bitch and I was a loyal friend. But I figured that eventually they would figure it out, so I just became the listener, the person they could vent to. It didn't bother me too much, because as long as there was venting to be done, I was still a part of their lives. They needed somebody outside to talk to and I fit that role perfectly. And meanwhile, I had other friends that I could hang out with that were at least kind of normal.
Now, about these other friends. We never had a real solid group. My group changed a lot from year to year in high school, depending on who had the same lunch period I did. There were a few people that remained constant (mostly because I was in chorus or band with them, and so we would always have the same lunch period.) There was one girl, though, that has to get mentioned here, because this entry would not be complete without her. I became friends with her at the end of elementary school because we were in district chorus together. Then in middle school, when we actually went to school together, she became my best friend pretty quickly. We were both outsiders of the group, and we had a ton in common. We were two of the smartest girls in our grade (I think many people would agree that we were the two smartest girls in our grade), we both sang, we both did theater, and neither of us had any strange social quirks. We were both well-liked by most people, although I would never have been considered popular (she could have). It was nice having a best friend, because the girl who had been my best friend in elementary school stopped considering me her best friend after 3rd grade, when a new girl moved into town. Suddenly, my first real friend no longer put me first. But I dealt with it because I liked them both and they both liked me, and it seemed like both of them would have put me as their second best friend, which was better than nothing. But in middle school, I had a best friend of my own. It was great. The problem was that we had two different perspectives on our social place. I had accepted that as a smart girl, I would never be part of the popular clique. They were all pretty and fake tanned and loved by almost everyone (because somehow, my middle school did not get the message that the popular girls are supposed to be mean. These girls were actually really nice people.) And even though my grandmother insisted that I was beautiful, it didn't really seem that people my age felt the same way. However, my best friend wouldn't take that. She wanted to be popular and have as many friends as possible, and so that's what she was going to do. She already acted like the typical popular girl. She had perfect hair and makeup and had no problem talking about other people behind their back, and having me look and see all the negative traits of people that were supposedly below us. So in our first year of high school, the two of us got a whole new group of friends, some of whom we had known for a while but weren't close with, others who we had just met. At lunch we would go back and forth between sitting with this group and with our chorus friends. But it was clear that this group liked her more than me, and eventually, she started to feel the same way. She got progressively more and more distant towards me and closer to them. But for some reason, I had trouble seeing it. When I look at it now, I realize that she was trying to get rid of me in the nicest, smoothest way possible, trying to make it seem like a natural split. But at the time, I hardly noticed we were distancing. She was my best friend, and that's just the way it was. One day at the end of the school year, she was talking to some of the other people in that group, and I went up and tried to join in. But I was completely ignored. Well, almost completely. She acknowledged my presence, and that was it. Just enough so that I knew that I was being consciously ignored. At that point, I realized we were no longer best friends.
My former best friend also "broke up" with several other of my friends. Notice how I say several. Not all, just some of us. The ones that had nothing left to offer her. She kept ties with a few of us (The Original Best Friend, The One I Later Realized Never Really Liked Me, and The Intelligent One With No Common Sense), but the rest of us soon fell completely out of her life. Over the rest of high school, I noticed that her group of friends kept shifting. She would get bored with her current group of friends or they would realize that she wasn't actually a very nice person, and then she would just move on to a new, prettier, meaner group of people.
So now at this point, I had no best friend, no real, solid group, and still, somehow, a faith and loyalty in friendship. I went through the rest of high school with all of my chorus friends, my robotics friends, the two from the original group, and The Quieter One That Was Always Friends With Everyone In The Group But Somehow Always Forgotten. I was never really satisfied with my situation, but I dealt with it. I loved the idea of Best Friends Forever, and I really wanted to hang on to my friends. I couldn't bear to lose them, even if I was annoyed about not being included in things with The Group. Nobody considered me their best friend, and I didn't really know who to consider mine. If somebody asked, I normally would just answer The Original Best Friend because we were still close, and I had nobody else to say. The problem was, The Original Best Friend was impossible to maintain as a friend. Because she was part of The Group, she had this sense that all of her social engagements should be set for her. If I wanted to make plans with her, I usually had to initiate it and figure out most of what we were doing. It was like this for most of my friends, actually, but nobody more than her. But since I was a loyal friend, I obliged. And by this we were able to stay very good friends throughout high school. As long as I was willing to put in a little more work on my end, I had somebody that I could consider my best friend. Plus, it's not like she made me do all the work. She wasn't a bad friend at all. We talked and had sleepovers and she seemed genuinely interested in me. We did theater together and would just hang out and we always had a good time. Plus, I knew her since we were 2 years old. Even though everyone liked her more than me because she was prettier, funnier, and tried harder to please everybody, she was still pretty good to me (at least by the standards I had then.) I had this faith in her, in all my friends, that once we got to college everyone would realize what a loyal friend I had been through everything, and that I was the one that they should all be trying to keep in touch and hang out with, not The Leader.
At the end of high school, it seemed like there was only one person that had the same sense of loyalty that I did. We had a lot in common. We were both very ambitious, loyal, and had been ditched by people we thought were our best friends. We did chorus together and we had been really good friends all through high school. We had a lot in common. When we made plans, we made them equally. It never felt like one of us was working harder than the other to maintain the friendship. It just worked. It was a nice feeling. I don't know for sure that she considered me her best friend, but that's what we were. Unfortunately, we didn't realize it until there were only a few months left in high school, so it didn't last very long.
Then came college. I had hoped that everything would change in college, and for the most part, it did. I made new friends- true friends. Friends that considered me their friend just as much as I considered them mine. It was remarkable, finally having a best friend who considered me her best friend too. Somebody who cared about me enough to actually bother trying to make plans with me and hang out. Somebody I could call and not feel like I was imposing. Somebody who wouldn't try to hide plans with other friends from me. Somebody that is reading this entry because she cares enough about me to do so, not just because she's bored. And it's not just her. I made other friends that also enjoyed my company. Now for most people that feeling is completely normal. Why would you be friends with someone if it didn't seem like they enjoyed spending time with you? Why would you be friends with someone if they don't ever bother trying to make plans with you? I don't know, honestly. But it's something I did, and something I am still doing. But it's wonderful to know that it's not a problem with me- that I'm not pretty enough or not funny enough or I try too hard or I'm too much of a pushover. If somebody doesn't appreciate me, that's their problem, because now, there are plenty of other people that do.
And now this brings me to today. I've been home since Thursday, August 13. Today is Tuesday, August 25. In that time period I got to spend time with my best friend from home, and a few days ago, after sending a link to an interesting news story to one of the people from The Group that I stayed friends with, she told me we should hang out sometime. And I hope we do, because I do like her. I like all my friends from home. They're all good people. I left a message for The Original Best Friend but I haven't heard back from her yet. At this point, I just have to accept that if she doesn't respond, then that's her problem. Maybe one day she'll realize that there was more that she could have done to stay my friend. Maybe she won't, and it will just end, and we'll both move on and have good lives apart. Or maybe later today she'll respond and tell me she misses me and we should hang out. But whichever of those things happen, I just have to accept that that's the path our lives are taking. And if my friends from home want to hang out without me while fully well knowing that I am home, then so be it. In a week, I'll get to return to school and experience life with people who I appreciate and who appreciate me equally. I can be patient for a week.
For a while, I was thinking that it was very self-absorbed of me to be upset that my friends are doing things without me while I am just waiting for them to contact me. After all, friendship is two ways, and maybe they're also just waiting for me. But somehow, I don't think that's the case. I'm sure that if I went and made the plans, they would follow along and have a good time and be happy that I made them. But I can't force somebody into being my friend. And I just feel that if these people really wanted to see me, really cared about me, there would have been an effort at some point on their part to check up on me, to see how school is going, what kinds of things I'm doing. I did it for them, for a while. But I always felt like the person leading the conversation, asking the questions, doing all the initiating while they just got to sit and answer. That is not a two-way friendship. Even if it wasn't very often, I still checked up on the people I cared about. Nobody checked up on me. So really, is it selfish of me to wait until they contact me before I hang out with them? No, I don't think it is.
And then this brings me to one more point. I got my tonsils out Friday, August 14. On Wednesday, August 19, I noticed on facebook that another girl from my school also got hers out. For me, the sensible thing to do was to send her a message letting her know that I had gotten mine out also and wishing her a recovery as good as mine had been. Now, this was a girl that I wasn't very close to. We were friendly towards each other but I don't think either of us would have considered the other one a friend, although we both had good opinions of the other. But even so, my good friend instinct kicked in and I sent her the message. And she was surprised and grateful. I know in that circumstance that I did the right thing. What I wonder, though, is if any of my high school friends would have done the same thing, had they been in my shoes. Or, would they have seen it and said "oh interesting" and left it at that. I really don't know. And it's not particularly relevant to my case. I would hope that if they were me and I was the other girl, that then they would say something, but even then I don't know for sure whether they would. They probably would. Actually, when I first got tonsillitis, The Leader posted on my wall that she had it also and she felt bad, or something like that. So maybe everyone has a bit of that instinct, even if they aren't the greatest friend. So as to whether or not they would have said something, I still leave it as a maybe. Maybe I'm the better person. I don't know. But I think I'm doing a pretty good job. Whether or not other people want to see that is up to them.