January 22, 2009
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1.22/2009
Me: [looking at a strange new smoothie king cup] "Is that a new cup?"
Smoothie King Girl: "[smiling] It's because you're so cute."How do you react to that?
I have quite a lot of work to do on my thesis: I need IRB approval, I need to find the next two thesis committee members, I need to have them sign off on my thesis, I need to find the source of the history of alcohol taxation in Georgia, and lastly, I need to continue writing the rest of my thesis. Although the scope of all of this work seems daunting, currently, I am at peace. I realize that the work can be done, and if I get one piece (the history of alcohol taxation in Georgia) most other things should fall into place.
There's much work to be done.
Friendship is strange to me, because there is no set friendship rules. By rules, I want to reference the amount of communication. I mean, for most people, I don't call them or initiate a conversation unless I have something I want to talk about, something I need their opinion on. Additionally, for me this is also complicated by one of my assumptions of other people's lives: I assume that people who are working or in school are busy and don't have much time to talk anyway . This gap between communication could last months. The strange thing is that all of this depends on the person. I am willing to adapt to each person. For example, Russ calls me often, and, as a consequence I have been conditioned to understand it is okay to call him on a whim. It's strange to me that Russ and I talk nearly everyday, whereas people like Antwone, T-Mo, Torcise, Huie, and Beth talk once a month or every few months or so. It's odd to think about this in retrospect. I'm not sure if these people would want to talk more or not, but I assume they are fine with the way things are.
Question: Is it selfish for me to only call when I feel like talking? Or when I feel like catching up? Is that wrong? (Tangent: Should these things be scheduled? I feel as though scheduling these things completely removes the feeling of the conversation. I think by rigidly scheduling conversation, things become forced and rote quickly.) I'm not sure. I believe that friendships in themselves contain a lot of selfish qualities which many people do not recognize as selfish. This is one of them. My calling someone, in itself, is a selfish request. It does not take into account the possibility of the busyness of their life, and or their lack of wanting to talk. It is simply my desire to talk to them, my desire to engage in conversation. It's like going down to see someone without their permission. It's full of good intentions, however, it is utterly selfish. It could interrupt their life, because they might feel obligated to spend time with you even though they realistically don't have the time to do so.
In the end, friendships are different because people are different. Different people inherently require different needs out of their friendships. Some people require more communication from their friends than do others. Some people require more physical contact (hugging, kissing, pats on the back, touching, etc.) from their friends than do others. Some friends require proximity more than others. Everything depends on the person and their specific desires. This reminds me of another idea... it's odd when people get jealous of how their friendship differs from another friendship. The nature of my friendship with one person is different from another not necessarily because I value one person more, but perhaps because that is how their needs have influenced how we interact. Additionally, if that person is jealous, they can change the nature of the friendship by calling more often, being more physical, joking around more, or being more serious. I will be more serious with a serious friend, more joking with a joking friend, more physical with a physical friend (up to a certain point)... the list goes on.
Strange how there are no explicit rules though.
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