2007-10-02 5:54 p.m.
Second Today...Just Musing
^Just because the song is pretty.
This school year's started off well. I promised myself I would talk to more people this year, and I've kept that promise so far.
A lot of people don't get it. They think it's strange when I start randomly talking to them just because they're sitting next to me at the bus stop or in class, or because they are wearing the world's most awesome pirate jacket.
Not many people understand my philosophy that strangers are just friends who haven't happened yet.
I suppose I wouldn't either, except that my grandmother (whom I adore) is the type of woman who talks to everybody given even half a chance. I don't think there's a single person who truly -doesn't- like her.
I guess I kind of want to be like that.
Not so much because I care what other people think, but because friendship is the most valuable, beautiful thing I have in my entire life. Every friend I have is incredible. I'm the luckiest person in the world in that regard.
Besides, your friends are people who see only the best in you. Or at least they pretend to. I have a hard time seeing much good in myself, so it helps to have as many people around who like having me around because they genuinely like me as possible. :-D
That, and I'm still fleeing a lot of things. Most of which are, fortunately, in the past. I'm just not brave enough to let them go just yet, without knowing that I have enough of a support network. I'm kind of a chicken like that.
So I was thinking about this all day, and then I saw Jane's latest over on her wordpress. About all the people we never stop to talk to, all the things we never pause to do, telling ourselves it either doesn't matter or we can do it later.
Which together got me thinking. About the ways that stopping to do something out of your normal patterns can make all the difference in the world.
As evidence of this, I hereby submit my entire life.
Of my best friends, there's not a single one who I didn't meet under circumstances where I broke with my usual patterns, or where one of my plans fell through. A lot of my happiness has been due to fortunate accident.
I met my three best friends when my schedule for high school got screwed up. I knew it was screwy and that it would be fixed by the end of the first week and that I would probably never see any of the kids in that particular class again, but I still talked to them figuring it was better to make friends and pass the time pleasantly than be counting minutes until my schedule was fixed. To this day, that is the happiest accident of my existence.
I met my British pen pals due to an asthma attack after a concert ended.
My parents met because of a Chemistry class Mom was failing and Dad was a tutor in.
I've made countless one-day friends; people who I still see around campus and smile and talk to. People who I don't spend time with, but who if I met them again, I would be happy to see and work with.
And some of those one-day friends have become my closest confidantes in college.
In some ways, it seems to me that we're doing things all wrong. We live in such huge groups that we can't know all the people around us, but I think that people were meant to. So many people complain of being lonely, if not out loud then certainly in self-help book sales postsecrets, and journals, but so few of us even bother to give a simple greeting to strangers waiting at a bus stop with us.
What is it we're scared of?
Are we scared that they're axe-killers? Probably not. Most people realize that axe-killers are far outnumbered and that a bus stop on a busy street in broad daylight is a bad place to be killing people anyway. Are we scared that they're assholes? Again, probably not, because even if they are, a friendly greeting will usually dispel enough of that that their presence is tolerable for the forseeable future. Are we afraid of being thought foolish? Still probably not. We're only in the company of these people for a few minutes at most, generally.
Which leaves me to draw the conclusion that we're afraid that we'll somehow click. That we'll find a friend in somebody, or that we'll confide too deeply. In a world where, to quote my favorite musical, Rent, "Strangers, landlords, lovers, [and even] your own blood cells betray [you]", being able to let go long enough to have a friendly chat about the weather can seem a lot. Worse still is finding out that the other person agrees that lightning storms rule and sunny days are really kinda boring! With similarities come the desire for more discussion, possibly even connection. And then what happens? You've made a friend, maybe for only a passing moment, but there it is.
How so very terrible.
And it can be. Over 99% of the people you meet once will never be seen by you again. But what about that last 1%?
I for one am of the opinion that the more friends you have in the world, the better off you are. Even if the extent of your communication is "How 'bout them Dodgers?" "I hear they're playing the Lakers soon" (wrong sports to play off, I know, that's why it's funny) you've made the world that much nicer. Why? Because people are happy to be approached, so long as it's not in an overtly creepy way. A hi at a bus stop upon arriving is okay, a hi after sitting there for ten minutes is usually a bit weirder.
Bleargh. I forgot where I was going with that because my roommates came in and we started talking about earthquakes and hell and construction and cats chasing mice and all sorts of other random bullshit, so I shall end this here. Catch all of you later.
