I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me
I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me
I need someone, yeah, who doesn't need me.
--The Doors
--Hyacinth House

I need an out, but I can't find one. At best talking with people is a two-dimensional exercise but I need something that thoroughly expresses the four dimensions we live in. And I don't even know how to address the vague extra dimension I can sense just beyond the reach of my vision and understanding.

The sort of stuff that I've wanted to explore even in this space is all confused and knotted up making it nearly impossible to create headway in understnding myself and my perception of the world any better. I do my best when I have someone to bounce ideas off of but I don't really hang with a crowd that does esoteric self-examination just for fun.

It's really driving me crazy. I haven't had the time or really the desire to sit down and read some heavy hitters since college. I only took one pseudo-philosophy class (it was actually a literary course but we read a lot of philosophy so }:P). But that stuff doesn't exactly come with training wheels and I wasn't entirely ready for it. The Neitzsche was bewildering but I think I could go back to it and force it through my thick skull. I don't think I could do that with Keirkegaard - I would need help. But beyond that I don't want to just read them so I know what's going on in my head, I want to read them so I have somewhere to start in developing a more thorough understanding of my metaphsyical state.

All of the above is, I hope, the last part in a series of arguments/disagreements/dissatisfaction I've had with myself and my life. I need to have conversations with people so that I can make sense of my life but it's unfair to expect my friends to bring me enlightenment.

The disagreement/frustration started with the notion that my friends should be able to know what is going on in my head at any time. This was a thought concurrent with the idea that if I start to talk about how I'm feeling I'm not going to get interrupted and the conversation won't be hijacked from me. I don't like being interrupted, but more than that I know that every individual's situation and emotional response is nuanced enough that trying to make one's emotional situation resonate with another's by interrupting them and telling them that their troubles are identical is usually pointless and undermines the desire for self-expression. If all of my feelings are truly identical to yours why would/should I ever bother speaking up?

I'm being only slightly facetious when I say my friends should know what I'm thinking. Obviously telepathy is a little much to expect just for a healthy relationship. It's just that the opposite holds true just long enough to annoy me. No, I can't read my friends' minds. But I do what I can to learn their mannerisms, interests and preferances and pay attention to their reactions and the sorts of things they take the initiative on. I would like to think that this translates to an ability to anticipate their actions and thoughts on some level which in turn increases my value as a friend. I haven't the slightest idea if this is working as planned but at the very least I am aware of the effort that goes into it. And sometimes I am deeply frustrated to find the seeming lack effort on the part of those around me.

This thought process leads to a few things, the realization that some of my friends most common expressions really bother me, there has to be a aspects of my personality that can rub my friends raw (not that they ever tell me about it), and I don't make friends easily. The classification of "friend" on this level is quite amorphous and covers more ground and people than I would normally include if I were to list the individuals I truly consider friends. But if you're reading this and have met me, chances are you're included in the Amalgamation of People I have Ever Known and Friends I have Ever Made.

This strikes me as odd, personally, because I don't make friends easily. I am not an outgoing person and all too often I find myself unwilling to even extend the effort to reach out to friends. This has led to extended periods of time where I had no real friends (ranging from someone I could contact at three in the morning to get help in an emergency to someone who would happily eat lunch with me). The perspective this yeilds me is one with a striking lack of alternatives. I've been friendless. I'm not eager to go back to it.

Friends don't just become that way by virtue of being the people who haven't chased me away yet, there is something about them, each of them, that enchants me and keeps me interested. But I have days when nothing suits and the bar gets high for everyone, myself included.

Comments?