Listening: Toward the Within, Dead Can Dance
I'd rather be: surrounded by friends
Desiring: oodles of money
Enjoying: forbidden doughnut

I'm rerunning many of my internal monologue/diatribe/soliloquys regarding friendship and I actually don't entirely feel like I'm going in circles just yet. give me an hour.

Something I remembered reguarding the ties I build is that while I get possessive of things I like and am tempted to get annoyed when someone likes something I like in a different way or context than the way I like it (Someday I'll write about that, remind me.), I get more defensive of people I like or just get along with.

I guess people's baser natures makes us prone to smack talk, being catty or whatever. Girls are supposed to be more destructive about each other's reputation and status but it's bullshit to think guys don't ever talk shit about people, regardless of gender. Girls (as far as I've noticed) tend to keep it only to other girls.

It's bugged me. It's always bugged me. And it bugs me most when some time after the fact I realized I've committed some of that same BS. I get annoyed with people and so I go to my friends and bitch about said people and make gross generalizations and say cruel things that I would think were not only low but ignorant if other people said them. Even so I find myself wanting to protect myself by saying no one ever stops me. No one ever contradicts me and no one ever even tries to defend the person whose character I'm defaming.

It's rare but the occasion has come up where I've taken a stand for people - and they're not always people I particularly like - and every single time it's been kinda weird. It throws people off balance, it makes them assume different things about me to re-adjust their previous assumptions. But most of all when I can rid myself of the leash that ties me to the "go alone with it" mode I can fall into it can be kind of liberating.

It's the opposite of the feeling I get when I hear myself going on about someone I feel irritated by. somewhere in the back of my head I observe myself getting carried away - the image of wild horses dragging a burning carriage comes to mine - and powerless to stop, let alone make any statements that show I know a more positive side of the person. And hey, if I know you well enough to talk trash about you, I know you well enough to say good things about you.

I suppose I get a little disappointed when I can't see this urge in other people. I don't see them trying to reach for higher ground and avoiding getting dragged away. Maybe they are but they regularly lose. I dunno. Maybe they're better at it when I'm not around egging them on. I just wish I could feel more secure with what I imagine people say about me when I'm not around.

Opinionated? sure.
stubborn? check.
selfish? likely.
too liberal for words? heh I've got some words for ya
emotional? of course.
brash? why not
"hit 'send' first, think later"? That's part of the charm.

Likely the people who are closest to me and therefore are widely known as my friends don't hear much about it. People rarely choose to bitch about other people *to* said other people's friends. Not spectacularly helpful or cathartic. But I wonder who, if anyone, really bothers to stand up for me? My friends aren't perfect and so I wonder who stands up for them?

Standing up for someone in no way means telling bitcher that s/he is out of line with regard to the bitchee. In fact, it rarely takes more than saying, "That hasn't been my impression." Or even "The person you're associating with an event that aggravates you doesn't actually have a direct relationship. Let me fill in some context...."

*sigh* If no one does, I totally understand why. In specific regard to myself I haven't extactly tried to win over people. It's my own insular charm wherein I hate everyone and believe every person I meet is an asshole and an idiot until proved otherwise. Ok, an exaggeration. I'm just suspicious of the people I meet. The people I don't meet I could give a shit about.

But in truth, it can get pretty hard to put the brakes on a bitch session, especially when I was just taking part a few minutes earlier. It's peer pressure, it's social dynamics and... well considering some of the people I've known it can give the feeling of trying to stand against of tidal wave of words, huffing and puffing and otherwise vitriolic thought that could easily turn against you the second you look at it funny.

But I get very disgusted when I try to take a discretionary route and stay silent only to find my silence accepted as assent. I get disgusted with myself primarly. I know my world history and I know how mass silence is taken as mass assent. There's no reason it won't happen on a micro level. The same goes for changing the subject. If the bitcher has bitched themselves into a tizzy, they don't always notice I'm changing the subject so I don't have to deal with their thoughts anymore. But I'm also annoyed with the other party. If they chose to take my silence as agreement I always figured that was their problem. It's not, of course, it's a problem for the both of us. But it speaks of some delusion if the other party truly thinks I will never need to speak my mind because s/he (English really needs neuter singular pronouns) speaks accurately for the both of us.

It reaches back to high school in some regard. Which is unfortunate because I despise having to think about high school in any context. But I remember back in the day having different groups of friends and needing to juggle them because either they were very different - drama gods, the honor students, and Across-the-Streeters (smokers & drop outs) - or they were in close enough circles that egos and gossip would regularly bump and create some terrific messes. I never figured out how to persue friends in just one circle and stick with that group and keep up with them. I let it train me to keep quiet when I should speak up. It's hard enough for me to make friends and bad words from one aquaintance can poison a whole group. Or at least it did in high school.

So I guess I'll continue to wonder and just hope for the best.