A.W.K. Archive

Being a friend is a fine art. Two people who are compatible with each other share more than strong feelings of love and affection. They also can share interests and ideas and feelings about all kinds of different stuff. But, compatibility is not only about what you share and agree on, it's also about accepting what you don't agree on. You know? It's about supporting each other through all the different directions that your individual lives will take you. It's about being gentle and careful about each other's feelings when you do disagree. This goes for romantic and intimate relationships as well as friendships. It's about understanding each other. My Mom has a little metal button that she keeps above the sink in the kitchen and it says "Being a friend is a fine art." I have read this sentence for many years, every time I was doing dishes or washing my hands, but it wasn't until the other day when she explained it to me that I truly understood. Love, in all it's different forms, whether it's romantic, friendship, or family, is all based on compassion and acceptance. While this is very simple and easy to imagine, it is one of the hardest and most difficult things to actually do. To accept someone, for everything they are and are not, for everything they can and can't do, for everything they like and don't like, and to have compassion for what makes them the way they are, to understand them, without fear or reservation - that is to truly love them... and that is not easy. Being a lover and a friend is very hard. If a person you are seeing romantically considers themselves a friend of yours, then how could they ever give you a hard time for spending time with other's who are also your friends? They need to accept that these other people make you happy, and if he/she truly believes that you love them, he/she should not be threatened by it. At the same time, maybe they're not receiving enough from you in some way, and that's leading he/she to feel less important than your friends. True love and acceptance for someone leaves no room for true hatred, so I'm assuming that you're just very angry or frustrated. Maybe you love the relationship more than you love her, and when she threatens the relationship you get mad. Maybe you're attached to her more than you actually truly love her. Maybe you have become dependent on the day to day ups and downs that the relationship brings - from the amazing highs, to the hateful lows - and maybe you're amplifying your emotions to offset how happy you are. Maybe you need to even out, so that when you are feeling so much love on the good days it doesn't need to be countered with hate and rage on the bad days. Also, your feelings of anger could be justified and you should look at why you love her in the first place, and what makes you loose those feelings so quickly? How is your temper normally? Do you have a love/hate relationship with the things that you're passionate about? Sometimes your life takes your emotions to extremes, and if it's hurting you and others, maybe you need to change. I can completely relate to your problem. This whole topic is very vast and really complex. You're wondering how a nice guy is supposed to meet a nice girl. There is no easy answer there. You've also pointed out that there's a difference between being bad with girls and being bad with meeting girls. From your own self description it sounds like shyness is not your problem. You say you're held back by the fear of making a bad first impression. Like most people, I have had to wrestle with shyness, and often in dealing with my own fears I would make up reasons to absolve myself from trying to talk to anyone, let alone a pretty girl. We should be sure that our fear of the bad first impression isn't just shyness in disguise. If you are confident then you should also be confident, or at least hopeful, that the girl you meet will see you as you truly are. The risk of being "grouped in with these assholes" is up to your real personality, and her own. And while you can't completely influence what someone thinks of you, you can be honest and straightforward and kind, and I don't see why anyone would think you were an asshole, and if they did, would you really want to talk to them anyway? You know? It's easy to think in terms of "me" and "them", but there can be times where your own fear of being preserved as "them" can stop you from even just being yourself. I don't know... I would take a deep breath and gather up all my spirit and talk the girl if I wanted to talk to her. Put the best of what you have out for her to see. You don't need to impress her or sweep her off her feet with one sentence, just talk to her. I know that's easier to say than to do, but just say something, even if it's as simple as, "Hello, my name is... and I really wanted to meet you." Let her do some of the work too. Who knows? We're all running around looking for something, and we've got to try and find it. Life is short. Is it better to set off down the road of discovery through disaster, or should one settle for a life based on routine and low-risk complacency? Well, it all depends on the person, and since you're asking me, I'll answer only for myself: No matter how much I try and shield you from the chaotic hurricane that life was, it found you, and blew down your door, and through the crack in your window, and up through your floorboards - no matter how thorough your efforts were to seal yourself up. Hiding from life is so futile that the energy you spend trying to avoid it is better spent on actually trying to live with it. It is possible to live in self-imposed exile from a lot of what's out there - you can hide from all the world's pain, but in the process you miss out on all of it's greatest pleasures. You need to take a few hits for the team. The team is your heart, mind, and body, which will ultimately benefit from learning the hard way. As much as I'm saying "don't take the easy road", I'm also not saying "I want to put myself into every single hard situation I can find." As always, it's a balancing act: instinct for survival and risks for adventure. It is not all or nothing unfortunately - that would be too easy. One of the biggest things that I learn and re-learn is that it is a world of many colors, not just black and white. Looking at the world as an A or B scenario limits it to just that. All or nothing leaves you with only the satisfaction of fewer choices - not having to look more closely at the world and all of it's complexities. It is the easy way out, a cop out - a big, sweeping choice, rather than a carefully thought out, balanced, realistic, and honest approach. It's easier to say "every one's against me and no one understands me" than "right now I feel like I need more help, and I need to be strong and support myself - a lot of people probably feel this exact same way, and at the end of the day I'm not much different than anyone else..." etc. etc... But that takes a lot of real strength and resilience, something that we don't always have - but it sure is something to work for. Leaving something you once were for something new - it is often bittersweet. But leaving something behind doesn't mean to loose it or forget it - it can be revisited as frequently as you choose. It can also be reclaimed in favor of the new, if that's what you really want. Change is inevitable. My friend always says: "The only constant thing is constant change." I never want to settle for something less if there is more out there. And although sometimes I long for simple routine and predictable living, I prefer to challenge myself with risk-taking and weird-choices. Even though it's frightening a lot of times, I feel rewarded - knowing that I'm not backing down from the unknown, and using myself as a center to count on, in the midst of so much uncertainty. You can be your own familiar place. You can be your own comforting consistency. You are the one thing that's always around, so no matter where you are, or what curves life throws your way, you can support yourself with yourself. It's not hard when you're the only thing you can ever count on 100%. Don't give up. When life gets hard, don't let it beat you or color your world black. Don't let the bad days take away the good ones. LIVE LIFE LIKE YOU MEAN IT.