Feeling today like 'friends' are fickle, unpredicatable - that it's all about what's convenient, can't count on anybody, ever-shifting landscape, quicksand. It's true that there are plenty of people I could call in a pinch, it's just on the day-to-day basis I don't seem to have anyone who's part of my life. The whole 'couple' thing seems to be the only acceptable solution in these here United States at this point in time. All the stories I've read over the years about the friendly boarding house, the all-inclusive village (where even the village idiot is accept for who he [and it's always a 'he'] is) are just that - stories. They don't really exist. (Here I'm realizing the cost of growing up with books as my mentors: At some point I have to face the real world, and I find I'm very ill-equipped. Guess there's a good reason I'm a hermit :-)
Still trying to make sense of the rules, the dang social rules, and feeling like every time I start to get a grip on things, something shifts and everything I thought I understood has turned upside down.
I think the thing is to create your own little 'world' populated with people who by-and-large 'get' you. And the hope is to populate that little universe with more than just one other person. Which, I think, is often why people have families: To create a miniature universe in their own image. (Ooh, scary - weird thoughts about 'quiverfull*' people and parents seeing themselves as gods. Echoes of all the child abuse stuff. It all hooks together, all hooks together.)
I've read a million times that we're supposed to like each other for 'who we are', not for 'what we do'. (And yet, in reality, the 'what we do' is what we all judge each other by - once again, "Your actions speak so loudly I can't hear a word you say.")
I think what I'm leading up to here is a connection (circuitously, oh so circuitously [dang, that word does not roll off the fingers!]) between, once again, what we say and what we do.
So: One of grasshopper's many revelations for the day: This idea (meme?) in the culture (and I get this largely from internet dating sites and self-help articles, so your observation may not match mine) that people are somehow supposed to be totally happy alone, and that they choose someone to be with not because they need that person, but because they're both totally happy and self-sufficient just the way they are and only opt to be with this other person because they like them. They don't actually need a dang thing from one another.
Once again I call bullshit. Everybody needs something, all the time. That's part of what being human is about. Remember ol' Maslow?
I'm not sure I totally agree with his 'hierarchy' (here's an interesting discussion on the subject), but I definitely agree that needs are what drive us. Understanding those needs is a whole other can o' something-or-other.
Having said all that, what I wanna know is, why? Why do we constantly pull this self-deception bullshit? Is it really better this way? Easier?
And more to the point, why do I seem to be incapable of operating the way 98.7% of the rest of the human species seems to operate? Why? Why me? Waaaahhhhhhhh! *tears out hair*
Ordered Radical Honesty from the local lib again. Maybe that'll be a bit of an antidote to the omnipresent bool shite...
*Quiverfull: From Urban dictionary:
A branch of evangelical Christians who take the Bible literally. They believe that one of the most important of God's commands is to "be fruitful and multiply" (it's written twice!). Quiverfull families have as many children in the least amount of time that is humanly possible. The quiverfull mission is to repopulate the world with white Christians, and the movement is one of the fastest growing segments of Dominionist Christians.More about this if you're really bored and have nothing better to do: www.quiverfull dot com (no frickin' way in hell I'm linkin' to that shite!)
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