A friendship only on one of the participants terms isn’t a friendship at all, actually, but more like a business contract. Anyone familiar with my blog entries will know that I am not the biggest fan of business contracts. They reek of artificiality. They are the stagnant film on the surface of relationship’s pond. Fuck um.
As I grow ancient, I notice more and more friendships that edge closer and closer to said contracts. My initial impressions of reasons edge towards knowing people becoming more conservative as time goes by. Playing it more safe. There can no longer be as much fucking around with time. Perhaps it is a symptom of middle age crises. I only know that I have not yet fallen victim to viewing friendships as a type of contract. As a type of stench coating a ostensibly deeper pond.
I type yet because I may fall into that morass, converting myself to a two dimensional film. I write this in hopes of rereading and remembering not to.
One obvious evidence is when someone places so-called friends into roles. In the mind of the person who sees people as contracts, he / she / it becomes a sort of Master of Ceremonies, a director or even playwright. During the course of a meeting, his friends are characters, each having specific roles, and each walking a narrow path - that bath being his / her / its part. Deviating even slightly from that path perturbs the Master of Ceremonies. He / she / it feels a loss of control. He / she / it feels a breach of contract.
I’m illustrating an extreme of the phenomenon, of course. But, think. We’ve all seen it.
Another point of view is that of balance. Every relationship has a tipping point where the grey becomes more obscure - where transparency finally fails. I try seeing from this viewpoint, as well. Basically, one or both parties have traversed differing roads and become less and less capabale of tolerating what they see as the other’s hovno. The easiest is to part ways. More fulfilling, however, could be to try cease from judgment and love the other for who he / she / it is, frustrating as it might be. Maybe the balance is not a one dimensional measure, after all. Re-clarifying greys are multidimensional tasks.
I’ve been trying to escape judgmental people since my childhood. My deathly pueblo Fort Stockton was filled with them. I succeeded for a years, basking in friendships that, as Christián would say, were puro. Some of the old despair is eking its way back into my life, however. I touch on it because ignoring the phenomenon would be disaster in the end.
