being friendly

I am a guilt ridden soul sometimes.

I am a poor friend to many. In a modern world of satellite communications, internet social activity and even a household telephone, I rarely talk to my friends. In a rather meaningless way, this year has returned the results of my lack of labours in a superb showing of four Christmas cards arriving at my home, three of which are from family.

I completely understand that basing my friend’s opinions of me using the receipt of Christmas cards is utterly retarded. I understand that we’ve had this white stuff clogging up every transport based delivery system for a few weeks now. But in my rather strange and somewhat paranoid mind, I am no longer liked.

Maybe I should explain why I tend not to contact people, excepting for face to face meetings. I am abstract communication averse. I dislike talking to people on the phone, via text or via email. I find it rather a prescribed affair which seems to date back to listening to other people’s (read: adults when I was a child) conversations. Most have a strict and binding conversation pattern:

1. The obligatory are you alive and of good health question, followed by an anticipation of its reciprocation.
2. The rather open and empty question of how things are going in your life, which is generally answered positively, seeing as if something was wrong you’d either be a) eating through a tube b) not be able to answer the phone or c) dead. Could happen.
3. Plans for future events and discussion into the well-being of family members / shared acquaintances.
4. Friendly exchange of farewells.

This is not to dampen or disapprove of such conversations, they are well suited to their purpose and I’m sure do much for many. But not for me. I find it really difficult to fill points 2. and 3. with items of interest and I really dislike that I am following this routine that has been replicated hundreds of times.

If I have ever contacted you via telephone call, consider yourself a highly valued individual. It is an activity that I very rarely partake in. I would much rather see people in person and chat that way, it feels more natural and more real to me. It is a typical state of affairs however that doing such a thing on a regular basis is beyond my means. Maybe it should be a new resolution, a charge that I should strive to complete.

… well, it could be.

For those of you that do know me, do read this blog regularly and only hear from me on seldom occasion, you are golden. You are truly my closest friends. For the public access and completely open nature of the internet, you my super people, are the few that actually read this mindless drivel that spurts somewhat infrequently from my cavernous mind.

I will see you again. I will. Unsurprisingly, I have a list of things I aim to accomplish upon establishing myself a steady salary that I am comfortable with. The highest priority has been assigned to meeting valued friends. If you are reading this, MGMH, CS, RLH, MG and others, I am coming to see you, I miss you and I appreciate your friendship.

…

I just wish I was a good enough person to show it more.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

To YOU

Ten reasons why.

1. Because you make me laugh.

2. Because you are beauty in your own unique way.

3. Because life is too short to hate.

4. Because drinking alone really isn’t healthy.

5. Because you are an inspiration yet also an aggravation, a blessing and a curse.

6. Because it seems like only yesterday.

7. Because I know you’ll be there, through thick and thin.

8. Because old in mind young in spirit is a fact, not a saying.

9. Because you are there.

10. Because.

Aw bless, he has friends.

SHOCKER: I’m not writing to complain.

Reading back through my recent posts it seems like I’ve developed a penchant for a moan. I’m not actually inspired by hatred for the world. Nor do I despise it. Actually, at the moment I’m feeling pretty happy with the state of affairs that I’m in.

True, I’m very, very poor in a sense (I can eat, but I can’t buy media etc).

True, I’m unemployed, in a sense (I’m being interviewed and soon to become a student).

Nevertheless, I’m happy. Both of these truths have a deadline. Eventually they’ll end.

I’m happy in the meantime because though I live nowhere near any of my friends, I know that they are there. I don’t know why I’m so keen to relate this of late, but I truly do value my friends.

In their honour, here’s a bio of two of the rascals. I’ve omitted the names because for you guys its not too relevant and (if they read it) they’ll know.

Buddy 1 I think people truly don’t understand the value of friends made at University. I met him and ended up sharing a room with him during the first year, and a house in the second and the fourth years too. He’s earned himself a bio because through all the dirges I’ve dragged him through, he’s still standing by me. Admittedly, we’ve sometimes not seen eye to eye, and sometimes there’s been tough calls made, but at the end of it all, he still keeps coming back for more. I always remember a moment we spent in the Hofbrauhaus in Munich, Germany. We’d been drinking all morning, and had run out of cigarettes. Duly, we combined change and fetched some from the machine, only to realise that we’d pulled out filter-less cigarettes.

I don’t know whether you’ve experienced the horror that we felt in that moment, as we opened the pack to the sight of tobacco. Groans were made and sobs of woe, as I held up the cigarette and peered into the twin ends of tobacco. We rallied. I exclaimed “we shall waste not want not!” or something similar. Probably not similar. I was drunk. Probably “Nargh mynah haha manarh?!”. He laughed. He ensured me that this was not going to be pleasant. He was right. Smoking that cigarette was like using a tube full of really thin straws or hairs. Within seconds I was scratching my tongue trying to remove the nastiness. He laughed, and went to buy some more, filtered cigarettes.

Buddy 2 stands for evidence that boys and girls can be friends. We met a while back as a result of housing desperation. I was just starting on a Primary PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) course, which I had attained through the clearing process. As a result of clearing, I then had a week within which I had to find a house, find some housemates, rent and move into said house ready to start Uni the following Monday. Hectic doesn’t even begin to describe it. Internet housing forums became my best friend, the refresh button my “man’s best friend”, obediently keeping me in the loop.

I get an email from a girl. She says she is looking too, would it be possible to look together? I obliged, and within a day we had two others and then within some more days, we were signing papers for accommodation. Turns out, unsurprisingly, that renting with complete strangers can be a bit of a lottery. The other two managed to provide some really awkward situations. For example, inappropriate advances and theft tastefully combined with sodden floors and weird odours. Buddy 2 and I ended up sharing a similar sense of normal, and as a result became friends. Most of the funniest moments we shared we largely due to her temperance for alcohol (haha ), but one particular night shone brightest – her, one of the other housemates, chris and I hit the town to celebrate my birthday. We went to an Italian, where, for no apparent reason, housemate decided to leave. Plain walked out of the restaurant just as we were seated. Buddy 2 tries to console housemate, to no avail. Chris tries to make sure housemate took a taxi at least, and was told “I’m not getting a taxi, he’ll only rape me” as housemate took his proffered fiver and walked off. (Thinking about it, housemate deserves a blog post. Expect one soon.)

Buddy 2 was also one of the first people to ever see me perform karaoke too. I performed Take That’s “Want you back” with some others as a birthday wish / demand. That then started a year long obsession with Singstar. Good times.

I’ll stop here before this becomes an essay. I read somewhere that though we do truly value friends and family, it’s rare that we share this fact with them. Tell them – they’ll appreciate it and you’ll feel great for telling them!