Conflict

My friend once told me that life is about living, not stressing.  but the only thing i can see to be true right now is that life is uncertain.

Identifying

I’m listening to Pandora after a long absence, and when i hit play I hear a song that strikes me on a deep level.  The opening words send a sort of chill through my body, not because they are bad, rather they became associated with past emotions.

“Tick tock, hear the clock countdown
Wish the minute hand could be rewound
So much to do and so much I need to say
Will tomorrow be too late?”

I’m not sure if these memories I’m suddenly reminded of are necessarily “bad,” but they are sad.

"Today is going to be my day"

i really dislike the nights i just lay in bed unable to fall asleep.  ive been just laying in bed for almost 3 hours now.  I'm unsure what all the reasons are; however. i know that a major issue is school next fall. Needless to say, i /need/ to do well this coming semester.  It is, without a doubt, the climactic final fight, make it or break it, last and final chance to get back on track.

That's a lot of pressure!

And the bad thing is that 99 percent of that pressure is self inflicted.  Its me internalizing what i feel is expected from me from everyone /and/ myself and my desire to not let anyone down.

Im trying to look at things from a different perspective and use that preesure as a positive and motivating force to help push me to do well, and not as a force doing its damned-est to push against me and trying to break me.

After 19 years of carrying the burden of the world, last semester i finally broke.  i hurt from the moment i woke up to the time at night when, after tossing and turning and mentally beating myself up for every little mistake that i would finally fall asleep.. where i would dream of losing friends and being chased and just bad dreams in genereal.  the once firey soul was but a candle in a hurricane.

im slowly getting back on track.  its a slow process, but im taking it in steps.

I'm still new to thos whole making new friends and trusting them thing, but im trying my best.

we'll see how this turns out, but ive always been a persistant one :p

i think i can get to bed now..

"Life is about living, not stressing"

A really smart girl once said those words to me.


At a crossroads in my life when I desperately needed words of comfort, I received them.


Every so often; however, I ask myself if the cost of losing a friend was worth it.


...


We were never very good friends, and probably only according to the loosest definition of the term, but every now and then in life you come across a few good people who are remarkably easy to trust.  She is a good person, and I trust her.  We grew up in the same small town, in the same small school were everyone was in everyone else's business, but we were never close.  That's my fault entirely.  I loved most, haha.. ok, all my classmates growing up.  That's not to say that we all always got along, but in such a small school, it's pointless to write people off, and trust me when I say my elementary/high school was too small to avoid people :p  So we all were able to get along.  We may have been from a small town, but we all had big dreams.  But anyway, before i get sidetracked and write some Hollywood buddy movie one tree hill esque screenplay, I'll get back to what I was saying.


Trust is a very mutual thing, and while I may have found it easy to trust my friend, I doubt I ever did a good job of proving myself trustworthy to her.  That's not to say I ever did anything intentionally bad, I know how to keep secrets, but it is simply to say that I was a very reserved and quiet person.  I wanted friends, and more than anything in the world I wanted to be accepted.  I think everyone wants that, and most people are brave enough to at least attempt to earn acceptance in what can be a very tough world to say the least.  My life hasn't always been easy, and I've lost a lot of family members.  There are parts of my family history and past that I'll never know now b/c I never asked questions when I had the opportunity.  Sometimes I feel completely stuck in life and I honestly can't figure out what kind of person i am (me, obviously, but... I just feel like if I knew more about my dad for instance, I could better define myself since we tend to define ourselves by our connections to life.)  All of this is for a different post, however.  Needless to say, I became extremely good at keeping everyone at a distance (emotionally).  And since it wasn't easy to get to know me, I imagine it was rather annoying and difficult for my friend to, well, be a friend.


There is no doubt in my mind that I would not have started college without her words. Put simply, I was terrified.  I wasn't even able to get high school right, and now after 12 years with mostly the same people, I was expected to leave and start school somewhere new with new people? in a butter's-esque south park homage: ahhhhhhhhh lol.


I didn't need an encyclopedia of text (like I seem to be typing now :p), just words to let me know that I would , in fact, be okay so that I could stop worrying (as much lol).


So, in near desperation, I confided in someone I trusted, and she gave me what may seem to be simple advice, but to me at the time, was more than just obvious "stop your worrying!" sort of stuff.  It meant something.  Just hearing that it would be okay from someone I could trust, let me believe in myself a bit more.


For the record, she was right :).  My first semester was awesome.  I actually liked the new setting and new faces.  I made a few friends, and got great grades.  I enjoyed the classes and, most importantly, was happy.


The next semester was a bit rockier, but it was to be expected with harder classes and distance causing old friendships to drift.  And it ended okay as well.  I was still doing okay.


But by the end of that semester, I had lost my friend.


It wasn't a dramatic, arguing to a crescendo sort of ending, and maybe that's why it hurt the most.


...


Even if I wasn't actually alone, I remember feeling very much alone.  I remember sadness, and even tears.  Not only because I lost someone I felt I needed as a friend for emotional support, but because of losing quite a few friendships, and beginning that spiral downwards to not believing in myself once again.


And believe me, once you realize that having friends is worth the chance of being betrayed versus keeping everyone at a distance... once you realize just how good it feels to not have to deal with all of life's unfair bullshit alone...  to feel like I was being forced back to that lonely existence and no one was willing to step in and stop me from falling deeper and deeper...  that's a kind of depression I wouldn't wish on anyone.


... After typing all that, and it being seemingly random to people who don't know me personally and all the crap I've had to deal with, lol, I imagine you still don't understand why I trust someone I wasn't all that close with, and why it hurt to drift away from them.


Unfortunately, that's a story I'm not willing to tell to the world just yet.  But I am at another crossroads in my life, and even though I haven't thought about my friend in a long time,  I realized that i miss her.  Neither of us did anything wrong, so I don't know that there's anything to apologize for... it's just one of those unfair things that life throws at you and our paths in life just weren't meant to cross very often.


Just know that I miss you, my friend, and I'm thankful for the kindness you showed me when I felt alone.  Thanks for listening to my worrying (I know for a fact, that I definitely get my worrying from my mom :p), and for your friendship, although short it was meaningful to my life.


Put simply and in a less mushy way (b/c as we all know, guys aren't so great at "feelings and such" according to Sear), you're awesome and I wish you the best.


That's it for this post.  And no, it wouldn't have been as much fun to just post that last part and make it really simple to just say that I miss my fiend and not make you read this whole wall of text, you smart ass! LOL (inside joke xP, no need to get offended).

Making Conversations Easier!

Yesterday I brought up a topic for discussion that I, at least hope (lol), you found interesting. Today I will expand on that and outline some things that you can do to make conversations with someone you like easier.

(I can see the look of "finally he gets around to giving advice instead of asking questions all the time!" :P.)

To review, I stated that calling someone you like can be a difficult thing to do. I stated that being nervous about calling was only a symptom and not the reason why the task is so daunting. Social expectancies, all the little things that are expected of us in these conversations make it so nerve-wracking. There are some things that you can do to alleviate the nervousness while still being able to call that ever-like-able person of yours (and no, you can not simply not call them :P haha).

1.) Throw out the social expectations and precedents!
The two day rule, gone! The need to have a lengthy conversations, the need for you to be the one that keeps the conversation flowing, gone! The need for you to ask questions but be sure not to talk too much, gone! All these little things that are ingrained into us that we are expected to do simply to have a conversation with a cute girl (or boy depending on who's reading this) is simply ridiculous! As if we needed more pressure! :P lol. Therefore, the first thing to do is simply ignore them. If you like the person, then like them, don't fall into the seeming social bureaucracy where everything needs to be done precisely and in triplicate just to have a simple conversation! So throw out the traditional social rules and just be you (or if it's around the first date, the person you're pretending to be (/sarcasm), but that's a whole other issue and blog!)!

Now that we've eliminated some of the pressure, the thought of calling her/him doesn't seem as daunting does it? You're still nervous thou? In that case:

2.) Be honest about being nervous:
If you are nervous about talking to them, just tell them instead of trying to hide it which just adds to the nervousness and makes the conversation needlessly more difficult. Chances are, they are a little nervous as well, and knowing that you are both a little nervous, you can then just relax knowing that you are not alone. And if the other person isn't nervous, well at least there's still a good chance they'll find it cute haha. My point thou is that once you get past that initial conversation, you'll be much less nervous from then on out and if you are straightforward about it from the start you may just get through calling them for the first time w/out feeling nervous at all :D.

Okay so you got through that conversation, but they have not returned your call and you don't want to call them b/c you are a)nervous or (more likely) b) don't want to seem "desperate," which is just ridiculous.

3.) Call them!
If you felt that the first conversation went well, or even if it did not, and you feel like you want to call them, just do it! See tip # 1 for why. If you want to talk to them, then do just that and don't let social weirdness (I mean "norms" and precedents :P) get in the way. You should not sit around and wait for them to call you, be proactive! Whether you are a guy or a girl, if you can't call them when you feel like it, are they really someone you should like anyways? lol. Everyone is busy, and they may want to call you but simply have a lot on their minds, and that's just life. You have to understand that, and forgive them for being too busy sometimes. Chances are good thou that they may simply be doing the same thing you are, waiting for you to call them! :D.

I hope that I've made my point, and that I've helped someone with these tips. I think that if you at least made it as far as reading tip #1 you are aware of my feelings on these little social rules in the "game" that is our lives :P. Basically I see no point in these little rules as they only make conversations harder. By not following them and just being myself, things are so much easier! :D I've broken so many of these social rules that we are all expected to follow when first meeting someone you like and getting to know them, and I do not regret not following the precedents and playing the "game." And besides, I'm seen as more "spontaneous," ;).

So what's your take on this? Obviously if you're a "player" (lol) you may not like that I'm throwing out your rulebook.. haha. Do you think these social rules are a good thing?

Why is it so difficult to call someone you like?

Today I want to talk about a social dynamic that is ingrained into our society. Calling people that you like (as more than a friend) is more difficult than calling people that you are simply friends with.

The question that comes to my mind is: why? By my logic, it should be easier to call someone precisely because we like them; however, this isn't the case in our society.

Being nervous and wanting to make a good impression (which is behavior that may be discussed in a later entry) plays a part but after the initial conversation, this should no longer be an issue.

This phenomenon, for it is an oddity even if it is a social "norm", is most prevalent with younger generations; however, it is behavior exhibited by older generations as well.

While it is easy to call your friends and start a conversation, when it comes to calling someone you like it becomes a different story all together. In order to attempt to answer my intial question, I will present some personal experience.

It could be said that I am a very random person. I may be working on writing, or watching TV, basically something unrelated to my friends, and I'll have this thought of "I should call them." Then, I'll do just that, completely random huh? :P. But my random-ness is a different topic, and I'll try to stay on topic from here on out :P. I brought this up to illustrate that to me it's not a difficult task to pick up the phone and call my friends. I think that is the "norm", that calling friends is an easy task. However, when a girl that I like comes into the equation, it changes everything. I will still have that random thought of "I should call her" (lol), but most of the time I don't. The reasoning behind that odd social behavior is the purpose of this blog entry.

Now it should be said that there are times that I will call her randomly; however, I think I would be in the minority.

So why is it more difficult to call someone we like than it is to call other people?

Those few people that I consider my close friends I have known for quite some time, many years in some cases. Therefore, it should be implied that I am comfortable around them. In fact it's gotten to a point where most of the time we can finish each others sentences. To call them is easy because I am comfortable being around and talking to them. This girl I like I am also comfortable around, as we have certainly had our share of awkward and embarrassing conversations that have brought us closer. I feel comfortable talking to her, even about "feelings and such" as Mitch would refer to them. Therefore it should be easy to call her, yet it is not.

It may be simply a matter of her being a girl, after all we all know they have cooties :p lmao. And I believe I just refuted that argument simply by stating it, I'm that good :P lol. I have friends who are girls (or friendgirls haha. Sorry for the inside jokes :P) and they are easy to talk to; therefore that argument is moot.

I could go on; however, I'll get to my point :P hehe

Many times in similar situations I've been told "I'm just nervous about calling him/her." And I could have just used that to answer my initial question; however, the nervousness is an effect, not the cause, of this social behavior.

After much deliberation, I've come to the conclusion that the very root cause for it being difficult to call someone we like is: social expectations. The expectations imposed on us from society are the reasons for nervousness, and the reasons for it being somewhat daunting to call someone we like, especially the first few conversations. All the little things and precedents that we are supposed to fulfill that are expected of us in these conversations make a simple phone call seem very daunting and nerve-wracking :P.

Now, the even stranger aspect of this whole thing is that it is only the initiation of the conversation that I am nervous about :P. Once I've called and we start talking, I'm no longer nervous and I wonder "what in the world was I so nervous about?" I know some friends who are nervous about the whole conversation itself with someone they like. I'm not sure which is the majority; however, simply guessing I would say the later rather than the former is the majority of people's cases. Also we have to consider the amount of time and/or any previous conversations because the first few conversations we are likely to feel more nervous than after we have established a routine and feel comfortable calling them, (thou we will still feel slightly nervous).

What these expectations are and we can do to alleviate and get around them and thus make it easier to call someone we like will be addressed in a future entry. I simply wanted to introduce the topic today :). I have my advice that I'll be presenting; however, I'd be interested to hear your take on the issue and what your advice would be to your fellow blog readers! Leave a comment below.

What is your take on this? Do you feel this way; do you feel nervous calling someone you like? Did it change after the first few times you called them?

Do you ask casual questions?

The title of this blog post fit's right into the topic I want to briefly discuss today. Today I received an email from a friend asking a question that could potentially have an extremely long and drawn out answer :P. And a thought occurred to me that she may just have been asking a "casual question," or a question that doesn't really warrant a lengthy response. The most prevalent example would be the "what's up?" "not much" question and response, where the question asker is not really wanting to know all that is going on in the other persons life, but instead is simply asking a "casual question." Therefore, I made it a point to ask this friend of mine is she was one to ask such casual questions :P. True to my style, I was subtle about it, but subtlety is a topic for another blog post :).

It was simply interesting to me that we had carried on an extremely lengthy conversation without me ever realizing that she may have simply been asking casual questions. If they were in fact casual questions, then appropriate answers to those particular suspect questions could have saved both of us a great deal of typing and reading time! :D hehe

It's difficult to know from text whether something is a casual question whereas in person casual questions are easily identified by the inflection and tone of question. Or at least that's my excuse hehe.

Has anyone else ever experienced that moment of realization after answering a question in-depth where you think "wait.. did they actually want to know all the details?" lol.

Hit the comment button and let us know :)

*You'll notice that I mentioned the title of this post fits in nicely with the topic discussed. You now have to ask yourself if the call to action was simply a casual question itself or if I really wanted to know if you ask casual questions. hehe, this is almost as fun as discussing time paradoxes! :D