Honestly, I feel a little harassed. There seems to be a ton of pressure on me to drop my life. I can’t go to San Diego over spring break, combination homework and my dad coming home from 4 months abroad. I know what will be said to me: “I thought we were forming a new family.” I got that when I took a trip with my mom and middle brother (M.B.) over winter break. Like they aren’t supposed to be my family anymore. Maybe I fail at communes. Maybe I didn’t read the fine print. Maybe I just suck. But no. The commune isn’t superlative to my family. The commune isn’t even superlative to my friends because, news flash, none of my best friends are in it. Out of the four members: one I barely know, one was family to begin with (oldest bro, O.B.), one’s O.B.’s friend and a nice mocking big bro figure, and the last is me. None of the handful of people who actually share my interests, enthusiastically and genuinely, are counted among our members. Yes, my O.B. is “a best friend.” I even think of him that way sometimes. But when I compare my dynamic with him to my dynamics with some others? I know he’s there for me, I know he loves me, I know he supports me. And I love him and I’d support him.
But I don’t like the expectations. I don’t like the pace at which I’m called on to drop habits, plans, engagements, responsibilities . . .
When X and I parted ways, I discovered that O.B. always had a bad feeling about X, but didn’t want to say anything because he knew I loved her. As it turns out, O.B. was right, the relationship didn’t work out. But I’d heard from X, previously, that she didn’t like a lot of things about O.B.. People don’t like each other. People suck. We suck. We. Us. We fail to connect, we miss each other temporally and semantically. We misjudge each other, and ourselves. We misbehave. We misinterpret. Generally speaking we’re the worst.
Communard St (C.St.) whispers in my ear about how horrible some of my friends are.
Good job! You’ve discovered my secret! I’m friends with a lot of people who are inferior to you in your perception! But hey… so are you. And my other friends see me that way too. I’m better at solitude than a lot of people I know. That’s why I resign myself to how hard it is for the commune to get together, and stop both A) trying too hard and B) crying about it. Despite being better at solitude, I maintain a number of friendships. They’re fulfilling. I derive value from them. Much as I derive value from my friendships with my communards. I’m not a total recluse. I’m not a crazy hermit. But still I can deal with the idea that my communards have – gasp – other friends!!
Maybe they just don’t. Maybe O.B. and C.St. are lonely. They don’t see many folks in social situations, according to them. Maybe that’s why it bugs them so much that I want to spend time with my other friends regularly, or with my parents on occasion.
Maybe they’re just jealous.
Either way, it’s become a drag responding to the “hurt” feelings of a couple 30-year-olds who want me to only give them my company. I’m being hyperbolic but this is a place to vent and I’ve kept this inside way too long (for fear of further “hurt”). If I were in a commune with my best friends, things might be different. But my best friends wouldn’t chastise me for playing D&D on a regular schedule as my main form of communion with non-commune friends. They wouldn’t run off to distant parts of the world only to admonish me for not visiting them regularly enough. And if they did either of those things, I’d be able to jab them and laugh at their folly, and they’d laugh along too, self-aware and self-reflexive. Because friends get each other. Instead O.B. accuses me of being crazy if I express emotions/feelings/preferences so I tone it down around him. Instead C.St. mocks me and calls me “enraged” if I voice an opinion. It’s bullshit.
These are not my best friends.
In my moment of hyperbolic venting, I’m inclined to say they don’t give a shit about who I am beyond being ‘a member of the commune,’ perhaps managing to note a few useful lexical details about me like ‘temperamental,’ ‘distant,’ ‘uninterested,’ or maybe even ‘lame.’
And that the crazy genius king, despite his insane fundamentalist bent, illogical argumentative stances, and jerkass trolling on Facebook, is a more available “friend.”