friendship post

So I said a while back that I would post more about friendship, since I've been thinking about it quite a bit recently.

Well, because of circumstances I've had recently, I've come to realize that friendships are more valuable than I've been treating them. So, I've been trying to rebuild ones that have faded, and salvage ones which, under other circumstances, turned bad. For the most part, it's going well. Some of my friendships are staying the same, which is good, and some are improving. But, there's one which I'm just having a hard time with. When we're around each other, there's just this uneasy silence, which I think stems from me not wanting to talk about serious things, and my friend not wanting to make small talk. It's no good. I'm not willing to talk about serious things because of how they're treated, so I'm afraid that this one's going to fade away.

But that makes me wonder if I should try to do things differently. I don't think it's worth it, frankly, and I think that would offend this friend. Recently, I've been trying to be myself more, and as I've thought about who I am, it's made me realize that I'm just not myself around certain people, and I can't be myself around them. If I can't be myself, then...well, I guess I need to focus elsewhere.

That makes me wonder about Christians being friends, and what exactly friendship is, because, as a Christian, I'm willing to sacrifice for all sorts of people I don't like, but that doesn't mean I like them, and it doesn't mean I'll get along with them. So then what is friendship? Jesus said, "you are my friends if you do what I command you," but that only applies to Him. He also said that the greatest love is someone laying down their life for their friend.

I guess none of that really is shedding light on friendship for me. The best I can say is that friendship is finding things in common and sharing them. I mean, that's how I get people to open up when I'm trying to relate to them in the workplace. Customers will mention something and if I'm able to relate or to share a common interest, then it eases things. So, with people who are good friends, I share more common interests, and feel the same way about things, and relate well. And when those things aren't there, well, I just don't hang around them very often. Of course, I'm by myself a lot of the time, so "not very often" for me is almost never for others. There's also the aspect of being comfortable around people, which, for me, is being able to be goofy, to act as weird as I want, to be able to do my accents and act crazy, and not care about it. Even to have the other person go along with me.

So, in light of all that, I guess I don't have any really good friends right now. I don't have anyone who really relates to me and understands where I'm coming from. I don't have anyone who I can relate to in the same way, and that makes me kind of sad. Of course, I'm also trying to find who I am, and not being stable just makes that harder. I'm mostly content to be a loner, though, so that's good.

That's about all I have to say on the topic right now. I'm afraid it wasn't as structured as I'd like, but I think I got my thoughts down well enough. Maybe I'll have more later.