in order of FRIENDS

In accordance with my friendship obsession i bring to you another friend tier examination. Sometimes we fall into patterns with friends- my usual discussion centers around things we only do with one particular friend so that it becomes all we see them for- limiting their friend potential and their actual multi-facitedness as a human being... sometimes this can't be helped, but then sometimes aren't we being just a tad lazy and routine about it all- i suppose that's how all relationships run the risk of becoming stagnant though...

but my discussion here relates to the physical nature of time- morning, day, night- and more importantly what day of the week friends become pidgeon holed in. here our friends must be calandered in or they risk extinction. and it is also perhaps my problem that i too easily remember the exact month, year, or event and why i stopped talking to a particular friend- it is never a scratching of the head, i wonder. we just stopped talking...

i'd noticed this a while back with an old friend of mine named debbie. the routine: come to her house (which is an hour away), come in the middle of the week (preferably tues/wed), stay for lunch, dinner, talk, perhaps go shopping if she needed something. it was a pretty full day. and as i saw her somewhat infrequently it didn't seem to matter. a job would end etc. and i would go out to visit- except that a while ago we kept missing each other and 2 winters ago i had a gig that was lasting a solid 3 months. i emailed her and said i can't see you unless it's on a weekend or i won't be able to see you until my job ends in april. well then, i never heard from her until like oh- a year later. she could not seem to make the transition or be willing to give up one saturday for me. she wrote me when i had that 'soul sucking' job and she wrote very vaguely about her life and said, "well i hope to hear from you". i thought about it- i gave her what she gave me, not much- a vague description about the events of my life and ended the note with "okay, back to my internet research." i feel bad about it bcs after 10 years this was the first time she'd remembered my birthday but my deeper feelings were that i didn't really want a friendship on those terms. vaguely written notes about how time passes quickly and an unchanging but BUSY life.

now more recently i've had 2 friends do the same thing- which granted, okay i have a few friends so don't worry, perhaps i am the reckless friend and clearly too demanding and oft unforgiving- so this other friend, susan, i used to visit every couple of months during the day and i went to her. she'd make lunch. i'd stay for a few hours and we'd chat... and recently it became very hit/miss with this friend as well, and i said, i cannot see you unless it's during the evening or a weekend bcs my schedule won't permit it. she said, i'll get back to you and we'll keep checking our calendars. well unless she's willing to give up an evening i won't be seeing her anytime soon. and a friend, lets call her "ruth", thought i was a very good friend but of course that was only when it was on her terms, when we always met at her house and when doing anything else became impossibly inconvinient- now what brought this all up for me was friend #1 from the mean friend episode a while back- she said, well one of these days you'll have to come over in the morning when you're not working- i very melodramatically responded thusly: and yes 'one of these days' sounds very nearly like hell freezing over. mainly bcs i stop working around oct6th and then i go to chicago for kicks... and by then you're schedule will probably change or you'll start doing something to make your mornings busy... it was nice knowing you. a shame that i will never get to see your couches.

bcs i really did want to see her apt- and i'm sure one day i will. maybe. now, she's rolling her eyes as she reads this bcs such dire things like abandoning friendships bcs you can't fit them into your schedule don't really apply to her- but it's that gut reaction that when it comes down to being tested, some friends won't even give up a weekend to see you, so precious is their time. and if you're always the one calling, the one flying across the country- one day, one years or series of years it's okay and then suddenly it's not. and i don't know if they consider the effort you're making, these "lunch-time" friends... now if i were truly victorian and all i could do was spend my time making social calls i wouldn't mind- but perhaps this very mindset makes me aware of the snubs people make when they can't deem to give up an evening for you but must compact you into their dull day hours, and so become immovable. or maybe it's the surprise that that was the only way our friendship survived. i called, i came to them, i went away like an unthought of relative that you enjoy but well, if they died, so far out of thought are they, you might be slightly melancholy and go on drinking your jamba juice with a shrug. oh, so and so died, wow- that's sad. slurp. slurp.

and so breaks down the friendships: let's meet for a quick coffee friends, let's do lunch friends, let's go to 'this event' friends, let's find a saturday friends, i only see you on sundays friends, let's find an evening friends, let's email only friends, let's just talk on the phone friends, i can fly out to see you friends... until after one meaningless, careless, relationship after the other- slips thru your fingers- click after click- until your schedule fills. and one by one they begin to drop.

but i understand even as i say all this, that things like relationships aren't always permanent. and if i let it ride they will ebb and flow like the tide- and once where a friend drifted away they might one day drift back. it appears to me a reckless attitude toward friendship though.

i suppose you need that once and a while. but it seems a shame.