Jumping ahead for a moment. Looking at the bit on friends in the poem made me think of something I was thinking of last night at my friend's shower. The person throwing the shower has been friends with N since high school. I've been friends with N for 10 years. I mentioned R last month as someone I've been friends with since I was 15--for 20 years now. I've been friends with Red Queen since I was 18, so for half my life but Red Queen is about 15 years older than I am. Likewise with C. Most of my other friends I've had for five or six years.
When I was leaving my job my two female bosses mentioned that they had a core of friends that they'd been with since elementary school. I really can't even imagine that.
I ran away from the people with whom I went to elementary school. Now J is still in the same town where she grew up--went to state college two hours away--probably with all the same people and she's only 30, so it makes sense. But D is 65 and has lived all over the place with a husband who was a minister so that's a little more extraordinary. I don't know what this says about me or them. I know when I get together with friends I haven't seen in a while I have a great time, but I often feel as if I don't have the energy for a lot of friends. AND I like my friends better one on one rather than in a group. Plus my friends all seem to come from disparate circles. I have trouble throwing parties because I feel like when I'm making the invites I'm thinking A and B will get along well and B and C will, but if B doesn't come, A and C will simply sit and stare at one another. In theory I think all of my friends will adore everyone else, but it never works out like that. J's friends are friends in a clump. Likewise D's. It's as if the clump perpetuates itself while one on one is easier to lose hold of. I guess because the group can be everyone or a portion of the whole--people may drop in and out, but in one on one if someone drops out, even for a little bit, it's harder to find the thread. Effort must be made on both sides.
I don't know this, but I also suspect that J's and D's friendships are somewhat more superficial (which is uncharitable I know) just based on their friendships with me. I don't particularly feel that I could share anything really deep with them--they seem to be waiting for conversation to turn back to the easy. I don't like friendships like that. I don't really consider them friendships.
My friend A (Mirror's wife) was recently brilliant in a play called "sic," by Melissa James Gibson. The play had flaws (says the woman who has yet to finish a play) and I didn't like the set--but that's me, but the language (and it was most assuredly a play about language) was both realistic and somehow hyper-real. I don't think people talk like that but they think like that so what they were saying was terribly familiar (if not always the way that it was said). I went with friend S and we both agreed that this passage was very real and very female (the script is written out like poetry, ellipses indicate other characters interrupting this conversation on a phone):
Well I like her
Or I want to like her
Because other people I like like her
But the truth is
I don't like her
...
But then I think Why don't I like her
Do I not like her because I think she doesn't like me
which I do think
or do I not like her because I can't relate to her intellectually
But if I can't relate to her intellectually is that because
she's smarter or Stupider OR are we in fact such intellectual equals
that we can't recognize the intelligence of the other so
blinded are we by the reflection of comparable thought
But frankly
...
I don't think that's it
and anyway the larger question is
Why Do I Want To Like Her
...
and I have to say that I don't think I actually have Any
Interest in liking her
I Just Want Her To Like Me
...
and and
of course the truly haunting aspect of all of this is that
All Of The People I Like Like Her
...
At The Same Time As They Like Me
so so
Where does the true affection lie and
well okay I guess I do recall ONE MOMENT when
I Thought I Liked Her when we happened to be in a bathroom at the same time and of course there was no toilet paper in the stall to which I had gravitated and she somehow physically sensed my predicament and passed some toilet paper to me under the stall and
in that moment
okay
I actually Loved Her but
...
This would make a pretty good audition monologue.
If I were auditioning
Which I'm not...
When I was leaving my job my two female bosses mentioned that they had a core of friends that they'd been with since elementary school. I really can't even imagine that.
I ran away from the people with whom I went to elementary school. Now J is still in the same town where she grew up--went to state college two hours away--probably with all the same people and she's only 30, so it makes sense. But D is 65 and has lived all over the place with a husband who was a minister so that's a little more extraordinary. I don't know what this says about me or them. I know when I get together with friends I haven't seen in a while I have a great time, but I often feel as if I don't have the energy for a lot of friends. AND I like my friends better one on one rather than in a group. Plus my friends all seem to come from disparate circles. I have trouble throwing parties because I feel like when I'm making the invites I'm thinking A and B will get along well and B and C will, but if B doesn't come, A and C will simply sit and stare at one another. In theory I think all of my friends will adore everyone else, but it never works out like that. J's friends are friends in a clump. Likewise D's. It's as if the clump perpetuates itself while one on one is easier to lose hold of. I guess because the group can be everyone or a portion of the whole--people may drop in and out, but in one on one if someone drops out, even for a little bit, it's harder to find the thread. Effort must be made on both sides.
I don't know this, but I also suspect that J's and D's friendships are somewhat more superficial (which is uncharitable I know) just based on their friendships with me. I don't particularly feel that I could share anything really deep with them--they seem to be waiting for conversation to turn back to the easy. I don't like friendships like that. I don't really consider them friendships.
My friend A (Mirror's wife) was recently brilliant in a play called "sic," by Melissa James Gibson. The play had flaws (says the woman who has yet to finish a play) and I didn't like the set--but that's me, but the language (and it was most assuredly a play about language) was both realistic and somehow hyper-real. I don't think people talk like that but they think like that so what they were saying was terribly familiar (if not always the way that it was said). I went with friend S and we both agreed that this passage was very real and very female (the script is written out like poetry, ellipses indicate other characters interrupting this conversation on a phone):
Well I like her
Or I want to like her
Because other people I like like her
But the truth is
I don't like her
...
But then I think Why don't I like her
Do I not like her because I think she doesn't like me
which I do think
or do I not like her because I can't relate to her intellectually
But if I can't relate to her intellectually is that because
she's smarter or Stupider OR are we in fact such intellectual equals
that we can't recognize the intelligence of the other so
blinded are we by the reflection of comparable thought
But frankly
...
I don't think that's it
and anyway the larger question is
Why Do I Want To Like Her
...
and I have to say that I don't think I actually have Any
Interest in liking her
I Just Want Her To Like Me
...
and and
of course the truly haunting aspect of all of this is that
All Of The People I Like Like Her
...
At The Same Time As They Like Me
so so
Where does the true affection lie and
well okay I guess I do recall ONE MOMENT when
I Thought I Liked Her when we happened to be in a bathroom at the same time and of course there was no toilet paper in the stall to which I had gravitated and she somehow physically sensed my predicament and passed some toilet paper to me under the stall and
in that moment
okay
I actually Loved Her but
...
This would make a pretty good audition monologue.
If I were auditioning
Which I'm not...
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