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| birth of scraps |
having recently been blind-sighted a few times, by people i trusted, with information that they chose to use to sever their ties with me, i began to wonder if i'm the only one who lives the way i was taught--if something's wrong, fix it.
i was sitting in a cafe with a friend, talking about a film. she was obscenely loud and the entire room was shooting surreptitious glares my way. naturally she didn't notice. she lived in freedom from social awareness. however i couldn't bare disturbing others and i really couldn't stand her being THAT GIRL. so i lowered my head and whispered to her that she was being a bit loud.
"oh, oops," she said, crouching into her chair suddenly, looking around to find judgmental stares melting into casual conversations. "thanks. anyway..." and the insanity continued in our small bubble of heated debate.
this is how i've always conducted my relationships. if someone i love has some kind of impairment, especially one that hurts others, i was taught to help. you try to fix before throwing it away, no?
now let's go way down the line.
after months of watching a dear friend detach herself from her close friends and family and retreat into her world of isolation and self-destructive habits, i offered ice-cream and a reality check. in between "i love you's" and "i want you to be happy's," i explained to her what she's been doing and how it's been affecting me. i'll be honest. it hurt me. and i was also confused and afraid of even having that talk with her.
the result of the 5 hour-long talk was an intimate bond that was stronger than any other friendship she'd had before. and away we went on our adventure of taking on the world.
am i living in a fantasy world? is it just me? or is it an epidemic of an emotionally stunted, self-absorbed, feeble-minded generation with ADHD and acute narcissism that causes people to endure months, even years, of a wrong and then only talk about it in order to end the friendship rather than to improve and strengthen it? has this simply become an entire generation of passive aggressives?
it seems to be fitting behavior, though, for a culture whose computers are outdated the moment it's brought home and where one can consider another person a friend without having ever shared physical space with him/her. if machines that we rely on for the conducting of our lives can be changed more often than lady gaga outfits, why not relationships, right?
in business, everybody knows it's more efficient to strengthen the team you have rather than to recruit more or new team members; it's easier to sell to current clients rather than to acquire new ones. yet, i still wonder... do most people opt for using conflicts to throw away a friendship, or to fix it?
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