2002-01-14
monday, january 14 - it's amazing how easy it is to forget to write about the goods things that happen too. it seems, this is the only place that i can vent my frustration with the world because no one is looking at me with that glazed stare as if they're waiting for their turn to talk.

jane has been home (as the house of your parents can still be reffered to as "home" until you have a mortgage of your own) for almost a month and i don't quite feel like we've spent are time together very well. i think that may have something to do with my not speaking up very much. jane's not the type to talk about things she simply doesn't want to talk about. sometimes i get the feeling that our relationship is supposed to be a safe harbor for her delicate psychie. i'm supposed to be the fun relaxed guy, so we don't often get to talk about problems between us unless it bursts out. it would be nice if she asked me about me sometimes, with concern for me. but i have to speak up about that. and i don't always know how to.

you know how some people (wives typically blame husbands for this) want to get to the root of your problem and solve it for you without actually listening to how you feel about the problem you have? that's me'n'jane. i know she's trying to help, but it would be nice to have a friend listen on my terms, even if my conversation seems boring and self indulgent.

it's not that i need to have somebody pay attention to me and listen to me whine about my problems. anyone who knows me knows i don't talk about myself out in the open. what i need is to find out exactly how a problem affects the way i feel because how i feel affects the way i decide to deal with the problem. and it's very hard to get good at that; to get to the level of self confidence (esteem) where I, you, or anybody can quickly identify the cyclical effects of day-to-day emotions on daily conflicts and how we choose to deal with that: how does the way we feel about our feelings help us or hinder us in dealing with the problems that inspire or add to those feelings...?

or is self-improvement masturbation? hmmm... yeah, reading tony robbins and getting all excited about changing your ways, expecting the very act of reading alone to change your life (as if he wrote a book of magic spells), yeah, that is masturbation. having the will and determination to go through with it is something that can't be taught. it can be learned, but that's not the same.

what was that first line at the top of this page...? oh, yeah....

so, despite all my lack of self-agressiveness... being best friends with jane is a pretty f'n cool experience. it's like having someone as close as a sister, but also reception for all the physical affection that carries such a stigma in our culture.

She and I went over to sean's place to pick up some DVDs. erin was there, and then sean's older brother showed up with his wife. when we were all in high school, we'd have movie parties at sean's house, and his brother was often hanging around. (it's nice when people grow up and want to shake your hand when they greet you with sincerety.)

at one point, sean observed that all of our "signifigant others'" names were similar, and potentially confusing. "i'm not his girlfriend." everyone looked at me with a slightly uncomfortable silence. yeah; hard to take that a good way. she's not my girlfriend, and that's fine. whenever we go out, there are times that i want to make that very clear also; i don't get to flirt much when i'm out with her. but i still had to wonder.

aparently it seemed more uncomfortable for me than it actually was. days later, we were driving a friend of hers home when she brought it up. "all i meant was that i am someone more permanent than a girlfriend."

Oh.

well, i knew there was a distinction, if for no other reason than to show a little respect for her actual boyfriend. but i really wasn't expecting one quite so profound. it just struck me; i don't know if there's anything she could have said that would have put more confidence in our friendship.

"i didn't mean that's it's a bad thing to be your girlfriend." unless you ask some of my ex-girlfriends.

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