I broke out my latest book with thoughts of doing a Whatcha Readin’ Wednesday, but got no farther than the epigraph before I went tumbling down a rabbit hole. So “Eleanor Oliphant” is on hold. First, come visit the bunnies with me…
The quotation that sent me onto this tangent was from Olivia Laing's “The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone” :
“Loneliness is hallmarked by an intense desire to bring the experience to a close; something which cannot be achieved by sheer willpower, or by simply getting out more, but only by developing intimate connections. This is far easier said than done… the lonelier a person gets, the less adept they become at navigating social currents… Loneliness is accretive, extending and perpetuating itself. Once it becomes impacted, it is by no means easy to dislodge”
And the bells rang.
You see, a while back, a number of bloggers had posted their thoughts on friendship. I didn't because I found I had trouble putting my thoughts together in a way that didn’t sound self-aggrandizing or patronizing. In the end, the entire post was put on ice until I could find a way around the Dutch uncle trying to hog the limelight. But these words of Ms. Laing… they hit at the heart of the thoughts I had been struggling to express, so I’m going to try again…
A lot of the posts during that phase seemed to be written from the perspective of “don’t have many friends and that’s ok” - and I get that, I really do. I’m almost too comfortable with my own company; know very few people whose interests cover the same range as mine; and am frequently a complete social misfit. (Particularly upon first acquaintance, when I tend to pingpong between too bashful to speak and so arrogant, it’s amazing nobody has ever smacked me.) Forming connections is a LOT more work than just staying insular.
BUT - I’ve also learned the hard way that no matter how comfortable I am alone, I still need some degree of social contact to keep me from turtling down into those small, comfortingly dark inner places - and once there, the longer I stay, the more daunting it is to come back out to the light of day. I become tentative and unsure, a bit scared to poke my head up. Alone will start off as a retreat but increasingly becomes an unwanted confinement. Been there, done that, still have the pitons needed to climb out of that pit…
It’s not easy to make friends, tho’, is it? Especially not as an adult, where 98% of the people you meet are already entrenched in their own existing circles and not particularly open to forming adjunct relationships. Again, I can understand. It takes effort to establish new connections and who has time for that when they’re already all booked up? When you are content, you don’t stop to think that maybe someday your marriage will break up, or your friends will move away (or worse) and your currently-sufficient circle will shrink. All you know is that “Eh, she seems nice but I just don’t have room/time right now.”
And even when you do find someone who seems open to forming a friendship, as a lonely person, you have to be on guard against that tendency to rush the intimacy level, lest you come off as desperate - which nobody wants to be either seen as, or pursued by.
What ended up working for me was when I eventually realized (or maybe accepted?) that “friend” does not have mean someone who’s close and compatible with every part of me. That’s the ideal, of course, but even “minor” friendships can serve to keep me feeling like a functioning member of humanity. Maybe my shopping buddy or pizza pal won’t turn into the deeper BFF type of relationship, but the smaller connections still serve to keep me open and receptive to people and possibilities. And like anything else in life, when you relax about something, it tends to get easier.
I dunno... that was a whole lot of words I just wrote.
Did any of them make sense, or did I miss the boat yet again?
Oh well. Using up the unpolished bits is what February Fragments are for…
