For the purposes of this article, I have changed the names of my friends discussed to ensure their privacy.
My friend Ariel is one of the most selfish, petty people I know. Matt is loud and has the capacity to be really mean, while Serge knows how to run a joke into the ground and Chris is super impatient. Gail is extremely overbearing and Katie overthinks everything.
Suffice it to say, people tend to describe loving others through these really warm, round metaphors, like being really enraptured by the sunshine or like a really good box of chocolates, or something of that sort. When I think through those metaphors, I think through the logic and the consequences of those metaphors. Hang out in the sun too long and you'll find yourself burnt; eat too much chocolate and you'll gorge yourself sick or soon find the taste of anything sugar-related, revolting.
Generally, I'd say I'm pretty good at small talk. I put on airs, pop on a smile, and exert just enough energy to make an attempt at appearing moderately charming and/or endearing. In making introductions, I am broad in humor, awkward in approach, and quiet in response. In meeting most of my friends, I thought similar thoughts upon first meeting them. They seemed just like me, or they were pretty chill, or simply just way cooler or a lot funnier than I was. It appears that that's how friendship works - someone catches the eye of the other, and you hang out, and all of a sudden you are head over heels in friendship with them, or at least close enough to at least moderately respect and appreciate someone because you are in close spatial proximity to them.
I thought Matt was too cool to be friends with me, Katie was too smart to be friends with me, and I thought Ariel was, you know, not dorky. We all put up fronts to try and impress others because, at the end of the day, we want to be loved. It's the end to all of our movies, where we find the loves and sidekicks of our lives and ride off into the sunset or wherever it is we go after we hit that next life milestone, be it graduation or marriage or the most memorable night of your life to date. But what comes after that is more uncomfortable. As we become more comfortable with each other, we slip up and let our facades fall, and that's the part where we realize how actually awful we are. Getting to know Chris or Serge, for instance, has been a long, slow ski down a slope of dark reveals and horrifying revelations.
None of my friends are perfect people, and I think there's something to that that makes certain passions come out more. As I get to know my friends more, I start picking up on things I hadn't previously noticed, little tics and peeves that keep me on my toes or just straight up annoy me. I think there's a certain kind of vulnerability and intimacy needed to knowing people's worst habits just as well as their best. Take Ariel--
I thought Ariel seemed at least moderately cool, but she ended up being a friend who seemed to perpetually keep on messaging me, even at inopportune times of night. I found out she was also extremely image-conscious and upset by things I considered small. It wasn't until I was hurt when I realized how those same traits that irritated me were also used, to be my friend, and I saw how those that traits were used were because of how upset she was on my behalf.
Get to know me better and you'll find yourself frustrated, as I have with many of my friends. But it's in those frustrations that remind me of the uniqueness of each human and the love I have for them in spite of their faults, just as they do for me.
