Friends

I've been meaning to write about my friendships, and how I've noticed changes in the dynamic. Alliances, wars, baby making, real jobs, marriage, divorce, alcoholism, petty betrayal, its all blowing apart and realigning.

I used to have a very tight core of friends for the better part of a decade. We went through our twenties together. We all survived, well... all but one, and held it together as a family, picking each other up when we fall. Laughing about all of the head wounds and broken teeth and nights gone daylight.

We are all friends still, but priorities have changed. Splits have happened. I'm feeling a little bit like I'm on an island.

There's the 9-5 weekend warriors that I never see since my career is the polar opposite. We don't have as much in common, they're settling in and I'm still searching for answers. They have an occasional BBQ or birthday party. These are the ones that were shocked and wide-eyed when I suggested shots one night out. Apparently when you're in your thirties its frowned upon in favor of micro brews that taste like ass.

There are the shut-ins who never want to go outside of a three block radius from their home and prefer the depressing corner bar. We still hang out and its fun once every couple weeks. We have meaningful conversations. However I feel like I'm the only one interested in trying anything new. My closest friend falls in this category.

Then there's the completely unreliable must-be-out-and-crazy-at-all-times, self servers. Who are on a constant quest to find someone to hook up with, or top the last crazy story they had. And don't seem to have an attention span for anything else. I guess I fall into this category the most. Except these are the friends who's retail and bar jobs don't really matter. My job is very important to me and I usually get annoyed with how drunk people get when they start either at work, or hours before I meet up. Their thing is a little more shallow than what I'm interested in.

The problem with these three camps is that each is its own subcategory of the whole, and they tend to criticize the others. My problem is that my schedule and interests being what they are, I don't feel a real connection to any one. I float in between, and feel like an outsider among people that I've never felt that way with. It bums me out and makes me feel lonely.

So what do I do?

I don't know.

I tend to go out alone a lot to "see what happens." I feel like a transplant in my home town because I don't really know anyone. I'm becoming a barfly. I went to Paris alone to be a barfly. I tell myself that it's cool because I'm a brooding artist drinking shitty beer, who could give a fuck about anything around me. Lies. I try to look interesting (whatever that means), so that I get into weird bar talks with other flies. The idea of forging valuable connections with new people seems pointless. I spent thirteen years finding the best of the best. I don't have the time, or the stupidity to do it again. I have met a couple new people that I really care about and count among my good friends.

I suppose I'm jealous of certain aspects of each of the groups my friends have divided into, but can't embrace the doctrine of any one.