Growing up, I was a wiz at math. I didn't like math, but I was a beast at it nonetheless. In a very general sense, I did well at all things Math, but senior year of high school (and then moving on to college) my favorite subsects were calculus & statistics. Call me geeky if you want, but there is a certain sense of satisfaction that comes along with finding "N" or "F" or any other varied problems dealing with those variables...you may be asking, why I'm rambling on about math...well, it was the immediate area of interest I stumbled across when I had to stop and ask myself, "how does a straight line cross itself??". In trigonometry, and geometry, the entire concept of "lines" is complex yet complete & pre-determined. There is no gray area between the beginning and the infinite ending to a straight line. A line starts at some point, and it will end at some determined or undetermined point--the point being the place that it stops...but, semantically speaking, a straight line will never cross itself. It may cross other lines, it may cross over circles, hey it might even cross a road!..but never itself. As it is on paper, as it is in relationships...and thus begins my thought process...
To give a brief background, over a year ago the conversation came up, between myself and a close female friend of mine, about relationships etc etc...in the midst of grilling me about the current "boo" I was in the process of getting rid of, she paused for a moment's thougt--and then, apparently, lost her mind. Or at least that's what I assumed when she said "I think you need to go ahead and get with *****". Now, ***** is good friend of mine and a mutual friend of the both of us. For simplicity sake, we'll call ***** "Mike"--his identity is not important to this topic, and so the name change should be of minimal interest. Meanwhile, back to my home gyrl lo0sing her mind...after staring at her in confusion for a minute or two, she told me to shut my mouth because she was serious. I told her thanks for her interest in my interests, but I'm good, he's a great friend, don't wanna ruin that blah blah blah blah...well, as the year passed, she periodically said things such as:
"You talked to Mike?"
"How's Mike?"
"Why don't you wanna get with Mike?"
"How do you know he doesn't wanna get with you??"
"You might be breaking his heart...*smh*"
"Well, I think you guys would be great together!!"
"I'm dead a** girl!!! Why won't you listen?!!"
(and the comments became more and more emphatic from that point)...I think she thought that I wasn't serious b/c she then took it upon herself to tell HIM about her feelings regarding my lack of feelings about her feelings about me having reserved feelings about catching and acting upon feelings toward Mike. Soooo...yeah, I found out a little later that she went off on this tangent, and Mike was as seemingly as confused as me blah blah yada yada...short story shorter, I broached the subject with Mike, and said somethin along the lines of "...you have to be careful crossing that friendship line..."...or something of that nature--and he responded in like but then added on[for good measure] "...matter fact, you don't cross that line, you let that line cross itself!!" And now we're back...to my original topic of interest. How does a straight line cross itself? Can it cross itself?? Is that possible??
Should I care??!!!
**Le Sigh**
I really want an answer...when is it ok, in a meaningful friendship, to sacrifice the value of precious time and kindred spirits for the potential worth of a beautiful relationship?? Who says a beautiful relationship can't just be precious time and kindred spirits?? Coming up on 25, I've never felt such a strong willed sense of protection over my friendships as I do now...I can count my true friends on my limbs...and I only have four of those (I'll throw in my 2 ears to complete the circuit, but after that everything starts looking like associates etc)...I digress, meanwhile, this topic has me in a state of slight confuglement [thank you...I made that word up all by myself]...as ridiculous as it may sounds, or petty as it may be, it has me concerned...and plus this is my blog so, I really don't care about perceptions at this point lol...but yeah, back to the point...I remember moving from high school into college with the mentality that friendships make great relationships. In my mind it seemed soooo much more convenient to progress from a state of comfortableness and familiarity and add that dash of romance to see where it goes...well, I quickly learned that, as a female I may see the roses in that thought process, but the male friends were not as positive...Me being ditzy and playing the role of "good friend" has, in turn, cost me some near and dear friendships...granted, the collapse of the situation wasn't always my fault, but I still failed to ignore the warning signs of our demise, and so the pain was extremely worse than it should have been...
It has taken me some time but I have FINALLY figured out some (if not all) of the problem...generally speaking a male and a female who become platonic friends may become that way for a few reasons...they were dating other people and met...they met during class/study groups/organizational volunteering etc and the idea of a relationship was the farthest thing from his/her mind OR she's a female (he's a male) he's/she's not initially attracted to by any means, but that person is full of insight, they have alot in common and at the end of the day they make a great friend. Frienships like this are the most dangerous, because
Seeing as how we, as human beings, are not islands, friendship is essential to our souls...so it's only natural that an endearing, close, intimate, (non-physical, but emotional) frienship escalate between two people who have things in common...only problem is, catching feelings becomes increasingly more easy to do because, as two people in contact with each other, you have built the entire foundation of a blossoming relationship on the back of a so-called friendship. So, I'm really starting to see that, men & women can't be friends at a consistant level, doing consistant things, being consistant with each other w/o the side effects of feelings showing up...there has to be lulls in the friendship...quality time can't be spent...sometimes you may have to resort to being phone-a-friends...friendship at a distant for the sake of the akward feelings etc etc...
Having said ALL of that I'm back to my original thought...How does a straight line cross itself? And the anwer is simplym, it doesn't cross itself...two people have to decide that they are gonna step down from one path and step onto another, albeit in a different direction, it's anonther straight line in it's own right...and that is a really hard answer to deal with...it's easy to get hurt when dealing with friendships of this nature. More often than not, it's the female who catches feelings, but it's not until the male starts to sense it, that things can go hay wire...
I really hate having a question I don't have a solid answer to...but then again, what's an answer w/no acknowledgement it in the first place?? Just words to fill a space...that's kind of how I feel about platonic frienships sometimes...they are just there to fill a space...nothing more...nothing less & to ask such would be foolish on my part... =o/
Such is life...<3
-j
No comments:
Post a Comment