The Friend Ship, Friendship Plant, and Other Metaphors

I can’t write funny blogs all the time.

I’m SORRY!!!!

This is probably not going to be funny. But maybe you will find some humour in it... somehow...

So today’s blog entry, which is about two months too late I am sad to say, (I was managing one blog entry a month until I ruined it by missing out August. Grrr), IS ABOUT something I have been quite obsessed with for the better part of the last two years.

Friendships.

They come and go, like a literal friend-ship. A ship full of friends. Sometimes there are a lot of people on the friend ship, other times there aren’t so many. It probably depends on you.

But the fact of the matter is, you cannot maintain every friendship you’ve ever created. It just isn’t possible.

I have lost many of my friendships with people from my hometown and school. If you are reading this and you were one of these people, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise to you.... I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. It is sad. I used to feel really cut about it. I mean, sure, we might still be Facebook friends, which is cool and I am in no way going to remove you as I still want to know what you are up to/how you are doing/if you have gotten married recently, but I wouldn’t exactly ask you to give me your kidney or anything. Maybe I would if I really needed it...  And I probably wouldn’t ask you to drive me to the airport.

The way I differentiate between acquaintances and friends, and I am being 100% serious about this, is whether you would ask said person to drive you to the airport.

Because a friend would take you, granted they have a vehicle of some description. I’m not going to go ask some person I only met on the weekend to drive me to the airport. WHAT THE HECK?! If they said yes that’d be AWESOME but I’d also be very surprised and maybe a little weirded out by it, in the best way possible of course.

I’m not driving people I never talk to all the way to the airport... that’d be awkward as...

But anyway. I used to feel SO BAD about losing friendships with people. I would blame myself. Like it was all my fault that they never wanted to talk to me anymore. It is partly my fault, I’m sure, as friendship is a two-way street. When one person stops trying that friendship is pretty much doomed.

You can only hold on to a friendship that is one-sided for so long.

I heard somewhere that people can only have a certain amount of friends at a time, like a hundred or something (the awkward moment when I have 700 Facebook friends).

I’M NOT DELETING MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS! It’s not a number thing, I know every single person who I’m friends with on that thing, and I just don’t want to ever delete anyone unless they are psychotic and want to kill me. That is the only time I will remove someone as a friend. If they want to remove me, that’s totally up to them, but I won’t do it.

I like knowing what people are up to. Call me a stalker if you want. It’s not as if I don’t know these people, because I do. And I want to know how they are doing/what they currently look like/where they are in the world etc. I’m sorry if this makes me a creep but that’s just how it is.

I don’t do the “Facebook Culling” that some people do.

I did it after high school... I was in a weird place in my life though, and that was a onetime thing!

I think I’m going off on a tangent.

Are you judging me right now? It’s ok if you are.. I know I might sound a bit crazzzyyyy, I’ve been writing my dissertation for most of the day. It is likely that I have lost the plot.

Anyway so friendships, yes, they are delicate wee things.

I would compare friendships to a plant, and you need to water it and fertilise it, talk to it, maybe even sing to it??? If you don’t do one or all of these things at least ONCE in a while, yo plant is gon’ die y’all.

Sometimes the plant doesn’t die because it is RESILIENT, but this is quite rare I think, and it has to be a special kind of friendship for your plant to become like this.

I do not have resilient plants. If I don’t talk to someone for over a certain amount of months/years/decades, my plant shrivels up and dies. I figure, that person doesn’t want to be my friend anymore *cry*

I used to get really upset, but I am learning to just take it in my stride now.

Sometimes you think your friendship is over and then the person CONTACTS YOU OUT OF THE BLUE AND WANTS TO KNOW HOW YOU ARE!!!!!

This is AWESOME, but it hasn’t happened to me very often.

It happened today though.

It warmed my wee heart. Knowing that someone you thought had killed your friendship plant was starting to water and fertilise it again. Naaaaw <3. Bless.

On a total side note, I am a metaphor-fiend aren’t I?

I give things metaphors AAAAAALLLLL the time.

I also like strreeeeetttcchhhiiinnnggggg my words out for effect.

Yeah.

I also like short sentences and full stops.

I TOLD YOU I’D LOST IT!

I LIKE CAPITAL LETTERS!

I’m going to stop writing now.

I hope this has been entertaining and/or enlightening and/or heart-warming and/or mildly-amusing for you.

I might play Plants vs. Zombies now instead of doing my dissertation.

I only have a month left before I am TOTALLY DONE FOR THE YEAR!

See you later, blog readers. You are an inspiration to me. I will write again in October. Maybe...

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