The Presence of friendship

Warning, this is a somewhat serious blog.

This blog is in inspired by Red Wine Gum's post.

I have been thinking about friendship and the presence of it in my life. Last week, I 'broke up' with a girlfriend over what I at first I though was trivial, even though I'm the one who walked out of the restaurant and told her it was not worth it. I was tired of being judged and constantly having to defend myself in a friendship. Especially when something happened and she went ahead and made decisions based on what she thought i had done and / or said without asking me what had really happened. To me, a friendship means that I will hear something being said about my friend, or something will happen that my friend is involved in and I will not accuse or make judgments or exclude her / him form decisions until he / she has told me what actually happened.

After that, I went home and really counted my friends.

D is my British friend who I will go over to his house occasionally, He will cook dinner and I will sing on his home karaoke machine. We will have dinner, watch House MD then I will go home. He will call me with his girl problems, he will even call me at 10.00 pm to whine about something at work. 'Mercy's Whining Org, state your whine.' is how i answer my phone every time he calls after 8.00pm. I will wake up and listen...Maybe it's because my significant other is not around a lot so i have time for him.. maybe.

G is a local DJ. I will go over to the club he plays on Wednesdays and Sundays. He will leave the booth and chat a while.. sometimes the club is too full, i will go over, hug him and sit back. Send a couple of drinks to his booth, he will send me sodas to my table. Sometimes i wait until the club closes and we walk to the bus stop at midnight. We walk and laugh.. We go our separate ways.

M is a guy i dated along time ago. We broke up because he was not ready for serious relationship, all he wanted was to have fun. 3 months later, his 'fun' girlfriend got pregnant. After one year of 'come we try' marriage, they broke up. I guess the kid was not part of the fun package he had in mind. I forgave him. and we became very good friends. His baby mama was not happy about the relationship. He told her he was not about end our friendship because she dis not approve. We came to a consensus (no, we did not sit at a round table and have a mature discussion). I was not to visit their house (that was before she moved out). He however said that he will visit my house when he feel like it and she had no control over that. We continued to go for lunches, drinks after work, late night calls when his son was crying endlessly and he had no idea what to do, he called me when his son was running a fever and he had no means to rush him to the hospital. On Valentine's day, he called me at work, told me that he needed to repay a loan he owed me. I went into town with a friend in tow. I was to meet him at my favourite supermarket (yes, i have one!). There he was, chocolates, flowers, wine and a card in hand! 'For you', he said. I never thought of M as the romantic kind, not even when we were dating. I remember buying him chocolate when we were dating only to have him eat all of it with the baby mama (before she was baby mama).
I laughed at him and asked him if he was dating again. He said no, they are for you. I kept on laughing. My pal pointed out that she thought he was serious. Yes he was. I stopped laughing, I took the card first.

For being the most wonderful girl i have ever met.
For being there to laugh with and to laugh at,
for being there to talk to, talk at and talk with,
and most of all, for being a live saver.

Thank You.

Now with the above men, I realize one thing. (it came to me as I typed) They can talk to me, but i cannot talk to them. Many are the nights i lay in bed and wonder if i have any friends at all. When I think of calling them, it's either late and they might be with their someone. And I turn over in my bed and watch Hugh Laurie.

Then there is J. I talk to J about anything. so much so my b/f is jealous. I know I can call J and tell him whatever is going on in my head. He is more confused than i am, and i bet that is why it feels so good to speak to him. However, I cannot call J as much as i'd want to. why? He lives in Wales. By the way - I have never met J in person.

G is a special man. I cannot divulge the relationship but I do trust him. I can tell him anything, he can tell me anything. He is married and I'm not sure that his wife would approve of the friendship. I know she would ask why I do not go to her. She is like that, she likes being the center of attention, but we are not friends like that, though she is well meaning. G has helped me out of situations i did not expect him to. He is one man I know i can always rely on - except past 7.00pm.

You wonder why there are no women in my list? Because I simply don't have them. Sure, I have girls we sit around and talk and go out for shopping and drinks and stare at men in shopping malls with... but that is as far as the friendship goes. I have discovered that the the women i have been friends with (read tried to) will want me to be a particular way, they will want me to say all the right things, they will want me to be on their side when they fight with their partners, even though i think they are on the wrong. Some have gone to the extend of asking me to not talk to their ex boyfriends now that they have broken up. I don;t get it. I think this is the point i cross over to the men's world and ask, What do women really want?'

RWG - the girl not need to be a lesbian for you to be 'just friends'. I never really had that 'Define the Friendship conversation' with any of my guy mates, I think it mutually falls into place. But given the fact that women are known for misreading the signs, (bite me all women who don't agree) I do think it should be had - for the girls' sakes. Should attraction be non-existent? Maybe, maybe not. I know guys who have some sort of hots for me and we are still friends. The mutual understanding is that we do not put ourselves in compromising situations. I did have a conversation with a guy I had hots for a while back, and he did not feel the same. I told him that it's okay for me to feel attracted to him as long as i kept it to myself, did not stalk him or jeopardize his relationships...And my attraction to him was for me to deal with, as a grown up. It worked.