On Friendship....Part I (of many parts)

Not too long ago, a friend of mine was defriended by one of our mutual friends on Facebook.  Let’s call them friend D and friend C. Now, most sane people would say, so what? It’s just Facebook.  However, you have to consider two things – one, Facebook has become a vital part of our livelihood, together with Twitter, Google+, etc, and two, the majority of my friends are not sane….lol!  Anyway, friend D got disconnected from friend C’s circle of friends not because she did her wrong or she betrayed her.  Quite frankly, if I’m going to base it on what friend D told me, it was quite mundane.  It was because friend D didn’t report to friend C what one of our other mutual friend was going through and that, although friend C had picked a fight with the mutual friend months before, leading to a public blow out (on Facebook, of course, and yes, I saw it unravel…lol!), friend C felt that she was owed to be told since she is supposedly the closest to the mutual friend.  I’m pretty sure there were more underlying circumstances other than the reason I was told, but at the end of the day, the question that goes through my mind is, if friend C was really interested, why didn’t she contact our mutual friend?

Now, I’m not going to pretend I know what’s going through friend C’s mind.  I’m one of those people who do not ask because it is not in my place to insert myself in a situation unless I was asked to be a part of it.  However, I can’t help but wonder why we feel entitled to other people’s situations?  It is one thing if one of my very good friends come to me and confided about what they’re going through, but it’s a whole different ballgame if I spread their circumstances to the world.  On a personal level, it wouldn’t bother me if people knew about the things I went and have been going through.  The way I look at it, if I really want to keep it a secret, I wouldn’t have told anybody to begin with.  However, not all people are like me.  Most people want their privacy and they will tell the world their circumstances when they are ready to do so.  That day may never come, but it is their prerogative with whom they need to share or not share the information with.

In the scenario mentioned, there are a lot of questions that go through my mind.   However, for the purpose of this topic, the one question that I am trying to fathom is, why did she take it so hard that she was not informed of our mutual friend’s current state?  It would have been easier to understand if I didn’t know about how scathing she could be and that the things that she said made several people guarded with her.  I just really don’t understand why she got angry that she wasn’t one of the first one to know amongst our group of friends.  Why is it very hard for many people to accept that they will not be privy to all kinds of sensitive information all the time?  Have we gone really arrogant that we shudder at the though that not everybody confides in us?

Many of my friends have told me that they feel like they can confide in me all the time.  While that is really flattering, I honestly don’t think that they tell me everything that goes on with their lives, and don’t expect them to.  The only things I offer my friends are my ears for listening, my shoulder to cry on, and my heart for compassion.  In my humble opinion, that is the basic foundation of friendship. 

So, going back to my story, one, I hope friend D will not get angry for me telling the situation.  Friend C has defriended me as well, so I’m pretty sure this will just add to the things that she’s angry about with me (I honestly don’t know why, and at this point, I’ve given up all hope in trying to understand her).  Nonetheless, the one thing we need to realize is that, our friends don’t owe us anything but friendship and vice versa.  If we cannot accept that, then we’re not really friends to begin with.  

COMPLACENCY

I haven’t blogged in a while for a lot of reasons, but mainly because there really is nothing out there that piqued my interest.  It seems to me that it is still business as usual.  I’ve tried writing stuff about social events, current news and affairs, things that really should matter.  However, at the end of the day, I really don’t want to talk about something that has been hashed and rehashed over and over again.  Up until now.

Recently, I just got a promotion at work.  Of course, it was exciting and all, but that’s not what the topic of this blog is.  As long as I have worked with this company, I have been lucky enough to work with people I have had professional interactions in the past.  It helps, most especially since I wouldn’t have to start new working relationships with people I do not know.  Of the three times I have transferred, I knew at least 2 or 3 people in the group I was transferring into, so there is some sort of comfort zone already.  I figured, I won’t have to deal with new characters and wouldn’t have to size up people again.  Then again, I wouldn’t be a Rosedelian if things happen routinely.  In this case, I was transferred to a whole new ballgame – I have been transferred to work with people I have not even had a chance to say hi to.

So, when I started to work with my new group, I was brought back to that old, jittery feeling of being the new kid in school.  As most of those who personally know me, I have transferred to so many schools that I’m always the new kid in town.  You’d think that I should be used to it by now, but like I said, my prior transfers were very convenient in terms of working with familiar names and faces, it felt as if you were just meeting friends at different times and places.  However, this brand new transfer took me out of the comfort zone that I have been accustomed to.  In short, I became very complacent.

I guess that’s what I’m running my ahead up and about these days – complacency.  Often times, we have gotten so used to our daily routines and familiar surroundings that we tend to take for granted the things that we usually do.  For example, I have become so used to driving around to go places, near or far, that I never really thought about how it would be without a car.  Then, just last Tuesday, my truck finally said, “Eff it, I’m retiring,” and just wouldn’t start.  Even after getting it fixed and spending sizable amount of money to get it running, it has finally decided to die.  So, here I am, at the mercy of people who have cars to drive me around whilst I wait until I can buy another one, feeling as if I’m naked and exposed.  For the first time in a very long time, I feel as if I can’t do a darn thing.  Heck, I didn’t feel as helpless as I do now as when I lost my leg…LOL!

I heard on the radio last week that some people are afraid to divorce their spouses and would rather stay in a loveless marriage because they’re afraid to be alone again.  They figured that it would be easier to stay in a loveless relationship rather than start back from square one and search for the right one.   Even worse, people who are victims of abusive relationship would use their faith, saying that they entered into a marriage of vows – for better or for worse, in sickness and in health….yeah, I know the vows.  I recited them when I get married.  However, I don’t think God had planned for you to stay and die just because of your vows.  I think that using your faith is very easy albeit cowardly reason to use as an excuse.   If you really believe in your faith, then you would remember that Jesus also said, “Love one another as I love you,” which, if I remember my Theology class, is overwrites all the other commandments.  If that person loves you, then they wouldn’t hurt you.  In my humble opinion, people stay in abusive relationships because it would be easier to put up with the punches rather than start all over again.  In short, they became complacent.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that being complacent is all bad.  I mean, I’m very happy and content to be waking up to my husband’s snoring, and quite frankly, I don’t think I have a good night sleep without it….lol!   However, if we have become so used to things being the same over and over again, then the question I would ask is, what would you do if that complacency is taken away from you? 

The danger of being complacent is that somehow, we have become so accustomed to routines that we react negatively once our comfort zone is disturbed.  In the case of my new work assignment, I have to make sure that I don’t shock the new group I work with my bluntness and humor.  (Yeah, I gave them 2 weeks before I let them taste my humor – and they still like me. WINNING!) In most cases though, people react to changes aggressively that at times, they don’t see how they are in fact, hurting themselves more.  I mean, what if all the vegetables in the world have been forever wiped out and the only abundant food source we have is meat?  How would our vegan friends react to that?  Easy to say you’d rather die, but really, have you really been in a situation when the only thing you can eat is the one thing you say you’d never eat?  I mean, for crying out loud, my husband gives me the stinky eye when I suggest that maybe we should start becoming vegetarians.....lol!

I guess the question going through my head is, what do you do if you’re taken out of your comfort zone?  Do you try to take yourself back to that Zen where everything is just perfect, or do you proactively try to cope and see if you can adjust to the change?  There’s no right or wrong way to go about it, just your way.  Either way you go, it’s always YOUR choice.