random post

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

A close friend is a stranger


Immersed in yet another new environment, I have inevitably begun to think about my definition of a "close friend" yet again.

A year ago, I considered a close friend to be someone that I could open up to. But I've since trashed that definition.

Because in all honesty, philosophizing is one of the easiest ways to stroke your ego. Give me the opportunity, and I'll throw some of the most retarded metaphorical cockroach shit at you and make myself sound good while doing it. Put me on a platform an inch above the ground, and I'll preach to you as if I was a mile in the sky.

"Someone I can open up to" is total bull, because as I've noticed from my own behavior and the people I've met, you can open up to whoever the hell you want, and no one will think twice about it.

At least for me, I have yet to stop and stare quizzically at anyone who's opened up to me as if I were thinking "why the hell are you talking to me about this." Of course I haven't. Those kinds of conversations are a guilty pleasure for all of us. We're so infatuated with philosophical conversations because at any age, it's comforting to know that we're not alone with our existentialist crises, however idiotic they are.

So a person that I can "really talk to" (as an acquaintance of mine puts it) is no longer good enough.

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Around a month ago, I read a post that said "the reason we care about how people view us over the internet is because they have no social obligation to lie to us." It is from this exact post that Leon chose his definition of a stranger.

Interestingly enough, though, I'm starting to see those exact same words as my definition of a close friend: someone that I don't feel a need to lie to. With that degree of comfort and understanding, I no longer feel that apprehension for approval. I can be however goddam honest I want, and he/she will be okay with it.

And as I've seen within the last year, it's these people that I find myself coming back to.

So in that sense, strangers and friends are one and the same. Total anonymity and total intimacy, it turns out, share quite a bit in common.


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