2002-04-24 - 1:29 a.m.

R. (from college) came over tonight. It was good to see her again.

It's weird. She was my best friend for the last 3/4th of my college years, and then she went back home, and then she wasn't really my friend anymore.

Sure, I'd think about her every now and then, but she wasn't around. So she wasn't my friend.

And then she came back, and then we still weren't friends. But we were.

Cause we were always friends, and that's cause we had been close friends.

But not the kind of friends that saw each other all the time.

So.

We were friends. Close friends. But just when we saw each other.

And if things had worked their way so that we were around each other all the time, then we would have been close friends all the time, and then we would have really been friends.

And now, at this point, R. (from college), my friend when she's not around, my close friend when she just happens to be, R. (from college) and I, maybe, are starting to become friends again.

Which is great.

'Cause R. (from college) has been doing something different, every month or so.

She's been making an effort. To become friends. Even though we already are.

Fuuuuckkkkkk. You know what? I should do that too!

I'm a friggin' asshole when it comes to friends. I let them go.

'Cause productivity issues on project X, or depression that I ignore, or my own embarrassing lack of monetary funds, or a very good friend's lack of being around me all the time anyway, or my own self-loathing laziness, all in addition to fear, prevents me from doing what I should be doing. From doing what I know friend X actually wants me to do�which is getting in touch with friend X.

I never, ever, ever assume that friend X is feeling the same thing.

I hear that food tastes better when eaten atop a pedestal. Maybe friend X is thinking �bout his/her next meal. Maybe my phone call might be interrupting friend X during the dinner hour.

In short, I always think that it is massively arrogant for me to assume that friend X actually wants to see, or even think about, me.

I think of myself as an object of pity. A charity case, and I don't want to burden friend X by asking for a handout.

I know it's stupid, but it's how I feel. I try to change it, but how I feel remains unchanged. It's just part of me.

I have friends, at this very moment, who I see almost every day (cause they work with me), and I can't figure out why they want to be friends with me.

Or I assume that they have ulterior motives.

Or that they have wacky issues, and that their wanting to be friends with me is a wacky byproduct of those issues.

I wonder what, if they truly do just want to be my friend (and I�m slowly allowing this concept to sink in) it is that I, and only I have to offer these people, and that only I can give.

Which is what makes up a friend. Or at least a good one.

And I never, ever, ever indulge the possibility of considering that these same very people might be asking the same insecure questions of themselves.

I should be taking advantage of these insecurities in others! I should jump onto the insecure bandwagon and then befriend all of the passengers, as if I were recruiting friends at a weakness oriented group-help meeting at some municipal Y!

Tra la, la la, me.