Hey, hey, everything’s okay…
I love you more than I can say.
But we can’t stay the same…
- Saves the Day
A friend: “Hey! I haven’t seen you in like a week!”
Me: “Yeah, I know…it’s crazy…” *insert further generic “whoa” comments.*
Friend: “Yeah…what have you been doing?”
Me: “Well, school’s been crazy…” *insert further generic “school” comments.*
Friend: “Yeah…Are you going to the masquerade ball?”
Me: “No…we decided to play ping-pong instead!” *smiles, as this is obviously an awkward joke.*
Friend: “Wow, so predictable!” *walks away.* “You are so predictable!”
Well. Crap.
It’s not that I mind being predictable. I had a conversation later on that night, in which we discussed how everyone is pretty much predictable…we’re all just sort of bad at reading each other. Actually, I have no problem with other people reading me; if I’m reduced to base narcissism, which I generally am, this means that people are paying enough attention to enough of the crap that I do that they’re seeing patterns, and if they care enough about my life for that, then that’s the only thing I really care about. It’s not that.
It’s not specifically the masquerade ball. I heard it sucked. I heard pretty much no one was there because everyone cared more about the basketball game, which I have equally little regret about missing, and thus that nothing interesting went down. I didn’t have a great time playing ping-pong that night, but I didn’t have a terrible time either, and I won’t remember either the games or the ball a week from now. That’s not what’s giving me pause either.
I care for two reasons, and it’s quite possible that neither is any good, but I’ll talk about them for a while nonetheless to justify any reading of the blog until now.
First, I share what could possibly be a universal trait: people I respect as authority figures or “role models” (used loosely) think the things my friends and I do to connect are insignificant and a waste of my life/talent/whatever. Yes, I admit it is not uncommon for my friends and I to hit plastic balls on a table for a few hours at a time. What is wrong with this? Why is this any less legitimate than when, hours later, I talk with those same people about the messages inherent in the entertainment world of modern America, or when I hang out at their psych labs or they at my debate tournaments? Isn’t there a place for living in such a way that you can connect with people on multiple levels at different times? Plus, I have an unusually competitive nature that I enjoy stimulating with some of those close to me by playing pool and ping-pong. What makes “normal” societal interaction (i.e. balls, dances, dates, long discussions) any more worthwhile than these things?
But that doesn’t upset me. That just makes me feel moderately defensive. The real problem is that I feel like I’m missing something.
In some respects, I have a social life here. I probably know as many upperclassmen through debate and YHM as the rest of 4E’s freshmen combined (exaggeration, but you get the idea). Those two organizations have a large number of amazing people, and I’ve been really blessed by them. DSG has provided me with an outlet and with a number of great men of faith to hang and grow with. And I’ve got a tight circle (next year’s roommates and a couple others) of very close friends that I wouldn’t trade for anything. I’ve been pretty blessed, especially as at the end of last semester, I had no one besides my roommate I considered to be a close friend at all. Things have been awesome, no question.
But something is missing nonetheless. There’s something in between a casual acquaintance and a close friend…I’m not sure how to describe it. Someone who knows more about me than my name, if less about me than my most intimate hopes, plans and secrets. Someone with whom I can have interesting, relatively deep conversation while still maintaining a casual relationship. These are the kind of people you ask to things like masquerade balls and hang out with because you happened to meet them in between your floors or in the basement or cafeteria. And I don’t really know any people like this, especially girls.
I’ve usually been able to rationalize this or pretend it’s not happening. I had a major crush over the last few weeks until I learned something that pretty much shattered that, and I managed to delude myself into thinking I could actually make something happen there. I couldn’t have, of course; while I’ve interacted with this random girl more than most other random girls I’ve met, I’m not in her life in any real way. Nevertheless, it felt kind of good while it lasted. For a while I thought it was just something all freshmen go through, but I realized last night playing Kemps that it was actually the first time I’d hung out with a group of people from my sister floor since pretty much orientation. It was really fun, and I might try to do it more, but it’s rather disconcerting when other people around me are talking intimately or sharing well-established inside jokes with people whose names I still haven’t learned.
It might be said that this is either just me demanding attention or me wanting lame, Christian youth group-style relationships with girls. I don’t deny I have those tendencies. We’re readily approaching two months straight of “single” for me for pretty much the first time since late 9th grade, and I’m not going to pretend that has always been a welcome circumstance. And I do sort of like to be the center of things a little too much. But this is different than that. International quizzing was a social scene built entirely upon awesome encounters between casual friends, and those have given me some of the most unforgettable relationships and experiences of my life. That’s what I’m missing out on here. I miss the experiences, I miss the conversations, I miss the laughs and the good times. I don’t think this comes solely from my own vices. I think there’s something good actually eluding me here.
This is, to some extent, founded upon insecurity, but of a different sort than the usual. I don’t need friends to feel interesting or smart or funny or attractive — I have a natural sort of self-confidence that naturally grants me all these things, for which I’m very grateful. I’m loved by God, which lets me feel valuable in far greater measure than any of this. And I’ve got close friends if I need someone to leech off of as a last resort. No, but in some respects, I need people to a greater extent than most people to avoid feeling sad and lonely and pessimistic about the world. I need some people around me so that I don’t think that everything’s sad, or that my life is consumed in work that won’t ever satisfy me. I think this is because I grew up a little too fast for my own good.
It’s sort of weird writing this and realizing how vulnerable, weak and, in some respects, immature it sounds. To the many adults who watched me grow, I was always the prize child, the one who could actually hold “adult conversations,” the most spiritual one, the smart one…whatever. As Bayside said, “And I [looked] so strong when the weight of all the world [wouldn't] take its toll.” Well, it is…it has for some time now. I’m okay being half-prodigy, half-underdeveloped. Next year as a sophomore I’ll probably be younger than the majority of the freshman class. I’ve got some things to learn. I can take that now. I can admit that I need some “bigger people” to come alongside me sometimes and show me that this is a great place where God has called me and where some awesome stuff is going to happen. It happens, you know?
Like I said, I’m the kid of the freshman class. I mean, I’m probably the youngest person enrolled here (siq brags, d00d). This is why it makes me a bit sad that I don’t even know most of my peers who are around me. Because while it’s been amazing getting to know the upperclassmen, in some respects, I’ll never be able to relate to them. Listening to some of the older debaters talk to each other, you can see that they’re close because they’ve grown together over time in a way I never will with them. That’s okay; that’s life and God’s planning. But I’m scared I’ll never grow close over time together with my peers. And that’s scaring me. I think I would miss out on something that could be amazingly special if that occurred.
This is totally random, but I miss hugging people. I think I’ve only hugged two or three people since I came here. This makes me sad, in some respects because it’s just a friendly way of caring about people, and in some other respects, because of a psychological complex I have where being enveloped makes me feel safe from the rest of the world. Obviously it doesn’t fall to the rest of the world to cater to this. But even so, I’m sort of sad that this aspect of communing with the people around me has pretty much faded.
So this has, perhaps, stated the problem accurately (if certainly not succinctly). But why does it matter? Why is what I need so important? The rest of the world wasn’t put here to serve me, were they? No. And I constantly need to remind myself to hope not just for my happiness but for the happiness of everyone on campus, because we all feel a little lonely or like we’re missing something now and again. I need to pray not just that I’m meeting the right people, but that we all bless each other in a community of faith. But if I never interact with my peers or the people around me, not only am I not being blessed by them, but they aren’t really profiting by my existence either, which makes me sad as well. Could they? Well, like William Beckett, there are certainly times when “I am no gentleman/I can be a prick.” But if God speaks through donkeys, it seems he could probably do a little bit with me too. I mean, I am at least a generally sentient being…so I’ve got that going for me…
In 2004, I had perhaps a similar experience with quizzing at internationals. The first year of an eventual four, I didn’t get to know anyone well and had a generally bad time. By the fourth, I had lived some of the best experiences I have to date. Maybe this is the same, except that I started out a little better off — I’ve hardly had a bad time at Wheaton this year. If so, well and good. After all, this quad I gained a lot of close friends; if I gain some casual ones next quad, then I’m incredibly blessed (not that I’m not anyway). I hope this is the case. But the comment of my friend seems to indicate that as long as something in my outlook or my habits doesn’t change, I will always end up this way. I’ve gone on too long to think about what that specifically is or how to change it. But it both makes me uneasy about the prospect of eventual change and also begs for the final question to consider.
“Doesn’t this all hinge on the comments of one friend?” This is what my closest friends said when I told them much of this last night. “Do you really trust this one person, whom we don’t find especially credible in the first place, so much that you’re going to get incredibly down about this?” Hmm. I’m not really sure. I have odd feelings concerning this friend, feelings that are amicable the majority of the time and equally split between love, crush-style hero-worship and resentment for the remainder. Chuck Klosterman once remarked, “Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less.” Well, in this case, perhaps these comments perturbed me so much because I am far from the party in power in this relationship. Do I care so much to conform myself to one individual’s views of my life? Well, to some extent, I obviously do or I wouldn’t write this, but should I? I don’t even know. I’ve asked myself this for a long time, and I’m not sure I’ll ever find the answer until circumstances decide for me.
But this assumes that the credibility of the statement hinges entirely on my friend’s word. It doesn’t. Somewhere deep inside, as much as I’d like to deny it, a small piece of me believes it too. Believes that I should be living not just for contentment but notorious and thrilling happiness. Believes that I can break out from a relatively cheery relative isolationism to have a broad, awesome tale of transcendence. I’m not sure this is possible, but part of me feels like it’s something worth trying for, even if it costs me something…something I’ve been granted in the status quo that gets me through most of the nights.
In the words of the masterful Carson Sestili, “To be honest, I am feeling lonely now.” I’m just not sure who exactly I want to fix that with.
