Friends can be confusing sometimes. Now, I believe that the reason for this is how unique people can be, which bleeds over into human relationships as well as their view on them. Some people see the concept of friendship as a way to extract benefits under a mask of kindness, some people see it for what it’s truly meant to be— a close bond with others with trust and mutual respect being a few qualities of their bond.
People in general have different criteria of what a friend is and would have different classifications for people since terms like work friends came into existence a while ago. For me, I consider those who I don’t really know and don’t interact with them as acquaintances. For the people that I do interact with on a regular basis, I would reluctantly call them friends and would consider them to be school friends or in-between acquaintances and friends— after all, a school friend is someone who I only interact with at school and for school-related purposes, meaning that it’s just conditional friendship? Aren’t all friendships conditional?
It would be better to say that the deeper the bond is between two people, the more unconditional it becomes as their bond is already a condition that is being fulfilled. So, I wouldn’t consider school friends as my actual friends since there’s a specific purpose for that friendship which gives me a clear reason and obligation, making my life easier yet ensuring that once the purpose of the friendship has been fulfilled, it will be dissolved and swept away by the sands of time, shattering into shards finer than sand.
Another contradiction arises; I want a friendship that isn’t constrained to a specific place or activity but I am also a person who plans the culling of his relationships and moves his blade swiftly— already moving them back to their original place in my life, as strangers.
It’s not like I’m purely heartless, since most people that I’ve encountered so far are simply not the type of people that I would befriend in the first place. They’re usually people who have one of the following conditions: having values that I disagree with to a severe extent, people that I dislike but have to remain civil toward and people who have been objectively useless to me from the very beginning.
I usually redirect them to a disposable social account, gatekeep most things about myself and then delete the disposable account or never log back into it as soon as I’m done having to interact with them for the foreseeable future. There are people who I do like but if interacting with them several times isn’t enough to befriend them, I’ll decide on befriending them or just adding them to the culling list on a case-by-case basis.
There’s a significant part of this story that I will be withholding since it will make my identity much easier to guess so some of my writing about myself will be confusing due to information asymmetry.
This year, I’m going to be more social and transform conditional friendships into actual friendships. There’s no reason for me to continue my old habits and for me to repress myself as the conditions for me doing so have already been fulfilled. This means that the above paragraph is now considered as past information, still having influence over me indirectly.
Now here’s the fun part, I don’t know how to do it. Making conditional bonds is easy since there’s already a purpose or a common interest that bonds us but turning them into a bond with less conditions would be harder since I would have to find other common interests that bind us together.
It could be easier as well since the apparent difficulty of this task is subjective— some people are easier to make friends with and others are harder to make friends with than others. I’ve already mentioned this in another piece of mine, so if you wish to seek clarity then I would recommend you reading that post first and then come back here.
Getting their contact details may prove to be a hassle depending on the conditional bond itself. For the sake of some conditional bonds, people might already exchange their contact information so I could use that to pivot in an appropriate manner. For a conditional bond that doesn’t involve disclosing contact details, I’ll have to ask them or wait passively for them to ask me in which I doubt would actually happen.
There’s also the matter of genders, since if I ask a girl for her contact information, she may perceive that differently and assume that I am interested in pursuing her. I’ll write more on my view of relationships but for now I can say that I’m not interested due to religious and personal reasons. For guys, it’s normal as long as I don’t act weird so it should be fine. I actually removed a paragraph since it’s more suitable for my next piece.
Alright I’m going to eventually go back and look through all of my pieces by the end of the year to count the amount of times that I’ve used the word “contradictions” since this is getting ridiculous. I want to be authentic but at the same time I’m discussing with myself the best way to make friends which is artificial in a way but is just authentic enough for me to be able to say that it’s not artificial.
Welp it’s not like I’m manipulating anyone so this should be fine.
Another thing that I was considering was making profiles of my “friends” with all of my observations but I’d only do it if I get paid and consent from them since it probably violates a privacy policy/law and I’m already busy enough writing for myself.
It’s also redundant considering that I won’t forget it and I’m just too tired to make it. As an idea, it is interesting and something that I would do if I was passionate enough and had enough energy for me to do so if the other conditions were met.
When I mentioned the military propaganda, I forgot to mention all of those paid psychology studies for teens, notably one from OSU’s medical center for at least $100+. I’m sorry but these thoughts of mine are mine alone to use and distribute as I please. What if my undiagnosed mental disorders actually become diagnosed? I don’t have the funds to pay for the treatment and I honestly prefer my writing instead.
Over the course of my writing, I’ve slowly realized that I have forgotten to mention a crucial detail that may cause others to get a mistaken impression of myself. When I write, I write to collect my thoughts and inspect my being. So these thoughts of mine are a mix of old thoughts and ones generated as I’m writing all of this.
This is why you are able to read all of these thoughts, as in the process of me writing my thoughts— you are able to read them and familiarize yourself with my thoughts. However, I do not think like this whenever I interact with people, most of these thoughts are ones that I already have so there’s no need for me to think those thoughts again.
My content is the manifestation of my pondering and I am actually a normal human being under the sea of the words that I have created. There’s a reason why the only words that I’ve kept unchanged in my bio are “Creative writing”. It’s up to me to express them in a creative manner and I’m planning on writing a motivational piece eventually.
It would be more accurate that this is my idealization of myself that has been tempered by the experiences that I have felt with my five senses— becoming the thoughts that are ultimately a balance between realism and idealism. These thoughts make me feel like I’ve already reached beyond 20 years of age when I have less than a year for graduation.
Consider that hint a one-time reward for reading these thoughts— I actually changed some details of my account to avoid similarities with my other ones but they do still exist. Another reason why I write is for external feedback, as I have learnt over the years that accurate observations can only be made by a person who is not invested in a situation and can see both sides of the situation.
As always, congratulations for reaching the end of yet another piece of mine.
05-Pondering on my flaws
16-Censor’s Identity
24-Lumen
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