Friends Are Important

If there is one thing that this most recent episode of social drama has pointed out to me, it is that friends are important.  That's the general realization.  There is also one thing that this situation highlighted specific to me, and that is that my friends are a rare resource.  I simply don't have many of them.

This is a radical departure from how I existed all throughout the public school years.  It simply wasn't possible for anyone to go through grade school and high school without making friends...lots of them.  Even if I didn't talk to everyone on a regular basis, it was clear that I knew everyone and that they were only an arm's reach away should inspiration for conversation be encountered.  I like how this felt, but I didn't realize it until post-high school.  During school, I always imagined how nice life would be if I could somehow move to a deserted tropical island.  The point of this was that I would be away from people entirely and would be free to relax and do whatever I wished unencumbered by the impedance of social contact.

Today is of course a different matter entirely.  Once I began my college career at Kansas State University, my contacts were much more limited.  Only a few people I had known my entire life at school were present, and I struggled to maintain an adequate level of social contact.  Suddenly I had my island and instead of being a tropical paradise, it was a tropical prison.  I imagine that this is why I've become less introverted and less anti-social in recent years.  In order to maintain that same level of contact, I had to open up and try harder.  It wasn't an issue of avoidance to maintain the proper level anymore.  It was an issue of actively seeking out enough contact due to scarcity.

It's harder to make friends these days.  I think this is primarily due to my location and not my age group.  My old friends are still young enough to be largely unmarried.  Marriage, of course, being the point when old friends completely quit hanging out with their other friends.  Location-wise, I work where I have no age-based peers other than the chemical department, and I'm still anti-social enough to have problems even talking to women I'm not seeking a relationship with.  I don't even know why that is considering the origins of that problem were with the initiation of puberty.  I've established who I am and I exercise control over that aspect of my life since I'm 22 now, but that legacy of social problems remains.  heh  It is kind of funny really.

Back to the incident from the weekend though:  These things have made me realize just how valuable friendships are.  I need a minimal level of contact to remain in a non-depressed state, I think, and I'm barely running on fumes as it is.

Maybe things will shape up once my friends complete college and move back to town for a while.  I don't know how many will end up staying, but there will surely be a few that don't go to random, far-away locations.

I could only be so lucky.