Man, three posts? I must have a lot to say. Or, perhaps I just think I do. No way I'll be able to keep this up. Oh well.
When you have a friend, that means a lot of things about the relationship the two of you share. Presumably, it is mutually beneficial, in the sense that you both gain something from having it. If it were not so, and you didn't gain anything from having the friendship, it stands to reason that you wouldn't have that friendship, if only because you would not be compelled to maintain it and it would fall into disrepair.
But, one byproduct of this friend relationship is that you are compelled to "want the best" for your friend. We're not going to delve too deeply into what it means to want the best for someone; suffice it to say that you want them to be happy, whatever that means specifically. You want them to be happy with the way things are going in their life.
I do not disagree with this, of course. I think this is common, natural, and appropriate. However, something interesting has come to my attention lately: I've been growing increasingly aware of an aspect of my friends' lives wherein I am annoyed when they do well.
It's dating.
I'm admitting to being a bit annoyed when my friends are doing well with the ladies.
Now, let me address what is undoubtedly you judging me as a bad friend. I am not entirely annoyed by this success; I truly am happy that my friend is happy. Or, rather, I am happy for him. I'm not annoyed by this because he's getting something that I want and am not receiving (although that's certainly the case). Let me explain.
When I moved out here to Utah, I gained a certain group of friends within the first few months. Eventually, my group of friends consisted of: A, B, Ar, S, and J. Of course I had other friends, but these were the closest guy friends that I had. Not terriby long ago, A got married. That was a wonderful thing for him, of course, and I'll admit that I was a little bummed that I wouldn't be seeing him as often, but it was alright. I had other friends to fall back on (actually, at the time, I had what I thought was promising ladying going on, which softened the issue).
Recently, though, things have gotten more difficult. B just got engaged. Ar and S are in committed relationships (to various degrees of committment, and with their own unique intricacies), and J looks like he's stepping into one as well.
If I am a good friend, I want the best for my friends, right? Presumably, in the realm of dating, this means that I want their relationships to be successful. But if their relationships are successful, then our friendships are going to pay a price for that. Perhaps that doesn't mean that I will lose the friendships, but, in most of these cases, it does likely mean that I will rarely, if ever, see my friends. Ours will be restricted to facebook friendships, where occasionally we'll see eachother at a show or on campus, but no more. They just won't have time.
Now, let me be clear: I'm not saying that these friends of mine owe it to me to fail in these relationships. That's obviously absurd. I'm not saying that, when a friend gets married, I'm being wronged. Not at all. It's what they should be doing. I am saying, however, that when a friend gets married, I have an undeniable, and (I think) natural reaction that something bad is happeneing to me, and that the triggering event is regrettable.
I am now put in the unenviable position of hoping, somewhere deep inside me, for the failure of my friends' relationships. I am, understandably, ashamed of this feeling, but it remains nonetheless.
So, what do I do about this? Do I request that my friend stop dating people until I'm in a serious committed relationship, and THEN he's allowed to go out and do the same? Of course not. Do I intentionally sabotage his relationships so that I no longer have this problem? Absolutely not. There is no possible outcome of that situation that is good for anyone.
So, what do I do, then? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be that I continue to try to find my own happiness (in this example, a serious committed relationship). That basically means that I keep doing what I'm doing. It likely also means that I ought to step up my game on that, but no major course changes are necessary.
Then, it must seem like I've spent all this time talking about a shameful problem that I'm dealing with, only to come to the conclusion that no real change must be made. What point was there in talking about this at all, then? What purpose was served?
It's a purpose that I come back to time and time again, because, apparently, I think it's important. Self-Knowledge. I think it's important to know yourself. This is an issue (among many others) that has been weighing heavily on my mind the past little while, and it's one that I've never heard addressed before, so I wanted to tackle it.
That's what's happening in my mind.
That's why I think it's happening.
That's... really the point of this whole thing.
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