First Guest Post--Jacob on Friendship

First, although I don't feel that an introduction is really in order as you all know of me from reading the other entries here, I'll give one anyway. Hi, I'm Jacob of "Joe and Jacob" fame. Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the meat of this.

Friendship is an interesting part of life. Really, when you think about it, friendship is life. If you didn't have attachments to other people which grew with you and changed as you changed, there wouldn't really be much point in living at all. When you look at it that way, it kinda makes you wonder why there are different levels of friendship. What makes you let certain people into the deeper chambers of your soul that others just don't have the chance of getting to? I bring this up because it has been a topic of thought for me a lot lately. It all really started when I was asked about doing a guest post for this blog. I thought to myself for a moment. That's an interesting level of relationship -- "I trust you enough for you to take over my podium to the world for a bit, (don't screw it up!)". It was this thought which caused me to think for a moment about how I got to know everyone's favorite Lamictal addicted (and admittedly dependent) medical student.

We've known each other literally forever. And in this instance I think it is appropriate to say forever because we've known each other since about as far back as one can remember, and as Joe points out constantly, prior to that point children are completely swappable because they lack personality and therefore person-hood. My earliest "snapshot" memory of her is from third grade. One of my best childhood friends and I both really liked her, and wanting to be like our older relatives and such we thought that "dating" her would be excellent. The next step was to decide which of us it would be, since we obviously couldn't both date her, so we decided to arm wrestle for that right. Now, I never knew what her thought on the matter of being battled for like a piece of property was -- and I expect in third grade there wasn't much processing of this aspect of the situation -- but I do know that this thought, should it have occurred, need only be fleeting. Upon seeing the outcome of our match, she decided that perhaps she would be of more use in this whole endeavour and and arm wrestle us herself, at which point she severely trounced us both. Ever since that point in time, we've been more or less friends. That is to say, when given access to each other I'd consider us good friends, however, we have the tendency to lose touch with one another quite easily. I will label this type of friendship the "ethereal chain"-- bearing the hard wrought connection of growing up in the same town, but having the tendency to dissipate if no one is watching out for it.

Joel, another friend of mine, shares a completely different sort of link. Joel and I first met during my junior year of highschool -- the first year at SCGSSM. He was my potluck roommate. It turned out to be a much better fit than either of us could have expected really. We didn't really talk much the first day at school, but that first night, after lights out, I decided to break the ice and make the weirdest noise I could come up with (and admittedly I wasn't very creative). After a couple seconds of awkward silence, I heard "What the fuck was that dude?" "Just me making noises..." "Why?" "I unno." "You're weird." "Yep." "Do it again." And the rest is pretty much history... We roomed together at GSSM and then later during all of our undergraduate career until we both because resident assistants in separate freshman dormitories. Even then we hung out for a few hours pretty much ever day. I guess you could lump him under the category of "best friend", but I still think "Psychic link" would be a better categorization, due to our ability to complete each other's random quotes from books, standup comedians, songs, and movies simply because of our wealth of shared experiences.

I could go on labeling friends different labels for quite a while:
Brandon - Situational Linkage w/ a spot weld
Patrick - Mystery Matters
Joe - Holy Trinity; Seating Proximity
A - Empty pot
...

But there's one that boggles my mind. I call this one "security blanket". It all began with a misunderstanding last October where I was reading my livejournal friends page and stumbled upon what I took as a cry for help from a person (from GSSM) which didn't update very often. I replied with the most helpful response I could conjur up. Two nights later I return to find an entry which I assumed was blasting me for intervening when I knew nothing of who she was. I was infuriated, and did what any sane person in my situation would do -- I wrote an entry about feeling insulted by being blasted for trying to be helpful (carefully adding at the end that I in fact had a crush on her, which had been very longstanding).

She replied to my entry, hurt, because she hadn't directed the previous entry to me at all, but to her current boyfriend who was anything but "what women want". I felt like the biggest ass on Earth, and a little egocentric for believing she'd blog about me when we'd never really spoken before. Anyway we began to talk... on aim... everyday... for hours. Then we started to call each other several times a day, and always talk for 30 minutes to 4 hours on the phone just before going to sleep each night ... in fact we both admitted we couldn't sleep without talking to the other. There is literally nothing about me that she did not learn during these months -- learning things that not even Joel knows. I learned about her secrets too, some of them slowly extracted over two nights because she thought I'd hate her if I learned about her imperfections. We labeled each other "best friend" and continued to talk each night and visit each other frequently. In fact she appeared at my house unexpectedly at 7 am on a Sunday -- a feat all the more impressive when you consider that I had last talked to her at 10pm when she was 4 hours away at a frat party doing jello shots. She left that night around 11 and stopped in Columbia to visit the guy she was interested in long before she met me. She spent the night and next day with him, but called me on the way home to tell me all about it. Weeks later she attends an event with said guy and comes home having decided that she hates him because he is playing two girls at once (HA!). Two days later she tells me how the other annoying guy at this event is not so annoying, and the next day they're dating. Now here is where the frienship assumes the "security blanket" title. She now wants me to remain as involved as before while also having time for the boyfriend and her other friends, which, SURPRISE! Doesn't work out so well. So instead I'm the guy that gets stuck holding the phone while she's crying because she missed her flight. And the guy that gets to entertain her as she drives to visit the new boyfriend at 11pm because she might fall asleep. I'm her "security blanket" and some days, she's mine.

Now that last bit may sound like I'm angry, but I'm not really. She is still what I would consider to be a best friend. She is the one person I would call at 3 am if I really needed to talk and who I know would answer, and I know that she feels the same about me. What I want to understand is why we let each other "in" as much as we did, and how I can develop a friendship that is this rewarding with someone who needs more than a blanket. What fundamental element of life -- be it circumstances, personality, or fate -- led to that depth of friendship which can be tested and tried so suddenly yet leave both people wondering what happened and why the other isn't calling as often. We spoke earlier tonight for an hour, not about the hopes for our future as we used to, but about the here and now, and it was a calming experience -- because old habits of falling asleep hearing about each others days and weeks since you last spoke are tough to extinguish. And because sometimes you just need to curl up with a blanket and relax for a bit.

The point of those last paragraphs and this entry as a whole is to demonstrate that people -- friends -- are the only things that make life worth living. They're the people that live your tough moments with you and remind you about them years down the road, and even when you want nothing more than to forget. They're the people that arm wrestle you in third grade, that make you squeal into a pillow at 2 am just because they want to hear it again, and that can make you simultaneously love and hate them with a single gesture. They're people like you! So thank you for letting me be a piece of your life and take over your podium while you were out -- hopefully I kept your readers entertained!