Thoughts of the Day: Sunday; September 2, 2012

Wow it’s already Sunday night. God time seems to fly by when I’m back here on the weekends at my hometown. I read and bookmarked an article I really liked some time ago that I just revisited today. It’s called, “How To Have More Best Friends in Life: The Heartfelt Guide”, written by the Personal Excellence blog.

http://personalexcellence.co/blog/best-friends/

I feel like this article put into words very well the types of friendships and conversations I desire. I often feel frustrated when conversations are just the, “superficial discussions and slapstick jokes, which fade away in distant memory the next day, never to surface again” (Personal Excellence). As I’ve said before, most people put up a barrier towards other people so that their friends can’t really get near the true them. I’ve been lucky to have experienced a friend who is open to discussing more personal stuff. He seems to have a knack for taking conversations deeper. I’ve been trying to learn from him. He’s leaving for Davis in a few weeks. It feels somewhat unmanly for me to say this, but I’ll certainly miss the times we’ve had together on Friday and Saturday nights where we just sat and talked about our lives- many times about his life more than my own but that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy listening to other people’s intimate thoughts.

I’m not sure what it is. I just can’t seem to recall how I feel at times throughout my day. These emotions are strong in the present moment when they happen but the events are not significant to the point where it’s on my mind 24/7. Someone reading this might not have an idea what I’m talking about. I’ll attempt to give an example.

Today after playing basketball at Saratoga, my brother and I decided to go to Subway. Not a big deal, I’m not going on a trip or even visiting an amusement park. It’s Subway. After getting home and lying on the ground next to Lucky and stroking her fur, my brother said, “Ok, let’s go to Subway”. You would imagine I would just reply, “all right” and head out. But I responded, “Why can’t Grace (my sister) go?” My sister commonly buys outside food for my brother and I when we request her to due to laziness. However, I had an underlying reason for wanting my sister go.

The very last time I went to Subway to purchase a foot long, I ended up recognizing the girl who worked there. She was a girl who was in my De Anza Literature Mythology & Folklore class that I took over the summer. It was a Saturday night, and I wondered to myself, “what the hell? Should this girl be with her friends on a Saturday night?” I’m quite sensitive to the image I give out and hence I am also sensitive to any sort of underlying message other people’s actions or words give out. Being a Saturday night, I thought all girls who are at least semi-attractive and wear miniskirts to class would be out partying. I know I’m stereotyping with the word “all” but I certainly feel strongly towards the belief that girls who stress sexy- regardless whether their attractiveness is based more due to make up use or not- are out with their friends and strutting their stuff on weekends. So here I am a bit shocked to see her here and begin to feel some self-consciousness- as I usually am around attractive women. It did catch me by surprise though since I did not know the girl working behind the counter was my classmate until she was ready to take my order. I proceeded with my order and asked her opinion of the class we had finished. She replied that she liked the people in the class but I knew she was referring specifically to the people she was sitting with who they together were loud and “the popular group in the class”. Yea it sounds weak to still care about popularity since I am out of high school for more than two years now but it bothers me. So no doubt I found them somewhat annoying. My sister was there with me and my brother that day ordering Subway and my sister asks her, “oh, did you go to Lynbrook High School as well?” My sister had the unfortunate luck of being appointed by a late and irresponsible doctor thereby resulting in her being somewhat oxygen starved in her brain. So unfortunately she is a bit mentally challenged. She was in Special Education when she was in school. She was not the most challenged of the special educated students and she actually would have ranked as one of the better off students who had a mental disability. Although she is 24 now- four years older than my brother and I- her English is still a bit choppy so one can deduce from her not-so-perfect English speaking ability that she is either a foreigner or a somewhat mentally challenged individual. I’d imagine that the girl working at the Subway that night would have thought that something about my sister seemed a bit off. Although regardless of my sister’s annoyances and irritations, I care about my sister and don’t want others to mistreat her, treat her different, or poorly in any sort of way. I cringed when my sister asked the obvious question, “what’s mythology?” to my ex-classmate. My brother replied to my sister.

The conversation pretty much ended from there as I don’t really remember anything else being said. After paying for our Subs, we headed out the door with me not saying any form of, “bye”. It was a tad bit rude to not have some form of formal exit but based on the distance I was standing from the checkout register, I just turned around and headed for the exit. I didn’t give a formal exit due to multiple reasons. I did find her decently attractive, and not being a stud with the ladies, I have come to dislike what I don’t have. I found her group loud and attention seeking in class- but who isn’t right?- and since I sat a few rows behind them in the back of the classroom, my direct line of view was their group, so my overall feeling towards them was and is one of annoyance. Thus this also played a part of me disregarding any sort of formal exit. Another reason would be the fact that I did not want to say “bye” and risk having her not say anything back. If this was going to be the last act or last time seeing her, I wasn’t going to let her be the one to ignore me. Yes it is being passive aggressive. I realize that but people do react passively aggressive at times. The conversation did not flow fluidly either which if it had, it would have left me feeling more on a positive note, so ending the somewhat awkward conversation, saying “bye” seemed to me to be a bit of a “suck up” response. This coupled with all the previous three reasons, I subconsciously felt that saying “bye” just wasn’t going to happen. 

Well this story is an example of a seemingly trivial event while in reality, it had an effect on me, my thoughts, and my feelings after leaving Subway. This experience is also the reason why I did not want to go to Subway today after playing basketball. I imagined the likely scenario that would have played out had she been there again and I did not want to deal with that. These on-the-surface and seemingly trivial events that in actuality elicit and harbor strong emotions happen relatively frequently. It’s always situations like this that is on my mind for a while; yet, when some time has passed (maybe a couple days or so) and it comes to meeting with a friend and they ask, “how’s it going?”, I can’t seem to remember these events and my thoughts and feelings. Of course one may say, “well, that’s just means that the event wasn’t worth mentioning if you don’t recall it when your friend asks ‘how you doing’”, but it’s everyday things that happen that reveals our more inner thoughts, personal feelings, and similar memories. Unless something very significant happens- like winning the lottery- anything else is not worth mentioning and connecting on? I don’t think so.