So I recently went home for Memorial Day and was hanging out with my sister and some of her friends. Being 20 years old and clearly not well versed in politics, the arts, and literature such as myself, they were talking, dare I say gossiping, about some others within their little circle of friendship, specifically the interesting dynamic between my sister and her ex. Now my sister and her ex, B, dated for a long ass time. From the end of 8th grade through the beginnings of their freshman year of college last year. As high school breakups normally do, it ended on sketchy terms and their relationship has been strained to say the least. They are cordial and hang out due to their copious amounts of mutual friends, but in the future, I don't see them frolicking in fields of daisies or playfully shoving in each other in a promo for TNT's newest show about best friends. Anyways, they were talking about how ex's can never be friends, too much history, blah blah. The struck me as patently immature and very much indicative of that black and white teen mindset. Its a mentality that never really resonated with me.
Maybe its because I didn't have my first serious relationship till I was 18 and a freshman in college, or maybe because by that time, I had created such a caricature of what I was looking for in a relationship that I couldn't help but be friends with who I was dating, regardless of the situation or outcome. Of the 4 significant relationships Ive been in (dating for 3+ months), I consider two of those ex's some of my closest friends. Now in both situations, it was not break-up and then... *poof*... we were homies.
One of the relationships was a long distance ordeal at the end so we had the, funny enough, benefit of not having to see or speak with each other except via phone or IM or whatever when someone really wanted to have something to say. It kind of eased the cooling off period and then allowed us to kind of test the proverbial friendship waters and enter at our own pace. Then it got to the point where we were talking a couple times a week and got past our history as an awkward point and realized we were invaluable to each other as friends as a result of the 9 month relationship and the transparency such a situation offered.
The second was completely different. Took place at school, break actually occurred just before school reconvened and we had tons of mutual friends and obligations which put us in contact almost daily. To say it was tense and awkward at times is an understatement. It was ugly at points, but again, once you approach the whole situation with the understanding that there is a transition period and it doesn't always have to be this ridiculous, then strangely enough, things improve greatly as the weeks pass. Rarely is one side completely vindicated of any "wrongdoing" (there was no cheating involved in either of these situations) and thus both parties are equal in blame for whatever fallouts occur. So while I felt I was handling everything with grace and poise and maturity, my inability to end a relationship properly at that time in my life probably caused most of the riffs that happened early in the school year. But then again, as in the previous situation, we realized our value as friends and that really helped get on and frankly, I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
Now this whole little spiel isn't to seem all philosophical and it does seem awfully contrived with the talk of "friendship value" and such, but its more the idea that good friends are hard to come by, its something I value tremendously and deeply as anything, and to let one go for something as trivial, in the grand scheme, as you once dated, seems like a waste. Now extenuating circumstances are of course divorces, infidelity, breaking off of engagements. Thankfully I've never experienced those, so I don't feel qualified to comment for or against anything related to that. I just feel like if you are close enough to date someone for a period of time, you obviously like spending time with them and you have enough in common, it has to stretch past just the romance. You can't date someone you aren't friends with, am I wrong? Well, idk, you could, I dont want to get into that, haha.
But the whole reason I address the question is that Ive found it to be quite a point of contention. Some people either find it completely foreign and abnormal, or are completely turned off or threatened by it. For example, I had a relationship, about 6 months after the second break up I referenced, where the new gf was so completely against any friendship I had with my ex that it became a stressor on the relationship and was one of the reasons for the eventual dissolution of the relationship. And to clarify, at this point, we were both dating other people, and were still starting to explore the whole being good friends thing. It was not a BFF situation where we were going to dinner and spending tons of time 1 on 1. We were simply talking, being cordial, hanging out when mutual friends were together, etc... Well the new gf just couldn't take it. It was not a hatred of my ex, maybe it was jealousy (I don't know of what?), but she just was baffled as to why we were friends. I found nothing wrong with it, and her outrage to be strange, especially since I never put her second to the ex, but who knows. And then recently, this mentioned ex just got out of a pretty long (in college terms) relationship in which we didn't speak much unfortunately. However, upon their break-up, she called me and apologized for the recent distance between us and mentioned how her bf during that time really didn't like the thought of us talking and being friends, so she scaled it back for his sake, and then realized the utter stupidity of it all post break up. And for clarifications sake, this whole time they were dating, they were in Oxford, OH, at Miami...and I was living in Chicago. I wasn't even around?!!? Are people really this insecure and scared? Im not some Lothario who was making an impassioned attempt to get her back, just ridiculous. Add it to the list of relationship issues and problems I never will understand and hopefully can manage to dance around the rest of my romantic life...bah
Speaking of ridiculous, time for some CTA gems. I have compiled my top 5 from my recent blogging absence:
5) Girl on the train today actually:
"If a bitch wants to sell her p****y for cash, thats her damn choice. If a playa is gonna give me some green to tap this, then hell yeah."
Umm, seriously? This is why the Red Line frightens me, cause this shit is normal.
4) I have not been keeping stats, but I imagine I am batting about 85% in terms of winning the fucking "Being the first person chose to sit next to on the entire train, leading to an awkward ass ride home" lottery. I guess I have kind eyes or because I'm thin, but I have no idea. Without fail, whenever people get on the train and there are no open double seats, they make a beeline for me, its absurd...and uncomfortable cause sometimes when I have a rough trading day, the last thing I want is my bubble being awkwardly popped.
3) Couple on the Purple Line home last week. Probably around 19-20, most likely Depaul students. Managed to make out for about 10 min straight from Merchandise Mart to Fullerton. I almost wanted to give them a standing O as they left. I guess the smell of masses of people and flatulence turns some people on.
2) Older woman reading the paper. To her left and directly in front of me, a man of Middle Eastern descent was talking on his phone, probably in Arabic, at a low level, completely non-invasive. She remarks to nobody in particular, but quite audibly:
"Damn towel heads. Always blabbing in Hindu or some shit. Speak fucking English."
Hooray intolerance! This man wasn't wearing a turban or being obnoxious. What an old skank.
1) Finally, a similarly aged couple to the one mentioned below were talking about YouTube videos. The girl excitedly remembers one she had seen but can't remember the title:
Girl: "Have you seen the one about the city in Ohio? Its like talking about how bad it is. I don't know which one, its not Columbus. But its all dirty and broken down, like Gary."
Guy: "Cincinnati?"
Girl: "No, its way worse than that..."
I almost wet myself holding my laughter in. Of course she was talking about the brilliant Cleveland Tourism videos, but her frank and horrible comparison of Cleveland to Gary fucking Indiana was hilarious, only because of the tremendous amount of crap my friends from Cleveland get even before this video.
So Dave Matthews Band's new CD comes out tomorrow. The whole thing is streaming here www.pandora.com/davematthewsband . Give it a listen for sure if you are even a casual fan. Its awesome, but it got me thinking. They were my fav band in early HS and I listened to tons of other stuff in that genre. The Ben Harpers and the like. But then I heard a couple of songs that basically turned me into the pop-punk/emo kid fiend I am today. Like, people always joke about a song "changing your life" but these songs literally did. Turned me on to a completely different scene and got me going to concerts all the time, instead of the DMB show every summer. The one that stands out to me cause I hadn't heard it in awhile, but then I heard a month ago and play it all the time now, is The Juliana Theory-If I Told You This Was Killing Me... I still remember the first time I heard it. When that first line comes blasting in, I was just floored. I was never the same. So thank you TJT, and Brand New, and TBS, and Alkaline Trio for making me the music junkie I am today. But also, thanks DMB for making me love music that wasn't on the radio for the first time.
"Watch your mouth, hold your tongue boy, because you're running out of breath, running out of time before every callous word that you utter, renders you utterly useless..."
JW
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