Friendversary

Few people can say that they've known someone that's not an immediate family member for twenty years, but I am proud that I can say that twice over. Though these pictures are only representative of 1995-2005, I have known both Isaac and Caitlin since we started preschool in 1991, making 2011 our much anticipated (at least between us) 20-year Friendversary.

I don't even remember meeting Isaac. That's how long I've known him. I can't remember a moment of time when I did not have him as a friend. Growing up, his family was my second family (I mean that figuratively. I have to point that out because I do actually have a second family. More on that later). Our personalities and interests always complimented each other; Isaac is logical and athletic, while I'm the creative "indoor" kid. If I got through our conversion into public school starting at seventh grade, it's because Isaac alternated between keeping a level head while talking down my panic attacks and teaching me to play sports in gym class left-handed. We attended school together until high school, at which point he went to a private one in the city, but we still stayed in close contact, going to each other's school dances or sci-fi conventions to play Star Wars (him) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (me) trading card games. Now he lives far, far away in Washington DC working as a scientist, performing experiments I do not understand but am very supportive and proud of.

The memory of meeting Caitlin has actually stuck with me because it was partnered with a fairly traumatic experience. We were in different preschool classes, but were encouraged to freely move between the two as part of our progressive learning curriculum. I had decided on this day to travel across the hall to see if anyone would be interested in playing the Bank Game with me, a game whose purpose is to trick you into learning math. Caitlin, who to this day still needs to be tricked into doing math, agreed to join me. Then about five minutes later, a kid named Scott Penny partially cut off one of his fingers in a door hinge right in front of us and we both threw up. It was Fate.

The best way I can think of to describe Caitlin is to compare her to other girls: it's kind of the cliche little girl dream to own a horse, right? Well, instead of half-assing it like the general population, Caitlin put her education to work and lobbied professionally to her parents for years. It was such a comprehensive campaign that by sixth grade even I could tell you the minute details of dressage. And you know what? By seventh grade she had her first horse. And by the time we graduated high school she was AHA Youth National Champion. She also loves food and bad television. Oh, and she's in law school now.

I guess this is a good time to mention that of the three of us, my post-HS contributions to society have been slightly less... prestigious. Sometimes I think that maybe I should be in a similar place, but then I realize I'm just fooling myself. Unlike the two of them, private school ruined me. I got accustomed to the pro-learning environment created by the Montessori education. Going to public school was kind of a slap in the face. Caitlin and Isaac are smart on more than one level - all of us can understand the material, but they know how to play the game. They can buckle down and get through any dreck the educational system throws at them because they know the ends justify the means, but I just can't learn from a teacher who doesn't care about their material. Plus, my body rejects busy work like a poison. In the last couple semesters, I've just now found my groove in college five years in, but unfortunately it's a groove that's moving me nowhere towards getting a degree. But I'm taking classes that I enjoy, I'm learning, and I'm coming out with a portfolio that I'm proud of. This is good enough for now.

I've meanwhile been trying to think of the best way to honor Friendversary. At first, I was just going to make Caitlin a photobook chronicling our two decades worth of adventures for Christmas, but I'm feeling more and more like I should think bigger. And this isn't just because she had a similar photobook idea tonight and is probably going to find out any day now that her mom already gave me her entire collection of pictures. My new idea is that when Isaac comes back for Christmas, the three of us get together and shoot reenactments of old pictures twenty years later, as my training in the arts has to be good for something. Then we can still make a photobook and like give it to our moms or whatever. I've just got to find someone now that I trust can take quality pictures with my SLR camera because I know letting go of any bit of control will turn me into a monstrous perfectionist.

Social Butterfly

I'm going to admit something to you, Internet:

I'm more often than not a fairly awkward mess.

I feel as if this is as good a place as any to start a new blog, because while introductory, it also serves as a fairly deft warning. Awkwardness Ahead. Expressing myself can be a battle. Don't get me wrong, I get by. Really! But I often find myself wondering about the rare combination of personality defects that make me both welcoming and off-putting.

On one hand, I have an honest face. And by this I mean that any stranger in any situation thinks that I'm the one guy in the line at Best Buy customer service who needs to hear the intimate details of his private life or his feelings on ObamaCare, oh and hey, while we're here, he should also definitely inform me of that time he hired a stripper to bite his friend. Something like this will happen 85% of the time I make eye contact with someone in public who is not otherwise occupied. Combined with my database of kneejerk polite responses and head motions in the face of uncomfortableness, social situations like these often continue to spiral downward without end in sight.

However, put me in a group setting, somewhere where I'm expected to interact with strangers and not be ambushed by them, and suddenly I'm the weird shy dude. In fact, "shy" is the number one adjective used to describe me by acquaintances who don't know shit about me. I guess I can understand why that happens. In unfamiliar settings, I have a very specific game plan: observation. I'm not one to waste words to begin with, but this is different. It is through steady, almost militant observation of everyone else's interactions that I can usually find one person who I can probably be friends with. Then I get said person alone, lower their defenses with clever traps, and finally I attack!!! Kind of like a friendship velociraptor. People who observe me observing usually have one of two reactions: 1.) they think I'm creepy, or 2.) they think I'm shy. Interestingly enough it's usually the people who recognize that I'm just harmlessly creepy that I end up getting along better with. The shy group is mostly made up of idiots. On the very last day of my high school career, I had a girl come up to me and tell me that everyone thought it was adorable how shy I was and that I was "secretly cool." I think this might have actually been an insult, though I don't think she meant it that way. Mostly it was just a stupid thing to say to someone in general.

In respect to my problems getting out there and meeting people, I have maintained a small but very tight knit group of five friends. The amount of time I have known these five people are 5 years, 10 years (maybe 12, this is debatable), 11 years, 12 years, and 20 years. So I kind of play to keep in that regard. I also have like four other friends who live scattered around the country that I rarely get to see and, for purposes of this particular post, do not really count.

You see, lately I've been doing my best to be open to making more friends. My group gets together every Sunday to play games at the same coffee shop we have been going to for years because we fear change, but the others in my group, in very non-change-fearing ways, have been inviting new people. Getting along with them has surprisingly not been an issue because at Scrabble nights, I'm in my element. But it's got me thinking - maybe I should be bringing around new people. But who should it be? And how should I go about it?

There's the cute guy at work who I've kind of been friendship velociraptoring, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if he finds me charming or terrifying. Never a good start. And recently I found out he might have a fiance, so every time we're really having strong conversation and we start making plans, I awkwardly tack on a tense "andyourgirlfriendistotallyinvited." We have yet to recover from that once. Or there's the kid who I hit on while we were both studying one night at the coffee shop but who turned out be a high school junior, and who actually came to one game night, causing a lot of pedophilia snarkiness because I'm apparently the only person in the world who thinks he doesn't look like a high school junior.

My one recent success was I admit kind of cheating at the game. The first time I met my boyfriend's coworker Michael I knew it was meant to be. We were playing a game called the Game of Things, where you try to guess who gave what answer to a particular question. I was able to correctly identify Michael 100% of the time because he always gave the answer I found funniest. The velociraptor had awakened. Thusly, through some effort and several months, I have requisitioned him from the boyfriend, and he and I are now gym buddies. And also after-gym-Wendy's buddies. My first semi-solo success in honestly years. It feels good, Internet. And hopefully it's the kind of semi-success story I can awkwardly start bringing to this new blog on a semi-regular basis.

I can dream.