The Forge

I've come to the conclusion that i'm not paranoid. There was a time when i thought perhaps i was blowing things out of proportion--and i'm sure i was--but just because something is blown out of proportion doesn't mean it's nonexistent.

I've had the opportunity over the last several weeks to work tech for the one-act festival and a sorority-sponsored fundraiser, and had a small acting role in the mainstage production. I've had the opportunity to see the same people day in and day out, sometimes for five or six hours straight.

I've also had the opportunity to stand there in a room of over a hundred people and watch them, in small groups and large groups, filter out of various black boxes, stages, dressing rooms and hallways, chattering and laughing with one another as they left. I've had the opportunity to catch the formation of plans to eat at restaurants, take shopping trips, and nominate places to hang out.

I've had the opportunity to stand in a room of over a hundred people and watch over a hundred people leave me perfectly alone.

With the single exception of an offer to go to a bar after one performance (which i gracefully had to turn down), i have received no invitation to go anywhere or do anything at all with these people.

I wonder how many people know what that feels like.

I just don't understand it. It's not even like i'm somewhere else when these plans are made: i'm standing right there, literally within a physical yard of the people discussing what they're going to go do, and yet i'm never part of the conversation. If i were to (as i have been known to) stay behind, i would not be (as i have not been) missed. No one turns and says "Aren't you coming, Adam?" or "Oh come on, you have to come!" No one turns and says anything at all. No one turns, period. Or if they do, it is simply to gut me with a parting. It is like poisoned chocolate, seeming sweet--for they say "goodbye Adam!" and "see you tomorrow"--but it hurts more than silence would have, as silence could not have said "you are not invited" as eloquently as such a parting.

The conclusion i must come to is that either i am not the sort of person worth including in the lives and activities of others, or that a good thirty or so people with whom i spend most of my extracurricular time are not the sort of people worth getting involved with. Either is a troubling prospect, since in the first case i cannot help but be who i am and in the second i am doomed. Consider that the path i am on dictates that i be heavily involved with the theatre for the duration of my stay here. Thus i am forced to more or less abandon any hope of pursuing deep commitments outside of the theatre community (i simply haven't time to be elsewhere). If i cannot truly befriend these people, then i shall live a friendless college career.

And what is the nature of a friend? He is more than one with which you get along while working; he is more than one with which you get along in general. Strangers can sit together at random for a meal and have a good time, but it takes a friend to plan the meal and send out the invitations; without friendship, a story is begun with meeting and ended with parting, but with friendship a story has a history and a future, and we play out the present with both in mind.

I cannot imagine someone a friend who pays no mind of me when we are not within eyesight of one another. If he never greets me outside of the demands that societal norms impose upon him--that is, when we are in close company, or else passing with proximity on a sidewalk or in a hallway--well then he is no friend. If i receive no call, no letter, no e-mail, no slight measure--indeed, no indication that he is aware of my existence--well then he is no friend.

Likewise, if i have wronged any that might desire me a friend in not exercising what i preach here, then a true friend will reprimand for the sake of the relationship. I say that he is no friend that does not send from time to time a token of the friendship; if there be any who feel they have been slighted of such tokens from me, i would happily have them tell me so, and i would be quick to recompense them in double measure what they have lacked in the interim.

In the meantime, i cast off the heavy burden that is the pursuit of friendship. We are warned to avoid being unevenly yoked, and i cannot think such words apply only to faith and romance, as the narrowminded are wont to consider these but words to keep the Christian from the pagan or the Jew. No, i think these words are fair warning for all relationships, and so must be carried across to the realm of friendship. Is it fair that one ox do all the pulling so that the work be done? Certainly not. Therefore, i refuse to be the ox that is used by a lazy partner. If a friendship demands that i put forth all my effort to yield but meager results, and that the other half, my "friend" would be equally happy being unyoked altogether, then what value can possibly be laid upon the friendship?

The answer is none. I do not have the energy or resolve to pour myself into unyielding bonds that wear a facade called "friendship" but are beneath this mask as far from true love as day from night. On this path i will soon exert myself past exhaustion, and find all my labor for naught besides, as my failure to continue the effort will mean the effort fails to continue. I'd like to believe that my earnest heretofore would be enough to prompt the other oxen to pick up where my efforts trail off, but--and call me a cynic if you must, but--i cannot in good faith expect that to happen.

I say that a friend is ever endeavoring to stay connected. If you read this, and in reflection discover that i have been ambitious in targeting you with such endeavors, then weigh carefully my meaning. I do not say that your friendship is worthless inherently. I do, however, say that after all this time if my affection has been unrequited, and if it continues to be so, then you expect a steady decline in such endeavors as i have more recently been engaged in. This is not to make anyone value more what they already hold in esteem, but to make aware those who currently hold our relationship in such slight esteem that it is soon to be abolished entirely, unless they give indication that they desire otherwise.

And so i give up being friends with those who would as happily not be friends, which is to say i give up nothing, as a friendship not worth maintaining was never a friendship at all. Consider that, then, a test to the bonds between us. If you would be my friend, then be it, and i will endeavor to be an equal partner in the enterprise. I would like nothing more than to be proven gravely wrong about my forebodings, to find that the paranoia was entire, and that the issue blown out of proportion were no issue at all.

Yet i am no optimist. I am no pessimest.
I am a realist, and reality tends to sting.

But that's perfectly fine with me. I have my epinephrine ready.