Tomorrow is my 42nd birthday.
I remain ambivalent about the day being any kind of occasion, and instead prefer to focus on others in the time surrounding this annual occurrence. Over the weekend, I was able to spend a lot of quality time with my muse and we had a good deal of fun together as well as with friends on Friday night.
It would seem that I have become receptive to new friendships again, and it is a strange thing to seek out at this stage in life. The decades I’ve lived have given me a broad perspective to judge potential friends against, and a means of filtering out less-than-ideal candidates. As difficult as it is to find new friends, it’s even harder to vet them and make sure you won’t run into conflict straight away based on ideological differences. Great care must be taken in this respect and it takes extra time but it’s time well spent to find other members of your tribe.
Now more than ever, I find myself probing for political affiliations or at least leanings, because I know now how core these things have become. We all used to be able to pretend at pleasantries if we disagreed with someone politically but that time may be gone for good. I know better than to try to find people who I agree with point for point on everything, but there are some things I simply will not negotiate on. If a person leads with a discussion about Trump and how great he is, it’s an immediate dead end. I’d go a step further and say that if a person were to lead with their political baggage from either direction, I’ll exit quickly.
If a person wraps their identity up in their favorite elected officials or the party they represent, it’s safe to say they will have a hard time with critical thinking. I prefer my company to be free thinking and capable of making their own decisions and coming to conclusions independent of leadership.
Likewise, if a person greets you as a complete stranger with intimate details of their life from the first word, you should exercise a great deal of caution. Odds are the person thrives on drama and they will inevitably attempt to get you to side with them in these stories so they can add your name to list of people who agree with them. Your life is interesting enough without helping other people carry their baggage. I’ve had people I barely knew confide things in me because I seemed trustworthy and I lived up to this by immediately discarding the information as opposed to holding on to it for later sharing with literally any third party. It doesn’t ever bother me because I know that this information is nothing of use to me so I will promptly toss it the second it seems socially acceptable to do so. If a subject is truly none of my business I will just tell the person that much and help steer the conversation away from the problematic issue. If a person insists on tangling you up in their story, cut ties and continue the search for better.
It also occurs to me at this stage in my life that all of the ideas I had about friendship when I was in my formative years were consistent with how I feel now. A person knows when a friendship is mutually beneficial and when it is lopsided in one way or another. We spend years trying to determine which is which but in truth, you know almost immediately based on the instinctual pings you get at every turn telling you yes or no. All we have to do is listen for these signs to know how to proceed, but our need to have a community often forces us to ignore negatives in favor of the “Something is better than nothing.” mentality. Being comfortable in solitude has been an absolute godsend for me in this respect, because I know I don’t have to settle on any relationship. I’m good by myself, and if I’m to let anyone in, I have to be good with their being there. Quantity is easy, quality takes diligence.
This has meant that over the years I’ve changed friend groups a few times and reduced at every opportunity. Now I have just a few truly close friends and a massive pool of people I know on a surface level, enough to nod hello to in public but never have more than a passing, meaningless conversation. The energy I devote to this kind of person is minimal and I make every attempt to hasten these exchanges so I can proceed with my day unencumbered. Knowing a lot of people becomes a curse because it feels as though you can’t be out at certain times or places without bumping into one of these unknowns and having to talk about the weather or even worse, about lives we lived 20+ years ago in high school. I’m not that person any more and I’m not interested in that version of you, so let’s leave it in the past for good. 2021 was my 20 year high school reunion and I had some classmates trying pretty hard to get me to go and my response was the same every time “I have no interest in talking about the past and I will not be at any of these events, please stop asking me.” Social rituals like this are just dead weight to me, a relic of a time that might have made sense in the past but is now ridiculous. Those people didn’t really matter to me in high school and they certainly don’t now.
It’s not that I harbor any sort of ill-will toward any of these people. I want the same thing for them that I would any complete stranger: that they’re doing well, free from debilitating illness, and capable of fulfilling their needs. They are all strangers to me, so I extend the same kindnesses I show to everyone.
Despite having been here over 40 years now, I am still searching for my place and purpose in it all. I feel as though I’ve caught glimpses of who the ideal version of me is, but never any more than a fleeting vision. Sustainable happiness is elusive in this regard, and always comes with a lot of feeling like there has to be more to life than this. I may be a lifelong seeker and only ever get these glimpses as opposed to some fabled and lasting path to travel, and that has to be alright, too.