Briefly - on friendship

Before I miss the entire Playgirl party glued to the computer . . .

My friend was like "you have SO many friends." I guess in some ways I do - I like people. I like meeting new people. I like people who make me smile and laugh and who are just fun and cool and who I can be myself around. But it's never about quantity over quality, ever ever ever. I'm just lucky, I guess. I feel so honored when people tell me their secrets or gush to me cuase they know I want to know, or see ultrasound pics. I like my weekend gym dates with Ellen and my personal little rituals with people. I like having friends who always know what's going on any given night of the week. I like friends who just get stuff without a huge long explanation.

And sometimes I'm amazed that this city has brought me so many kickass people who do just that - no time to link, but some I saw yesterday, like Felicia and Cheryl and Lynn, some who I wish I saw more often, like Heidi and Nichelle and Allison and Martha, some who I just read about/stuff by in the pages of Jane like Lindsay and Elizabeth and Jessica, and some who I don't even know at all but who I want to, like when Brooke, a brand new blog friend is like "I'm a friend of Michelle Collins" and I'm like "me too" and boom, instant friendship. Maybe it's a girl thing, I don't know, cause it doesn't happen for me with guys as often, or maybe the ones I'm friends with are just slower to reach that point.

No, it's not always that easy, but you know, sometimes it is. I never want to be one of those, "Oh, I heard she's a bitch" type of people because you have to judge for yourself. And sometimes, well, the person who said that one was not exactly Mr. Worth Knowing. I think blogs create this sense of familiarity, but also contempt, and I've fallen prey to it myself. I don't like what you "seem like" on your blog so I don't like you. But that is not the person I want to be. Reading all these parenting books, well, they make me jealous of my mom and mom-to-be friends, but they also make me take a really close look at my own behavior. It kills me when I'm a bad friend to someone, or can't be as good a friend as I'd like. I hate it, but I also am realizing I have to take care of myself first and foremost. Sometimes that means just resting at home cause I have a headache, or not running around like an absolute maniac.

It means going to see Failure to Launch with one of the few people I know who wants to see it, who just happens to be one of my favorite people. I love crazy nights but I also love just hanging with people one on one, sometimes too many overwhelm me. But really, my point was that I don't fake it. When I don't like someone, they probably know - or, at least, everyone else I know does. But the good thing is, there are few people I really don't like. I can probably count them on one hand, and it's always personal. I just can't work up that energy for people I don't know and never will, and I also know, were the tables turned, I'd hate people doing that to me. I know I'm not everyone's cup of tea, I'm loud and aggressive and in your face with my enthusiasm, but for the people who like that, we just click. It's so instantaneous I don't even know it's happening. I love that though, and for me it's what makes this city so alive. But I can also be friends with people, in some ways even more intensely, who aren't here. I can try to be a better, a bigger, person than I was, to, if not forget, get over, so I can reap those rewards, and in the process spend hours at night on google chat. No point really, just that were it not for my friends, new and old and from all over the place, I would be very lonely indeed.