i’m supposed to be doing (read: copying over becca’s) stat hw. walked into kohlberg and found joc, who was poring over dante and was glad (seemed glad?) for an interruption. it’s hard to tell w/ her sometimes b/c she can be elaborately political — hmm, how to phrase this. i witnessed it a lot last year: she goes out of her way to make people feel comfortable, cheerful; she laughs a lot and listens to what they say; but the authenticity of each interaction is kinda questionable. she’s excellent at deflecting personal questions, when she wants to, and keeping herself pretty unknown. b/c i lived w/ her last year, i had a greater-than-average opportunity to experience joc in all her forms, but in large part i think she’s still a mystery. i’m often still onguard as to whether she is actually as enthusiastic as she seems or whether she’s acting for politeness’s sake. paranoia in friendship w/ other folks would probably be enuf for me to drop the friendship, yet w/ joc it’s worth it.
so i just hope she’s being authentic w/ me and leave it at that. whether or not i’m being naive.
becca is struggling w/ questions that i was struggling w/ last year at roughly this time. can you be friends w/ someone after you break up w/ them? i think it’s difficult, more difficult than people lead you to believe, just like everything relating to sex and relationships. when you invest a lot in something, even if only lasts 3 weeks, darling, you can’t expect to just snap out of it and be ready to move on. people are emotional: they brood, they dwell, they deal w/ self-doubt and put themselves thru agonizing self-examination (yuck).
my advice is don’t be hard on yrself and don’t expect too much.
jackie a. sent me a sweet email, altho she mentioned that she’s not auditioning after all for the play. this leaves us in a bind: so far hers was the only name of the signup sheet. is our cast going to be all bryn mawr girls?
and here, incidentally, is her take on the above issue:
we’re not together anymore, but sometimes i feel that we’ve taken out the in-love-ness and the sex and left behind the rest of the relationship, including much of the dependence on each other and almost all of the dysfunctionality. we still fight, we still have the same old problems as before, either in the same form or slightly altered since we’re no longer romantically attached. and it’s not good for me, nor is it good for her, and sometimes i feel like i absolutely must distance myself to some significant degree from her, but i never do, nor does she. and things never change.
granted, that seems like it refers to much more intense relationship but some of the themes are pretty universal. sometimes it’s just hard to be friends after. History is hard to forget.
gaaaaa stress! too much, too much. i just need to make it to this weekend.
and what do you mean stop blushing? sheesh ….
(course, i’m linking it to, ain’t it? i guess i’m just a narcissist too.)
also check out the minister today; he’s in fine form.