An inborn outcast
How come there is a natural tendency to assume that you will always remain friends with the ones you grew up with. There does not have to be some special thing that made you turn into childhood friends. Aspects such as timing, Geographic’s and suitability, are the most prominent factors when establishing friends when you are in your premium pre-school years. Aspects such as common interests, ways of thinking and personal ideals are not considered. These more important friend aspects are put as things to be established by learning and practice through the course of the future friendship. You could view it as sort of an arrangement put forward by parents and the nurturing establishment. A thing, that all children should experience and explore, the deep sea of eternal childhood friendship. My best friend and me, back home in Sweden, were inseparable. We lived next door to each other in a society of 50 people. Meaning that every moment where we did not eat or sleep, we spent with each other. To me, he was the best friend one could have, and I was heavily dependent on him. After we began school our friendship only grew as we then encountered people who, we felt, were assholes. After primary school we remained best of friends, despite that we went to different secondary schools. Then, something major me an evening in March 2004. It was called UWC and would change my life quite significantly. After I went we did not speak for over three months. Though this was not something unexpected since neither him nor me is especially big on the ways of communicating per distance. But, when I got home, everything was as normal. Maybe we did not have that much common experiences anymore, but we soon found the routine and began chatting away like a couple of grannies on Prozac. However, it was one thing that I could not help but noticing. I felt five years older than him. Not only him, but all of my dear childhood friends. When I started talking about something that really caught my interest, they all looked at me as if I was talking in Chinese. We had lost our common interest in politics and society. I was talking about the wonders of globalization and they discussed the graphics in the new Xbox console. I did not now if it was me who was acting pretentious or if they just did not care about anything else than getting the new 007 on Playstation. I did not think about it much more since I left once again for school. During the summer I spent so much time traveling in the middle east that I did not actually meet with them extensively, and when I did we usually just ended up drinking and playing poker. The sad reality struck me just a couple of days ago. About a year and a half after I began studying at RCN. I have outgrown my friends, or they have outgrown me. In either case our interests and aspirations in life has separated completely. For this New Year I wanted to do something fun and exciting. All of them decided that they should sit on their separate sofas and enjoy New Years with their parents or girlfriends. Maybe crash a party somewhere to get drinks and enjoy the beginning of the New Year in a random company. Since I did not feel like neither sitting in someone else’s parents sofa drinking cheap bubbling wine nor crashing a party with people completely unfamiliar to me I decided to go down to Copenhagen and celebrate my New Year. Obviously we do not want the same things out of life anymore. I feel a need to make the best out of every second we possibly have to have fun. Maybe they think that what they are doing is the ultimate fun, and it possible is for them. But, unfortunately, not for me. So I have turned into the outcast in my own city. Knowing no one, and the ones I know, do not share my interests anymore. We still enjoy evenings of poker and talking. But I do not see us being very close friends on 10 years anymore. I have met new ones of who I think will remain my friends our entire lives. But the difference is, that I met theses new friends considering aspects of social dynamics and not practical arrangements. I love my childhood friends. But, perhaps, it is better to sometimes leave things in the past. How sad it might be.
posted by Dale @ 12/31/2005 12:34:00 AM
12 Comments:
Daniel,
I think it is very diffucult to understand for people who have not been to any of the UWCs. We all say that the UWC world is a fake world in which we have to live. Now, i do not know if this is a good thing or bad thing, because after staying there for 2 years (7/24) we get extremely used to the place. Then, when we get home and meet our friends, we just stare at each other. Well, i am saying "we", because it happens to me, as well. As you said, they do not understand most of the things which i talk about and i feel that i can have some nice conversations with 30-35 year old people!!! (I guess, sth is wrong with me..) Anyways, i feel so lucky to be like that no matter what and i guess, this place has given a new meaning to the word "friendship"... At least for me...
peace,
Akin
I think it's a bit more complex. At least for me. If I love someone I do not let it go that easily and think that it's just a part of the past, although things might have changed. It's difficult to adapt but it's possible. It just requires some effort. It's a completely different question if you are willing to put in the effort required. And we do not agree on most things, we do not have too many common interests and so on but still I consider us to be friends. I don't know about you but I for one appreciate having different kinds of people in my life. I do not wish my friends to be my copies or agree with me. The most precious thing about all of my friends is that they are all completely different. I need the presence of those who discuss clothes and styles, those who discuss politics, those who discuss TV-programmes, those who discuss other people, those who discuss music... I need them all and I wouldn't want to think that I can't be friends with some of my friends because I don't feel like talking about anything else than, let's say theatre, with them. But I guess these friends weren't all that dear if giving up is the right thing to do. But that's just me.
I must add that the short breaks don't do justice to your friends. I thought I had grown and changed but that all my friends were just the same when I was visiting from the college. But now that I have been back at home for several months I can actually see how blind I was at the time to the huge changes my friends had overgone. I could only see the drastic changes in my ways of thinking and behaviour and so on. So full of myself and so much focused on me, I missed out on the experiences my friends had had while I was gone. I needed to work. When I got back home I felt outside and that people were just not the same. Some people really weren't but most had remained the same deep inside. And there is no bond stronger between friends that I can think of than the one me and my best frined here at home have and that is more than 10 years of history together. And I do not think it's coincidence that we have remained the best of friend to this day. I have no doubt in my mind that we will be friends for as long as we live.
btw: your blogger profile says your astroloical sign is Aries. Now, we both know that's not true. You're a Leo, damn straight. So what the hell have you typed in there, huh? Anyways, I hope these many long comments of mine make you very happy and people belive that you have friends. :D
i meant astrological. damn typos.
Emmi,
When i saw 5 comments after the post, i said "Wow! This guy is getting popular!!" But when i realized the truth (4 of the other comments are from you), i said "oh, all right! everything is just the same as it has been!" :)
peace,
Akin
As if he had that many friends! And as if I could stop talking!
:D
I think, you should read my blog;)i wrote sth that says sth about your thoughts as well;)
hey Daniel,
hope u r doing fine....I heard that you applied to UFL. Didnt u? Just wondering about that..so lemme know...
amra
Hello Amra, sorry I did not apply to UF. I thought that it would be a too big University for me. I like them around 4 - 5 000 students.
Hope you are having a great time, say hello to Andrés from me.
Andres is leaving for Norway tomorrow. Bastard! Hate him right now. Anyways...take care:) and have fun with him:D
Oh how wise that someone finally allows anonymous comments on their blog (not all of us have been good people and registered...) Daniel, how's life in IH, and room 101? Hope you're enjoying flekke more than ever (except for as much as when we were there of course..) Emmi - dude, why aren't you writing me? ¿Qué pasó? Still hope that you got the letter after all & btw, letting you know that im a frequent visitor of your blog (allow anonymous comments...)
peace & love & all that stuff... hugs from Costa Rica... / Malin
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