06 X 2002 - 17:37 - brevis56

Sometimes, I don't think I can bear orchestra. As much as a pleasure as it is for her, it is for me a rack. I don't make friends easily; part of this has to do with how I'm told other people often see me (quiet, withdrawn, and generally not good to be around unless homework or a test forces it), but a great part of it has to do with how I see people (after all, I can't blame people for thinking I'm withdrawn if I'm -- withdrawn.)

As a friend, I'm not perfect. I'm possessive and needy, and I don't like to share, because it puts me out of my comfort zone. I get downright greedy at times with how much attention I'd like to claim. Within the self-deprecation, a prima donna waits to be born... sometimes it feels as if I'm starving for attention, but a little bit of reason tells me I'm being ridiculous to expect that my claims on a person should have primacy over all others. There is only so much one can take of (and, also, give to) me.

And so I understand that I don't make friends easily, and I understand that most of my friends are much better at making friends than I am, and I realize of course that this means that they will have many more friends than I do, and that it is only natural for them to want to spend time with each other. Of course, there's no saying I can't join in -- but when some of the other friends have an air that's bothered me from the start, or when they get lost in conversation about the friends they all know from the elementary school they all went to -- well, it's easier to spend my lunch with Catullus, even if a conversation about politics with a dead Roman poet is not going to go very far.

School is different. It's the weekends I dread, because I didn't go to that elementary school, and music is not my primary passion, and if you've want of friends in a youth orchestra -- there are people who will talk to me, but they've got other, better people to talk to, too, and so it looks as if it's the corner for me again, doesn't it? School feels so much easier because -- because there, no one who isn't one of my friends will talk to any one of us without some exceptional circumstance to force it.

And knowing that I have no right to complain about anything because I am being unreasonable to expect exclusivity because, let's face it, that's creepy unless it comes from a stalker, and even then it's still creepy, if not unexpected, I still feel resentful that I can't have a lunch with her and not have him around -- that I have to choose between being with someone I don't particularly like and not being with anyone at all (and how quickly has thsi choice made itself evident -- has it really been only three weeks they've known each other?), that it should come to this: that I am unreasonably demanding that a friend stop hitting on someone else, when I should be supporting her (or should I really, if I get a bad feeling and everybody I've talked to confirms it?) Why can't I resign myself to compromise? Why can't I see that she's only doing what I wish I could have been doing all along?

I hate that I have to keep reminding myself that it's not a betrayal. I don't want to feel this way.

Edited later to add the question: Would I be behaving thus if I were actually her boyfriend?

...but how does that make you feel?

Edited even later: Bloody hell. She's telling me how badly everything went, and I know I should be feeling bad and trying to comfort her, and part of me does, but then there's that sizable minority that is doing a dance of joy and feeling nothing but a huge surge of relief and perhaps a little bit of gloating.