With the pain of events that still feel all too recent, I've learned that honesty isn't always the best policy when it isn't reciprocated. There's still a part of me, though, that wants so desperately to have those honest connections, at least with the people that I care about.
This exercise (which I picked up from "Josh":http://xaminmo.livejournal.com/, among others) is sort of midway between keeping it inside and letting it all out. Below are several statements — some good, some bad, some a little bit of both — about various people that I consider, or at one time considered, to be my friend. There are no names, only statements.
# Even the very first time I met you I found you to be fun, genuine, and trustworthy. Since then, I've placed more and more value in our unique friendship and have always been rewarded for the time and effort I put into it. The distance that I feel between us lately hurts me more than I let on.
# You are beautiful, smart, honest, cute, talented, and compassionate. You compliment me in every way. You make every triumph even sweeter, and every dark day a little bit brighter. You are my biggest fan, my most cherished friend, my most trusted counsellor, and my most true critic. I'm sorry that I lean on you so heavily at times and that sometimes I make unrealistic expectations of you and our relationship. I'm trying and I thank you for continuing to believe in me.
# You are one of the sweetest most beautiful people that I know, but you are destroying yourself and your life time and time again with the poor company you seek and it isn't anyones fault but your own.
# I blame you and your lies and your selfishness almost entirely for the nearly complete destruction of one of the most important friendships I've ever had. If I had less concern for the happiness of the other half of that friendship I would expose you as the deceiver that you are.
# You're cute and smart and lots of fun to flirt with. Unfortunately you rarely make an effort to contact me and always being required to do so myself leaves me feeling like maybe I'm forcing our friendship, so I back off.
# More often than not, you feel fake to me. You appear to be concerned and genuinely interested when in direct contact yet easily find better things to do and other places to direct your attention. You are only truly interested when you are being fed the attention and compliments you feel you deserve even when you don't.
# You are one of my most favored friends, even if your occasional self-centeredness leaves me feeling unbalanced most of the time.
# You're an amazing, beautiful, compassionate woman. You share the same joy/plague that I do in your desire to please others and avoid conflict. Your ability to peel through the layers that I present and see me underneath it all makes it difficult to hide from you, yet you accepted me anyway. Yours was one of the most incredible friendships I've ever had and losing you hurt me more than I will ever admit to anyone.
# I'm impressed by your ability to make me feel important, meaningful, and valued nearly every time I see you. Your unbridled combination of beauty, intelligence, and talent makes your thoughts about me even more meaningful. I admire you, your children, and the relationships you have. When faced with an important life choice to make and given the option to freely seek advice from only one friend, I'd choose you without question. It's unfortunate that we don't see each other nearly as often as we should.
# What little I know about you I really like. I find you quirky and interesting and cute in a very strange way that is nothing like my usual taste. I hope that time will make us even closer friends and that the scars of my recent past won't cause me to push your friendship away.
# You look at your own life and the lives of others in a relative way, with rationality, compassion, and understanding. I only wish that others could share that same view. You have always supported me, have been candid in our interaction, and very honest in the thoughts you've shared with me. On top of that, you are kind, pure, intelligent and very beautiful. I'd tell you all of this myself if it wasn't for my recent observation that the closer I allow myself to get to someone the farther away they seem to be, especially when it comes to expressing the way I feel about "attached" people.
# Even though, despite outward appearances, I often feel we have very little in common with one another, you have always offered me honesty, understanding, and knowledge in a way that is not belittling or assuming. I often wish I could find a stronger common bond with you just so I'd have an excuse to spend more time with you.
# Your beliefs on how the world should work so closely match mine that it's scary. It's sad that most of the world isn't real or pure enough to make it a reality. Unfortunately, in not knowing which world to exist in, you've become unreliable, and our friendship tends to be hit or miss. I hope that when your issues start to clear up you'll find your way again.
# You're a good soul, a pure heart, and a great friend. I admire your strength and determination. I hope you've found an outlet somewhere, or I fear that the compassion you show will boil away leaving behind only anger and bitterness.
# You are always so cheerful and flirty that it's hard for being around you to be a bad time. Your words and actions are filled with so many lies and half-truths, however, that, anything more than a surface friendship with you is impossible.
I don't intend to announce who is who. If a statement applies to you and you know it and you'd like to discus it or point that fact out, feel free to email me, call me, or drop by. If a statement doesn't apply to you but you'd still like to talk about it, I'm all for that too. I always enjoy communication. If I didn't write one about you and you'd like me to, let me know and perhaps I'll do another like this some time in the future. If you think one of them might be about you but you're not sure, it probably isn't.
