What about your friends

I always thought that petty drama was kind of like braces: you deal with it when you're younger, but it gets straighten out and you laugh about the pictures later. This may have been a little naive because drama doesn't go away with age, so why would that be true for the the petty version?

Allow me to illustrate: I have become annoyed with someone I go to school with. We were friends last term, but now I find her almost impossible to be around. I was mentioning this to another friend of mine the other night and she informed me that she and everyone else has not really be able to stand her since October. I knew that my friend was frustrated with her, but I had no idea that a) it ran so deep and b) there were many others that felt the same way. She also informed me that everyone thought I was lovely and was slightly confused as to why I was hanging out with this other person. This came as more than a little shocking and my level of frustration with this person has grown exponentially since then.

I am typically not one to fake nice with anyone, but this is uncharted waters. LSE is small. My residence is small. If I tell her that I don't want to be friends anymore, does that just make my life uncomfortable for the next six months? Or do I suck it up and realize that six months is actually a pretty short amount of time?

The fact that I even have to have this debate is beyond frustrating. First of all, this person has changed the entire layout of socializing within her program. Second of all, it always makes me wonder when I will no longer find someone so annoying as to make it my life's goal to avoid him/her. The answer is, sadly, never. But in the meantime, I find some way to make this work.

Does this strike anyone else as ridiculous?

The Men and the Boys

When I'm bored at school (natch, procrastinating) I do a little self navel-gazing. I know that's kind of ridiculous, but sometimes I forget the things that I've written about, participated in, etc. and it's interesting to read about it. Isn't part of the fun of blogging to record what is going on in your life?

I was particularly interested in the posts I wrote about relationships and couple-dom in general. Last year I wrote about the engagement of two of my friends and how that was freaking me out. Well, one of them got married, the other one broke off the engagement and is now happier than she's ever been. AND everyday I hear about another person I know from high school, college, or that summer program I did getting married, and you know what? I am no longer that freaked out. Or maybe I am no longer shocked and appalled the way I once was. It was kind of how I felt when people I knew started having sex. At first it seemed crazy and intense and then slowly, as more people did it, it became easier to understand and process.

The other reason I think that I am more understanding and tolerant of marriage is that I am in a happy and well-adjusted relationship, something that was definitely not the case a year ago. This has changed my prospective on relationships--whether serious or not--because I now have a clearer version of who I was and what I wanted from my romantic relationships.

The unfortunate thing for me, and I think many others in my age group, is that I never really wanted all that much from my past relationships. I dated boys and I treated them that way, and in return I never got the emotional or physical intimacy I really desired. I consider myself a somewhat abrasive personality at times and basically there are two ways to take me: 1) laugh and call me on my bullshit or 2) allow me to steamroll over you and dictate the terms of our interactions. In the vast majority of my romantic encounters choice #2 has been the modus operandi, and quite simply that is no longer the case.

When you find someone that finds you intelligent, funny, caring, hot and laughs when you say something that you believe wholeheartedly, but is a little blunt and maybe a bit outrageous, well then, you've really got something.

In other words, I've found a man. And it makes all the difference in the world.