There’s something very naive about thinking the friends you had in high school (or university, or primary school, or whatever) will be your ‘bestest’ [sic] friends forever. Yet I keep noting some variation of this theme in my life. It is almost as if I don’t believe in change and want things to be constant. I guess, in some ways, I do. I like stability. I want things that are reliable. But life’s not really like that. In the same way you wouldn’t expect these days to keep the same job until you retire, you can’t really assume that the people you know now will be those you hold nearest and dearest in times to come.

I’m not talking about big fights or burning bridges either. It can be such a gradual thing that you might not even notice it. You’re both growing as individuals, and, perhaps, you’re also growing apart.

I’ve had this gnawing feeling for some time about one person in particular that I don’t really understand them, that I can’t get excited about what they’re excited about – and I sort of suspect the reverse is also probably true. I can go back to the beginning of the friendship and identify one thing we had in common, and I wonder is that the thread everything hinges upon?

I see some of their interactions with other people, what we might call their ‘actual’ friends. Those people get it! They really do understand. They’re as excited as the individual in question and that excitement nudges each of them on to bigger and better things. All the while I’m sitting on the sidelines wondering what happened, and why it happened.

I feel a certain amount of wistfulness about this. But I’m not sure what I can do about it. The older I get – and man, I feel old – the more I realise it is better to accept things as they are, rather than to hold on to visions of how you wish they were. There’s integrity in accepting truth. Is this settling? Perhaps…

I studied Robert Frost in high school English. ‘The Road Not Taken’ is always cited as an inspirational poem about doing something unique, about being an individual. On some level that might be true. But you have to remember that the poem is called ‘The Road Not Taken’ not ‘I Took The Road Nobody Goes On; I’m So Badass.’ For me there is something so wistful about this poem. It’s about regret. It’s about acknowledging that you can’t do it all and have it all, that you have to make decisions and by definition those decisions choose certain things to the exclusion of others.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We ignore the sigh and go straight to ‘the difference.’ We read ‘the difference’ as ‘a vast improvement.’ But I don’t think that’s what Frost is getting at. It’s just different. He hasn’t traveled on that other road, he’ll never be in a position to compare and contrast them and decide which is better. And there will always be a part of him left wondering…

As I sit in my hotel room in Brisbane on my last night here I reflect. And somehow it is not about this place. This trip was never about this city, or attractions to be found within. It was always about people. But in ways that are complicated. I suppose all relationships are complicated. You know how they say on Facebook “it’s complicated.”

But all jokes aside, I wonder about this stuff. The differentiation between “IRL” (in real life) and Internet friendships. I wonder about the ties that bond and the ties that disintegrate into nothingness.

In truth the impetus for the trip was a romantic entanglement whose thread was so thin as to disintegrate long before it was even time to board a plane. But I decided to board that plane anyway. I wanted to put on a brave face. I wanted to see other people too. I wanted… a lot of things, I suppose. I don’t know what I was looking for but I know what I found.

There are the – at times, quite disembodied – sense of online selves. There are living, breathing people presented “in the flesh.” And then there are the entirely abstract ideas of friends and friendships. I wonder why I feel like I can be myself with some people and not with others. I wonder why sometimes thoughts manifest themselves as vocal noises and other times as words to be written or typed. I wonder why some thoughts and feelings are expressed easily and others I suppress with considerable effort.

I was disappointed and disillusioned that the romance fizzled. I was angry. I kept telling myself, “it’s okay.” But it didn’t feel okay. I kept telling myself that you can’t control who you have feelings for and who you don’t. I kept telling myself it was completely unreasonable to expect anyone to commit to a long distance relationship. And actually I believe these things are true and valid. But I still don’t appreciate being ignored for extended period of times. I didn’t appreciate being treated like yet another casual acquaintance. But I was scared to express any of these things. I was scared that if I gave my rage an outlet I had no idea where it would take me. And besides I wanted to match the indifference I was getting. I wanted to pretend I was okay. My pride felt like the only consolation I had left so I was determined to put on a good performance.

But my role in this facade was foolish. Even more foolish than I felt about the whole relationship, about coming to this city for something that wasn’t real. And if there is any ‘take home’ from this whole experience it is probably that all such falsehoods are foolish. From the big emotional ‘stuff’ to just not being yourself, not speaking your mind, in much less grandiose circumstances. It extends to putting yourself in situations where you know you won’t feel comfortable. It includes going against your own values to avoid ‘making waves.’ It is about anything that mutes your truth – whatever that may be – that propels fictions ahead of personal realities.

It’s late and this feels lofty and airy-fairy. But it’s all I have. So I’ll honour it on that level.

“I dont know why I did the things I did
I dont know why I said the things I said
Prides like a knife, it can cut deep inside
Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes”
- If I Could Turn Back Time, Cher.

It is one of those pop songs that, like Rihanna’s Umbrella, is probably remembered more for its provocative film clip than its lyrical content (I mean, if Cher could turn back time… she wouldn’t bare her ass to the entire US Navy?) but I found the lyric popped into my head earlier today. Specifically that one line: Words are like weapons they wound sometimes.

I found myself talking to a friend and all of a sudden their thoughts just trailed off into very strange territory. And I was listening to what they were saying and being struck by how offensive it seemed. And I was thinking this is really very offensive but it seemed particularly offensive being expressed in my presence (for reasons I don’t care to disclose). It was as if they hadn’t connected the dots in their mind or even realised who they were talking to; indeed the very implications it had to the person it was being expressed to.

I suggested perhaps it was a discussion that was best taken up with someone else. And they seemed to sense my reservations. They apologised, but even the apology seemed to make matters worse. It was okay because they didn’t think of me ‘like that.’ Suddenly even my own personal identity became oddly malleable. It didn’t seem to matter who I was so much as what their personal ‘concept’ of me was – that’s what they were working with, that’s ‘who’ they were relating to.

And actually, in the moment, I said, “It’s okay.”

But frankly it wasn’t and that wasn’t even what I meant to convey. These sentiments weren’t okay with me. What I meant to say was, “I know you well enough to know that you didn’t mean any offense by the remarks and that you don’t mean me any harm.”

And it was resolved… I guess. Or rather the tension was diffused. But for me it wasn’t about making this person ‘wrong,’ because actually I have a great affection for this individual. But it wasn’t about just ‘making nice’ in the iterim either. I really wanted them to think about the words they use, because words really are like weapons. Sometimes they can wound unintentionally and there is little comfort to be had even in that knowledge.

I am trying to be less reactive though. I am trying to cultivate a greater patience for people. I understand that sometimes the first thoughts out of someone’s mouth are not always their most formed or their most personally representative. I realise, in a curious fashion, that my very existence is deeply problematic for a lot of people – even people who do actually love me. I feel that we’ll get there in the end.

Random things stick out in my mind. No, really. I realise if I constructed the narrative of my life it wouldn’t be an accurate record of what actually happened but rather the key clutch moments that were important enough to me to commit to memory. Though my memory is far from reliable. My mind filters and stores information based on how it relates to earlier experiences and other personal prejudices.

Somebody asked me a really innocent question recently. At the time I sort of smiled politely and gave an official-sounding somewhat defensive response. Our conversation ended and we went our separate ways. And suddenly I was filled with such resentment and anger. How dare they ask such a question?! What are they insinuating?! Were they just trying to bait me?!

I lost sleep over it at the time. I sent this person a handful of lines expressing my anger. The particular technology I employed allowed me to delete those same lines the next day before they were viewed by the recipient. The truth was by this stage I was beginning to understand why I was so angry and it had surprisingly little to do with the question or the person who asked it or even the person the question pertained to. It did have a lot to do with my fears and a few negative experiences from my past. And the more I thought about it the more I had to admit that there were a few negative experiences that I haven’t made peace with.

I came clean with the person who posed the question. I told them pretty much everything. I admitted that I had a fear that people were making really unkind assumptions about me based on a little information and a lot of prejudice. And the experience that kept coming to mind was not the most offensive demonstration of a particular prejudice but it was the one that affected me the most. It was a very long time ago in the scheme of things. The person who said those things and I talked extensively about it the time. It should be water under the proverbial bridge. But as I told the person who posed the question, ‘It happened a lifetime ago but it still burns like it happened thirty seconds ago.’

But what does this mean? I mean, the person who said the things that are etched into my brain weren’t addressing me individually, they were just expressing a theological disposition they had. They were quite upset that I had been hurt by the remarks. They went to great lengths to discuss what they meant exclusively for my benefit. They meant me no harm then and they still do not. Even at the time random third parties were talking to me on the sidelines seemingly dumbfounded at the problems I had with the content. This did my head in, actually. I felt blindsighted. I didn’t see this coming and then BAM! There it was. This diatribe about some aspect of my being. And I wonder, who else feels this way? How many other people are smiling and talking to me and then going home and thinking these sorts of things about me and other people I care about?!

Wild insecure baseless speculations aside, I don’t expect a lot of people I consider friends do actually share these opinions. At least, intellectually. There are still moments when I seem to lash out at people and exclaim things like, “But, of course, THIS is what you really mean… right?!” I guess I’m just scared. I learnt that a lot of people were actually quite fickle and I decided to be as open and transparent as I could be at the start of a relationship so if it was a problem it would at least be a problem before I felt emotionally invested. I just want to know the people who are around me are people who love me and will support me. Is that so much to ask? Probably not. And yet that is only part of the overall equation. It isn’t just about having these people in your corner, it’s also about choosing to believe that they are in your corner. This is the other dimension of faith; the part that doesn’t relate to the paranormal or the religious. It is the collection of smaller assumptions you embrace about your daily life. Its choosing to believe that if you drive on a road that the cars going in the opposite direction will stick to their side of the road. Its choosing to believe that if you leave your home today that an acorn or the sky or an atomic bomb won’t fall on your head. Because at the moment I am not being critcised or chastized by my friends, I am just plagued by this anxiety that it could happen. I am waiting for some unseen axe to drop.

And this is actually something the new age and self-help literature understands quite well. You choose to believe good things will happen not because they necessarily will (you’re probably not clairvoyant) but because this will have a bearing on how you feel, and this will in turn affect how you act. You make different choices when you’re feeling optimistic than you do when you’re feeling anxious. You react differently. You are more resourceful.

So this is something I have to work on. It is something that I am working on. I thank you all for your patience and support and love.

I recently found myself internet-less for a few days. It wasn’t the end of the world. Actually at first it was great; I found myself doing chores and other useful things. I started watching television again. I started reading again. I had lunch by the river, and scribbled notes for articles at Get A Web Start.

By the end of day two, though, I missed the interaction so much I used what little bandwidth my ISP would afford me to check my twitter messages (waiting up to 10 minutes for a single page to load).

Without the internet, without the blogs, without the videos, without the podcasts, I felt so intellectually starved. I found myself driving to my local library thirty minutes before its closing time on a Friday night just to get some mental stimulation.

And on my return to internet access I felt compelled to seek out new blogs and bloggers. The truth is i don’t know many bloggers. Most of the people I know are youtubers. Some of them also have a blog, though it serves as little more than a forum to showcase their videos. (There are exceptions though: notably QiRanger, RiverBasil and RoboFillet.)

But more than that, I felt this need to seek out Australian bloggers. One of the things I have always appreciated about this medium is its ability to connect people with common interests and values, irrespective of their geographical location. When faced with Internet Connection Deprivation (ICD) I came to a realisation. My ability to connect with the people in my ‘extended network’ (yes, we have been reduced to MySpace parallels) is only as strong as my ability to connect to my Internet Service Provider.

Suddenly geographical location took on a whole new significance.

In my efforts to connect with Australian Bloggers I joined Aussie Bloggers – a community with a fairly self-explanatory title.

Within minutes of posting a short introduction I discovered there were bloggers living as close to me as Albion Park (about a 45 minute drive) and that there was going to be a “Blogging Event” there on Sunday! Clearly, it’s a small world after all. (Happy Birthday Snoskred!)

This made me feel really good.

Having a shared interest in something was cool, but having just heard the same song at the same time on the same radio station… that’s something else entirely.