Friday, July 25, 2008

Guestblogger: Sociability & Me

Summer has always seemed to me like an unspoken social test. With all that freedom, what do you do? Who do you call? Or do you wait to be called to keep others from knowing how totally bored you are? Summer seems to kinda work like this for me.

I have personally never been big on the social front. I'm awkward, I think in a complicated branch system (which I didn't even know until my sister, who totally has ESP, told me) and I prefer being alone. I like to do what I want to, when I want to. I'm a natural loner and suck ass at making small talk. Most people and I don't click because I am a very weird person, and I'll admit it pretty proudly.
As most of you ladies here know, high school sucks. But there's a great time somewhere in those hellish four years that kids develop a talent of really starting to understand flaws around them. This happened to me a few summers ago, and I started to notice that people I obeyed were not always right, and your peers are not always real.
A few days ago I saw a post Valentina wrote about her feelings toward Brooklyn hipsters and it definitely struck a chord. Some of the people I choose to spend time with don't always feel like they're being genuine, and a lot of the time it seems they're trying to impress some invisible judge. I just don't get it. So because of this, I don't know how a lot of my so-called friends really feel about me. So there are two categories of said people in my life: some of these people I avoid, and those I spend time with, but don't invest much in to refrain from hurting myself. For instance, I thought about a friend I'm always with. I wondered if, given the choice to choose between me and what she thought was no doubt the coolest thing in the world, she would choose me. She's a self-proclaimed "indie kid" (*shudder*), so I thought, 'I doubt it' and put her into my latter category. This has been leading me to a bad case of disillusionment with people in general and a desire to get out of town and go to college.
But you know, it's nights like these that make me remember why I care about the people who give and get my love. I don't have a cavalcade of great friends-- I could probably count them on both hands, I'd say. And the ones I have are fantastic and get me, and I get them. They are real, so I don't really ever doubt their character. I'm anything but a social butterfly, but I'm lucky enough to ladies that I work with, and it's awesome.

I feel sorry for people who have to doubt their friends. I hope I head to a college where I don't have to. I'll probably pay extra and room alone, anyway. Fish and roomies stink in three days.

If you can't tell, I'm socially ambivalent. I take my free time like the temperature-- if it's too hot, I need something cool. If it's too cold, I need heat. I'm socially picky.

Anyone else like this?

Your antisocial amiga,
Y Sarah

P.S. If you can figure out what the picture's from, I'll give you a... picture. Of a cookie. A really good cookie.

6 comments:

Valentina said...

Sarah, I love this post. Yeah, I'm kind of like this too. It's hard for me cause I'm so naturally outgoing that I tend to try and make friends with everyone. And than later I realize that I have a whole bunch of really vague aquaintances and very few friends. And a lot of people don't really understand my extreme sarcasm or personality or whatever, so they think I'm kind of strange too. But I've made a few awesome friends who will be going to college with me already, so I'm lucky there. And if I'm bored, I can always just call my big sis and talk for hours about ABDC, or roller disco, or whatever odd subject we get into.

But I had like zero friends during high school, so I'm a bad person to talk to.

Lolita Hazed said...

Wow, no, that's like spot-on with me. I talk to pretty much everyone, you can't stop me from talking, so I have so many people I've met but so few people I really know. I'm in IB/AP classes and I have some strange ideas, so I have a reputation for being really weird. But I've always been like that, so it doesn't bug me anymore when people ask me if I'm high. S'all a day in the life.
God, it's a crying shame I don't know you! Something tells me you and I would get along damn swimmingly.

MACK said...

I'm def anti-social. People tell me ALL the time. It's not that I'm not outgoing it's just that, I have to be with the right people and in the right mood to do things. My school (St. John's Univ) is a huge party school despite what we all say and, the party scene just isn't mine...all the time. Living in Queens..most days there isn't anything else to do BUT party (house parties that never fail to get shut down..or clubs). I have a very small close knit group of friends so, coming to college was a challenge because I was comparing EVERYONE to my best friend, and to the few others in my inner circle. Once I opened up a little, I found my "home away from home" besties and they're great. Some, I do doubt at times. It's sad but, such is life. There are certain degrees of friendship; those who I doubt are obviously lower on the scale. At my school we live in apt. style dorms and most rooms have at least 1 single. If you can snag one of those DO IT! It'll give you an opp to live with multiple girls (it's an experience I would never give up...my roomies & i are going on 3 years of living together and are some of my closest friends here) but having a single gives you just the right amount of separation when the madness gets to be too much.

Where do you plan on attending college?

Valentina said...

For real girl! I have the feeling that we'd probably get along amazingly well. You totally should go to college in California next year. This way you, me, and Erika can all be friends in real life!

Lolita Hazed said...

A single? That's a great idea-- so it's a divider still in the same room? I'll definitely try to go for that! Fantastic idea, thanks!
I'm looking at a few east coast lib arts schools, but I've really been considering the west coast. My top choice around there is Reed in Portland, which is totally awesome. They have an Ikea dorm which means everything unscrews, which means you can totally move the stairs around. It's kickass. I haven't explored that many schools in California but I'm definitely going to look!

Valentina said...

Reed is an awesome school! I was looking there too when I did the whole college search thing. You should consider my future college Pomona and Claremont McKenna and the rest of the Claremont schools too. Cause they're all really similar small liberal arts schools. And Pomona is really awesome and laid back, not like those east coast schools which get kinda competitive and snobby.