If You Ever Need a Pal

By: Pégy Gaile (View Profile)

I deal with this people soup call friendship by remaining respectfully distant, there I am with a good and kind word and I will probably be the girl up a ladder helping you decorate your home or baby sitting your kids. I care enough to allow people to deal with themselves. I don’t exactly disappear, but I allow people the space and time they may need to see I’m for them. I’ve realized as a human being that some people fasten onto you far too quickly. I’m always a little suspicious of those alliances they tend to be the kind where they offer you everything from lifts in their car, tickets to show, etc. Usually the transaction ends with “I’ve done all these things for you, why can’t you....” Generally you don’t ask for these things, but eventually there is some kind of price asked. I do recognize that this is unhealthy and although I might sound jaded, I’m not. I think I just understand that in everyone’s efforts to feel like they belong or feel connected they are quick to attach themselves to others. There’s a reason cults exist you know. I think I understand why people do this but it isn’t something I choose to do as I feel the expectation some attach to this word can be quite oppressive.

 

I like friendship in the true sense of the word. The idea that you choose someone and you both walk steadily towards mutual understanding and care is very enticing to me. Only the other day when someone online implied that I was not perhaps as friendly with someone I had been chatting to because they didn’t tell me about something they knew and I didn’t. Well I was just fine with that, it didn’t make me feel left out it. It didn’t affect me at all. What annoyed me was the person telling me that I ought to question whether this person was my friend or not. I personally respect other people’s emotional space if someone wants me to know something I will because they’ll tell me. If not then I’m glad they chose not to burden me with it. There’s a lot of responsibility in knowing and when you know a lot of people that’s a lot of weight.

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posted: 04.28.2007
Catalina Cordew
Hi Pegy, I really have been with a lot of nice people throughout my life. I am 55 years old. I have had young and older and not so old friends that I still keep in touch with. But the best ones that I cherish are the ones I grew up with. There is something about growing up with someone, because you really get to know the good and the bad. And it is up to you if you will continue to associate with them. I keep in touch with a lot of them. Friendship means a lot. Good times and bad times. I can go home to Philadelphia and not worry where I will stay. Such nice friends. When I was 29 years old, I enlisted in the Army.Believe me, my head was not all there (smile). But I stayed in for 3 years. I married a military guy. We stayed married for 12 years. So, I was in Ft Bragg, North Carolina. I have 2 children. Well, my daughter moved to Calfornia and later asked med to come and help out with the grandchildren. Nice people are all over. Well, bye for now.
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