DO YOU HAVE REAL FRIENDS?

I made my real friends by accident, actually.

I had a lot of friends coming out of high school and into adult life. Lots, actually. All sorts. Drinking buddies, gamer friends, people that loved to go out and about, etc. I realized that they weren't real friends around the time I got a fiancee. Suddenly, because my time was split between her engagements (her friends, family, etc.) my job, and them.. they weren't willing to make that extra effort to plan in advance so we could spend time together.

You know when you're younger, most things you do are spontaneous! You get a call during work on a Friday afternoon to set up a poker game that night. Your friends swing by to play some Warhammer. Whatever. Suddenly, you are part of two lives. If you leave everything up to the last minute, nothing will get done. You need to plan, as early in advance as possible, and make arrangements. My old friends hadn't quite realized this yet, and even after explaining to them why I was never available it was "Oh, I see. Your fiancee is more important than us. Got it. Call us when you have some free time so we can blow you off and see how you like it!" and I feel like the bad guy.

Isn't the number one rule of being friends; real friends that is, not to make your friends feel like shit? I know now that I was only being reasonable and perhaps could have been more proactive in making plans myself (I did try to set up a Games night, and even made the effort to run a D&D Campaign for my friends which had a planned day every other week but it always collapsed!) I'd like to think that I did my best in that situation.

As a result, I barely see these people anymore. The only reason I know they exist is Facebook updates and the occasional invite to pwn some noobs at Heroes of Newerth/Team Fortress 2. Something that requires no effort to plan at all (thus showing no real care, just 'oh Steve is on Steam we need another lets invite him and see if he is around.')



Now, I had mentioned that I did actually have some real friends. I came across them totally by fluke, I suppose. My fiancee and I have very similar interests, especially regarding entertainment and philosophy. We are both no-bullshit people, and don't take crap from anyone. We're also both gamers, and interested in doing new and unique things that we haven't experienced before (as far as her health allows her, but that is another story.)

Now, these real friends of mine are people she has been friends with for some time. She met them through a friend at College and they are for the most part very tight. I am not a social butterfly by any means (although I am getting much better at that as I mature,) but my fiancee had lots of plans with these friends before her and I had ever met so I was taken a long for the ride. While I was trying to woo her, show her who I am as a person and essentially bear (bare?) my soul to her; I realized that I was doing this in front of people I didn't really know. I was engaged in situations with them (a pair of brothers own a cottage that we frequent regularly, and a large group of them are Magic the Gathering players which is something that my fiancee and I are very big on.) So while I am doing my thing with my fiancee these strangers are getting an open view into exactly who I am as a person. I am being myself, wholly and truly. Something that very few people I knew in the past had ever seen of me. Hell, I don't think my parents or siblings even truly know who I am.

Now I am not only building a relationship and bond with my then girlfriend, I am inadvertently creating a bond and friendship with these people at the same level. They are practically significant others at this point. After experiencing this and realizing it, I also realized that they were doing the same for me. Opening up in a way I had never seen two people open up to one another before. I quickly learned a lot about them and what built them up to who they were that day.

I take this and build all my relationships in a similar way. I also learned quickly that some people are not expecting it. It can create huge chasms of awkwardness between people so it is very important to evaluate each person and try to gauge how they will take it. When learning something about someone, for example what they like, I try to learn why they like it. What lead them to like it. What significance it holds.

I am rambling at this point and lost my train of thought. I don't think I ever put this kind of stuff into words before and had a lot of trouble getting it out. Kind of a weird thing to talk about I guess.