i'm getting better at flaws i didn't even realize could exist a couple of years ago. giving other people agency, as i told adrienne today -- allowing people to figure out what's best for them instead of just figuring out what's best for them yourself and then trying to convince them of it. with the true friends it doesn't matter since they're headstrong enough to ignore you, and i love them for it. with the irrelevant people it doesn't matter since you really are superior to them. (this can be contested, but it's not a main point.)
it's the in-betweens that it really matters on. maybe this is how people like jeremy can appreciate something in so many people; because they let them show it instead of trying to figure out what they should do and disapproving when they don't do it.
talking to adrienne is very frustrating, because i know the conversations would be much better if we were talking in person. i don't get her emotions very clearly over the phone; i can't tell how she's looking at me, how she's reacting to the things i say. adrienne, like most of my true friends, is very good at nipping the thoughts of mine that don't go anywhere in the bud. at figuring them out before i spend time investigating them. but i don't have that carriage to interpret it and it's hard to get the synergy that makes two people friends as opposed to merely respectful acquaintances.
l. underestimates the importance of this synergy, and i'm not sure why. i guess it's a different viewpoint; she judges people by how they're reflected into their interests, as opposed to interpreting their interests by the light of their personality.
i've always thought that my interests don't define me very well. adrienne came up with this concept once of someone's surprise quotient (i forget what she actually called it) -- how well the person could be predicted from their interests, which is basically how much of a stereotype they are. my theory as to why lauren and i are on opposite sides of the spectrum (it's not that she's a stereotype; it's that her interests really do reflect who she is) is the different upbringings we had. i don't mean to moralize, but she grew up in a pretty luxurious environment as far as being able to afford expensive interests. she could afford to define herself by what she liked, and she naturally projects the same analysis onto other people.
this wasn't the case for me. for better or for worse (i think worse, but you could argue the other way around), i grew up having the virtue of frugality drilled into me. i flinch about spending money, because i was forced as a child to find happiness without money. i succeeded, and so now spending money seems like an admission of defeat, an admission that i'm not interesting enough to survive without having interests to whip out for conversational purposes, or to do in the absence of conversation.
i don't think the contrast between l. and me is as wide as it seems. i think that over time either she will learn to appreciate conversation as i do or i will learn how to appreciate activities as she does, or both. i have little vested in this now, except on a deep emotional level, so it's not a pressing concern or anything like that.
with regards to money, i'm always looking for ways to outsmart the system. i'm pretty sure that i don't understand that there are things you have to pay for, that there are experiences that you can't really compensate for without spending any money.
ugh. this entry has the highest potential content to eloquence ratio of anything i've ever written. and to think i've had so much to say over the past few days.