Last night, as I was sitting in my sophomore's room having another typical girl talk, we touched on the subject of relationships. As she stressed out more and more about her situation, I showed her WongFu Productions' short film, "Strangers Again." The film describes the different stages of a relationship, from meeting to breaking up, with an emphasis on how, after the last stage, the two people are back to how they started, as strangers.
This made me think about, not only boyfriend-girlfriend relationships and the consequences of friend-zoning, but also about the general people relationships: between friends, peers, co-workers. So many people pass through our lives, some staying for only a few hours, some over several years, and then those rare people who, with a little luck, have been there for almost your whole lifetime. In the moment, you always imagine someone to be there forever - you say that you will be "best friends forever" with your closest friend, or you say you will always love your significant other. But before you know it, the person you claimed to be your BFF has a new group of friends, and you get closer to another group, and you drift more and more until, like boy-girl relationships, you become strangers again. I think about my friends back at home, and find it hard to believe that only two years ago, I had talked to these people every day and we had laughed together, teased each other about boys, acted like music nerds together, and suffered through classes together. Now, we don't talk at all, and if we do it's if we by chance see each other when I go home on the weekend. We talk about needing to hang out and catch up soon, but it never happens. Things are just never the same anymore.
Even without distance as a factor, at IMSA I have drifted from quite a few people. Sometimes, all it takes is having once class in common to grow closer to someone, but when you don't have any classes, or even if you don't live in the same hall, you almost never see each other and begin to drift.
It makes me wonder if the coming and going of people in your life is a set process, something determined by fate? Is there such thing as something "meant to be?"
Perhaps by focusing either on romantic relationships or friendships, you could blow up the piece by going more in depth on people coming and going in and out of lives. I feel as though this piece jumps back and forth between different points, and by pausing and focusing on them, even if only one or two, you could develop your thoughts more, which would make this piece even better.
ReplyDeleteI think that for me, I didn't come to this realization until too late. That being said, the great thing about it, is that you've reached that point, and you've come to the understanding that something IS changing. The thing most people don't do, is act on that change. I really like the part where you talk about how your old friends always remind you that you have to "hang out" or "meet up." I've had my fair share of these too, but I like to take a step back, and see if I really want to. Do I really care enough about re-kindling my relationship with this person, or am I doing it only to be courteous? If we do that, will we simply be strangers again, or will we go back to the way we used to be friends? For me, I've tried to take advantage of these ideas, and for me, I've definitely become friends with some people "back home" again, and I hope that maybe you can try something out like that.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I really like the amount of reflection that this blog post brings about.
I really agree with what you said in this piece. It really is strange to step back and take a look at all of the relationships we have had and how they have changed. It's strange when things are happening you don't realize how much is different until to take a step back and think about how they used to be. You kind of jumped around between your points, like between friend relationships and boy/girlfriend ones, but it still worked.
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