Friendship

I am currently at my friend's house in London feeling extremely poorly. Its just a nasty cold, because I've been working too much and its winter and I haven't eaten enough vegetables lately. So while she is at work in the city, I fester miserably on her sofa playing on iPhone 4 and catching up with my blogs. While browsing on her computer, I stumbled across her anonymous blog, so after some internal wrangling I read it.

Should I have read it? I don't know. I'm just like that, I always take the blue pill. (Or is it the red one?) 18 months ago my world fell apart and she was involved in a small way. She too was going through her own crisis so I don't blame her. Life is way too short to hold grudges against the people who love us, but I found out things about her that surprised me. I still think of her as the person in the world who knows me best, who I talk to about everything. She is the only person who really understands how mental and damaging my family are. She's insightful, wise and sometimes reserved. I love her very much. But for all my open, unrestrained affection she can be reserved. I often assume that like me, she bares her soul, tells me everything. Today reading the blog, I was reminded. Its fascinating to know a person this well and to discover that actually, you both do and don't.

She talks a lot about guys, obviously, which I actually find boring because I know a lot of it already. What I found more interesting was reading the bits about me, or rather the lack thereof. Its an anonymous blog, and she states in her first post that she wants to be honest and if she can't talk about this stuff she'll scream. She talks about her move to London from where we lived, and she mentions me once. She talks about things she never mentions to me. She talks about other people in ways she never lets on. I suddenly feel empty but fascinated.

How well do we truly know our friends? I sit here feeling slightly silly, imbalanced, like I'm sharing too much with a person who doesn't share back. I've always thought of her as being someone who trusts easily and me the other way round, but I realise I've been wrong all along. She doesn't really trust anyone, she holds more of herself back than I do and she successfully shares just enough of the self she wants to share in order be to be enormously liked and trusted. I am not enormously liked and trusted. Others do not crave being close to me like they do with her. I need their trust and love more than she does. She is the truly self-dependent person I wish I was - reserved, retaining a whole part of her thoughts, feelings, personality, experiences and opinions solely for herself. I deepy admire this.

How much can we ever know anyone? And more importantly, how can we ever trust them? Does it matter? What do you think? Anyway I'm unwell and feeling a little crazy. Over and out.