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Dec. 8th, 2004 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraI can't sleep. Like literally, I was in bed for almost an hour and just got up again because no matter how tightly I close my eyes, they refuse to stay that way. It's incredibly frustrating.
Earlier today, I had a long talk with a good friend about a guy we both know. "You know [the guy] pretty well," my friend said, phrasing it as a sort of declarative question.
"Yeah," I said. "I know him well enough, but not really well."
"But you know enough about him to recognize his moods, right?"
"Right."
She went on to describe what I had always observed but had attributed to my inner psychoanalyst, who loves to diagnose problems without any sort of real information. It's like this:
First, he comes off as a total jerk. Right away. Then, a few weeks/months later, he makes an eloquent apology for his general jerkiness. And when I say eloquent, I mean like rehearsed-speech-head-ducking-flowers eloquent. So I forgive him the first time, because I figure he's seventeen and just needs to get over himself like most seventeen-year-old guys. We forge this kind of cautious friendship, mostly instigated by me because he's whip-smart and oh so funny and wonderful to talk to. We get to the point in a friendship where you don't have to start a conversation with "Hi," "Hey," where you can just start right in the middle with, "Didn't the end of Things Fall Apart just rip your heart out?" So I talk to him, have these beautiful complex hypothetical conversations, and then somehow I cross a line, start knowing him too well, and he sees it and pulls back so quickly all I can do is watch him retreat. I mean watch like I can see it in his eyes, the closing off. He steps back, refuses to answer his IMs, avoids me in the hallways, eats with someone else at lunch. A few days later, I'll try to approach him, he'll say something crude and cutting, and we'll be back to square one.
Sometimes I want to hug him, and sometimes I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell, "Stop it!" Because I know who he is--I've seen him, and it scares the shit out of him.
The sad part? He's a great guy. He's a truly fantastic person, extremely intelligent, subtly sarcastic, focused. If he could just get over his insecurity, he'd be one of my best friends. As it is now, however, I can't trust him because he can't trust himself. Or actually, I can trust him...with certain things. I don't hesitate in saying I could trust him with my life. I can't trust him with my feelings, and no one else can either, and I can watch it eating him.
I try to convince myself all the time that it's not my problem if he insists upon being a jerk, but the mother/friend/sister in me won't let me simply ignore him. So for now I'm stuck living happily through his careful ascent into my friendship and then hating him for the two-week refractory period before he can begin the whole friendship thing again. It's a brutal cycle.
Earlier today, I had a long talk with a good friend about a guy we both know. "You know [the guy] pretty well," my friend said, phrasing it as a sort of declarative question.
"Yeah," I said. "I know him well enough, but not really well."
"But you know enough about him to recognize his moods, right?"
"Right."
She went on to describe what I had always observed but had attributed to my inner psychoanalyst, who loves to diagnose problems without any sort of real information. It's like this:
First, he comes off as a total jerk. Right away. Then, a few weeks/months later, he makes an eloquent apology for his general jerkiness. And when I say eloquent, I mean like rehearsed-speech-head-ducking-flowers eloquent. So I forgive him the first time, because I figure he's seventeen and just needs to get over himself like most seventeen-year-old guys. We forge this kind of cautious friendship, mostly instigated by me because he's whip-smart and oh so funny and wonderful to talk to. We get to the point in a friendship where you don't have to start a conversation with "Hi," "Hey," where you can just start right in the middle with, "Didn't the end of Things Fall Apart just rip your heart out?" So I talk to him, have these beautiful complex hypothetical conversations, and then somehow I cross a line, start knowing him too well, and he sees it and pulls back so quickly all I can do is watch him retreat. I mean watch like I can see it in his eyes, the closing off. He steps back, refuses to answer his IMs, avoids me in the hallways, eats with someone else at lunch. A few days later, I'll try to approach him, he'll say something crude and cutting, and we'll be back to square one.
Sometimes I want to hug him, and sometimes I want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell, "Stop it!" Because I know who he is--I've seen him, and it scares the shit out of him.
The sad part? He's a great guy. He's a truly fantastic person, extremely intelligent, subtly sarcastic, focused. If he could just get over his insecurity, he'd be one of my best friends. As it is now, however, I can't trust him because he can't trust himself. Or actually, I can trust him...with certain things. I don't hesitate in saying I could trust him with my life. I can't trust him with my feelings, and no one else can either, and I can watch it eating him.
I try to convince myself all the time that it's not my problem if he insists upon being a jerk, but the mother/friend/sister in me won't let me simply ignore him. So for now I'm stuck living happily through his careful ascent into my friendship and then hating him for the two-week refractory period before he can begin the whole friendship thing again. It's a brutal cycle.
