on best friends

when I was younger I wanted a best friend more than anything. I read sweet valley, full house, animal ark, disney girls, stories where friends who grew up together got together to do stuff, just because. communication in those stories seemed painless, and if anything got too much to handle, the friends would band together against some drama-mama; friends always grokked each other, quirks and all. that's how it was on tv too, the tv I watched. you were either on the main lead's side or you weren't. information transfer and explanations didn't take more than one scene. and I think that's how I learned to treat reality. one-dimensional. i hoped and expected to be loved just like that, and was devastated when that didn't happen, but wasn't aware enough to know my emotions on it, or why my behaviour did not facilitate friend-making.

in primary three we took tests for the gifted programme. on the day of the maths test, I left early so I could visit my then-best friend's home. I remember that everything she and her family members said was side-splittingly funny, in a way that was foreign to me. in upper primary, we went to different classes, where she had another best friend. for some months the three of us exchanged letters to each other, addressing each other by our horoscope signs. I was quite proud of my sign-off signature (which if I recall right had been discussed with my tutor and neighbour/family friend I grew up taking overseas trips with) and I suspect maybe that the sign-off was what I looked forward to most each time I wrote. I got a new default friend too, and on teachers' contact times, we went on trips to the grass field, where I collected weed samples to match what I'd read in zooed, and enid blyton (cupid's shaving grass, lalang = dandelion, four leaf clovers).

I remember laughing with people, but as I grew, the intimacy and candour I craved were ever more out of reach (was it because my friends grew more than my 1D POV of them allowed?) until one day I realised I was tired of trying. I still couldn't see what was happening. or maybe I could but deep down inside didn't want friends. strangers were easy because I wasn't going to see them again. but there is always baggage to be dealt with for people you keep in your life. 

and then it was JB who told me she'd found a best friend herself. and a way to make friends: talk to different people about different things. that meant giving up the myth that there was a someone who could understand you, whenever, wherever.

and now, I don't know how this post ends.