Friendships or Aspirations?

I have recognized yet another pattern. It feels like yet another cycle has completed itself but another has started and its hard to tell when one began and the other ended. Continuum and oscillatory are words which I shall avoid using because who even knows what they mean?

From where I see the world, it seems full of people who I want to be like. I want to have WHAT and WHO they have. A part of me knows that I’ll never get there. I still must try. What’s the next best thing that I could do? I could sleep with them, I could befriend them. Sure. I can’t deal with the sexual tension. So I befriend them.

The aspirational me is only one piece of the puzzle. But a very important one, if not the most essential. So, once I have befriended a couple of bodacious white people with fancy apartments, I tend to group them up. I am a rage at gatherings, I am a jester, dancer, singer, cook, intellectual, morose, drunk just whatever to grab attention. Now I have a group of people who have their lives intertwined with mine. In a very small way. They invite me to things, they text me, they call me, and they tell me things they wish they hadn’t. PERFECT.

Do I call them friends at this point? I guess I do. They don’t spill the beans just like that. I usually tell them a story of that one time I got blue balls. I open up to them like I never have. I take it up a notch higher every time. And if I’m lucky, the third time, they may actually tell me who they are dating. After I frame it as a question to them, of course.

At this point, I am way more invested into these relationships than anyone else is. I am buying clothes, getting haircuts and shopping things for my apartment that I wouldn’t otherwise. I buy a gym membership just to fit into these new clothes. I am smiling at photographs, I try out new restaurants, and suddenly I am into Belgian beers.

Do I call them friends at this point? Yes. Do they call me that? Sure. Am I even close to being like them and possessing those things that they do? No. Do they want to be like me? No fucking way. On the contrary, they found this other new group with this other new jester, dancer, intellectual, drunk…, whatever the situation demands. And all those days we didn’t see each other, they found a new hobby that I am too unfit to try. But also they didn’t ask me to join them in these things. Well, guess what, I am not the center of their world. Sure. But am I still their most favored jester, dancer, singer, morose, drunk…? Not anymore. But they don’t mind to be around me. So, I am still on their list at least.

I feel unimportant. I feel betrayed. The part of me which didn’t give a fuck about smiling at photos has died. I am doubting myself, I don’t know who I am anymore. I think I may have evolved but am I still aspirational and want to transform completely? Absolutely.

These relationships, for me, seem like exercises in self-loathing. It’s less about comradery and companionship. It’s less about where I am right now and who I truly am but more about who I could be and where I could go. But what is it for them? I am just a guy in the crowd. And you need a crowd for your 30th birthday, don’t you? But why stop there? You need a crowd, YOUR crowd, every other weekend. Just imagine how much Instagram content you could make like that. Don’t you want to make that snooty girl from high school jealous? Look who’s more popular now, 15 years later. Yes, these faces smiling in a selfie validate you. You were right all along. You finally won.

I barely have a social media account. And I couldn’t care any less about a stupid Instagram story. How did I end up with these people after all? The answer is in the question. I have perhaps reached a breaking point with these “friends” or aspirations. Maybe its time to burn bridges and find a new lot. The cycle starts anew. But has the last one ended yet? No. Because I haven’t changed that much. Here I am, still aspirational. Still, like a glass of water.