I have imaginary friends who are better than any humans I ever met.
When Bob and Jane invite you out to dinner, it is because Bob sells cars, and Jane real estate.
I have observed friendship in others. The strongest bonds are between wineos, other drug related activities, and petty criminals.
The rest are part of a temp thing, I will talk with a half dozen, and leverage that to being able to move on another. The drop rate is high, so friends have to be replinished, and as they expire, the rest of the group says they were never their friends.
I have done social experiments. I can go into a new area, knowing no one. When I go out for breakfast, I listen, someone calls the waitress Mary, I say Hello Mary, introduce myself, and I make notes, as my memory unit is defective. Within a week I am on first name basis with everyone, and wave at the cook when I come or go. I watch the crowd, and go in the dead times, bring some paper work, but will stop work to chat with the waitress.
Soon I am getting life stories. As a writer I need character studies. I tip well. I acknowledge the invisable people, the bus boy, and drop two quarters in the last of the coffee.
Soon they would all vouch for me for a bank loan, and tell other customers what a good person I am. People want to meet a writer. I say how lucky I am, because I get to write about people, and when you get to know them, they have such meaningful lives.
I ask for help, where can I go for dinner? Is there a dry cleaners around, and when I go I say the folks at the dinner said you were the people to see, and continue my networking. All of humanity is connected in a few steps. My interest in people is professional. As a writer I can ask, how do you like having your own business? What did you do before? Most just have jobs, some try harder, take risks, what is it about you that made you a better person?
A half dozen small business owners may become one in my story, but that character will read true. People open up to me, they like to talk about themselves. I see the good in them, and am always glad to see them.
Friends? No, but a positive relationship with test subjects. When I tell them they are good they believe me, they want to belive me, and there is a shortage of people telling them they are good. They want to talk about their life, and a listener, is hard to find.
It comes in layers, first the public face, then later, some background, which I probe for, and once they start, secrets they have never told come flowing out. I do not judge where they are, they are, how they came is of more interest, for what background leads to their place in life? Even then there were choices, they could have stayed in the town they grew up in, but they went to a larger city and they were seeking something, or running away from something.
The big step is moving from situational, talking with the waitress, to meeting outside of work. An invitation to dinner at a much better restaurant, where we can both sit and talk, and someone else can serve the food, is rarely turned down. I am interested in their life, I am paying, and it is a neutral meeting place.
I have taken out married women, and girls young enough to be my grand daughter. Shop keepers have invited me to Chamber of Commerce lunches, and introduced me around. Writing is not a business, but I want to get their truth out there, and people value their own opinion.
Having no memory, I am really bad, I write down lots, keep running notes, and people think what they say is interesting.
They all become shills in the crowd for me, telling many I never meet that I am a good and interesting person. In a month I can have a hundred people who will give me a smile and a wave.
I do not have any friends, I am not social, it just looks like it.
I could not say I really like any of them. There are few people I connect with on any deeper level. Few have read much, thought much, have common interests, or are in love with me. Seeking people on those levels is looking for the proverbial neddle in the haystack.
I could go through life sitting two booths away from a quite librain that would make my heart pound, but she would be shy, and we would never meet, except the waitress thinks I am great, and tells her of the writer. She is still shy, I am reserved, but the waitress knows where she works, and I just happen to need a book, some information, and get to ask her help. She is the type who burys her nose in a book in public, hard to approach, defensive, so I get the book she is reading, learn about the writer, and build some common ground.
The few people I would like to know are the hard ones to get to. The rest are easy, readly available, without long term commitment. They are the background in the story I hope will develop.
I am still alone, even in a crowd of people who know my name. The people I do have a connection with are only a partial contact. Through art, writing, some common interest.
I have dated strangers, lived with some, I had girlfriends, but not a friend, not the love of my life, and have had great sex with women who said, they would never put up with me, live with me, could not understand me, and we were not meant for each other, but they still took me home for the night.
Loner? Yes! But non-friends can make it a better journey. The perfect friend/love may find you, but not if you are hidden from the world. Each of my non-friend but accepted people was part of a net that directed things that fit in my direction.
We know being treated like a machine, well so are the people at the grocery, the waitress, the gas station, and it is not hard to become a favored customer, one who learns names, says hello, treats them like people, for one minute.
They may not be your answer, but they are, and their day can be made by one person acknowledging them.
The well known Loner.
31 Dec 2007, 10:19 pm
