friend | existabovethenoise

For the last two weeks my best friend from high school and her boyfriend have been here in town. Though he was perfectly pleasant the first time I met him, some three years ago, I was preparing for the worst from his stay this time. There were many factors that led me to inform my co-workers that if I didn’t like him there might be a very tall, very homeless African-American man wandering around South Delhi looking for assistance. But, it turned out to be such a positive experience that it inspired this very blog post. Go figure!

See, we must be candid about this boyfriend. He remains on my shit list. ‘Why?’ you may ask. Well, because he needs to marry my best friend already (Hell yea, I wrote it)! And if he doesn’t, my shit list will turn to my hit list #alanancykerrigan. (No, just kidding – he’s like 4 times my size.) But, this trip was good for building confidence between me and my best friend’s Stedman. Since she is hopelessly in love, I have given up on trying to lure her away from him. To be frank, every time I have tried to hook her up with someone new, she’s ended up pushing me into the arms of some visible goon (she got me a couple of times with that one).

Anyway, my philosophy is if you can’t beat ‘em, beat ‘em over the head with your plan B. Stedman has given me multiple assurances that her day will come and we established a timeline that I’m satisfied with. I will send him progress reports and project plans over the coming months until he finally does the damned thing! #goodfriendshipsometimesinvolvesstalking

All this peace making and wedding planning, with a dude I’d previously said I really didn’t like all that much, got me to thinking about all the other people I actually still don’t like all that much. I usually hate to acknowledge that people with poor character or lame personalities (in my humble opinion) have any redeeming qualities, but recognizing that people aren’t 100% bad may be a sign that I’m growing older and ~~weaker~~ wiser. As I mulled it over, I realized that I have learned quite a few things from people I still find repugnant:

DON’Ts

Don’t lay all your cards on the table all the time. From a former friend, I learned that I don’t like people who don’t draw a line in the sand and declare what side of the fence they’re on. It’s a personality thing that I may grow out of. Actually, I probably won’t. But, I observed that when she interacted with people who were not like me, being ~~useless~~ aloof actually made her kinda popular. Having no opinion, moral stance, or declared conviction AND offering no additional information or assistance actually made her come off as neutral & ‘safe’ to disclose information to and court for support. In my personal life I still despise people like her, but in my professional life I’m learning how to play my cards closer to my chest without appearing deceptive in the end (yea, she needed to work on that part too).

My high school arch nemesis taught me this little gem. (No, I don’t think we ever did speak again – except that one time in college when I saw her in the subway trying to hook up with my friend’s [now ex] boyfriend). Never email anyone to tell them how much you really hate them. This is common sense now, but it wasn’t then when the interweb was new. P.S. It is highly likely that if you feel so compelled to tell them you hate them – they already know.

A guy I dated on and off for way too long taught me that guitar players are bad people. I’m not talking about the guy who lends a hand with his local church band when the regular bass player is hung over. I’m talking about the lead guitarist in any band that accepts (or aspires to accept) cash payment for a performance in front of screaming ladies throwing their panties on stage. 4 out of 5 sane people agree that of all musicians, guitarists are the biggest narcissists AND the least likely to succeed.

DOs

Be clear, not aggressive. I actually don’t like this person, because they are so aggressive. But, I learned from their professional example to put my foot down (early and often) and to set the tone for how I’d like to be treated. I always shied away from letting my ambition come across as bossy, until this person added too much bass in their voice in a phone call. In our conversation, I can admit that I’d been proverbially pimp slapped. But, in looking back, I now know that I could have avoided the interaction entirely had I been clearer at the outset – instead of trying to ‘be nice.’ Since then, I’ve gotten better at explaining how I operate, the limitations I have, and the expectations I have for others.

Bribe staff and co-workers with baked goods! From a previous co-worker for whom I (still) have very little respect, I learned that Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are the best office managers. People may not respect your personality, but they will listen to you time and time again if you offer baked goods at regular intervals. I find this particularly helpful in India where most people don’t have ovens – so baked goods are a special treat. If I want talk time with anyone, I just send out that email “Hey guys, cupcakes at my desk.” And, you know what? No matter how effed up their work product or their attitude, they will always come for sugar calories from a box. Then, it’s my time to ambush! This also works in the affirmative – for special requests for time off and thank yous for obnoxious things you have requested or will request in the future.

Surround yourself with people who make you look good. (Disclaimer: It makes you look a lil desperate though if those same people also look up to you.) I have very little use for this particular lady’s self inflated ego, but she’s been in my presence long enough for me to observe her skillful art of tailoring her company in specific situations. She’s not interested in having Turtle and Drama hang out with her all day just because they are her most loyal friends. Nope! For a special occasion, she will clean up a wallflower with basic education and get them to stand next to her, so that she’ll look like a rockstar. While there are visible flaws in her tactic of swapping friends for fans, I would say that it is a sign of maturity to be around people who both make you look good and who feel that they can grow from your relationship. I personally believe that people who make me look good are a crowd of my peers and mentors, ambitious people of stellar character. But if you – like her – think the people who make you look good are a group of adult sized gremlins, perhaps you should disregard this entire paragraph altogether.

Nicole Young is currently a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is studying Education Policy. When she is not reading a million pages a night for class, her hobbies include loud laughing, eating, and pretending to be the star of her own music video/broadway musical.

“Don’t forget me” was scrawled in a particularly high school girl style, with flourishes and a smiley face, underneath a framed picture in my cousin’s room. The picture was of my little cousin holding another high school girl, presumably the one who wrote the note, on her back – piggy-back style. Both of them were grinning madly and you could almost hear the giggles through the picture. It was adorable and one of many in a carefully crafted collage. And as I sat on the edge of my cousin’s bed, talking to her about silly things as she did her hair in the bathroom mirror, it really touched me. The three words struck me in such a deep way that I paused and lost my train of thought. “What were you saying?” she asked. I grabbed for something and began again, all the time thinking about the little graduation collage.

What struck me the most was that the phrase, “Don’t forget me” is one I think about almost daily. I don’t want my friends or family to forget me as they go about living their lives. I don’t want ex-boyfriends to forget those special things, those uniquely us things, that we shared. I don’t want the world to forget me when I die. I don’t want my living to have been just another flash in the pan. I want my being here to have meant something and I know I’m not alone. Everyday I watch people make fools of themselves on reality TV or social media all in an attempt for their 15 minutes of fame. Anthropologists and pop culture junkies talk more and more about the unique accessibility the Internet has afforded our generation. And while they discuss the ability of one idea or event or name to quickly saturate every single media market in a matter of seconds and how that has forever changed the human race, for good or evil, no one ever talks about WHY people want those 15 minutes. Maybe everyone’s in on that part but me. Maybe inherent in the phrase “15 minutes of fame” is a perceived opportunity for immortality, but the idea is pretty novel to me.

Believing that no one else loves the way we do or feels sorrow’s depths the way we have, is an inherently human flaw. And as we chide the less talented for their tawdry hopes of gaining celebrity through being a contestant on “Flavor of Love” or even the next “Love and Hip Hop: ATL,” we, the more intelligent, driven people of the human race plot our own 15 minutes. We call it policy, or a contribution, or art, but at the end of the day our attempts to change our stars and make the world a better place are just a cry out against the fleeting nature of life. We don’t want to be forgotten. And this 17 year old girl, writing a note to her friend at graduation, summed up the feeling perfectly in 3 words. It’s amazing how young the awareness of loss begins and how hard we fight from the beginning of recognition to prevent it. We don’t want to lose that piggyback ride or the laughs that followed. We never want to forget that sunset. We hope that even when we’re gone, there will be someone left to remember or something left to remind them that we were here. And what happens in our eternal struggle to make our mark, is that in a particularly human way, we forget that our friends don’t want to be forgotten either. We neglect to tell them that we think of them and that they matter to us.

So there’s loss, the permanent kind, the type that is so final that it leaves us breathless. And then there is quasi loss: the gradual falling away that happens as you get a little older. The kind where something triggers a hilarious, warm memory and you want to talk to the one person who would remember and you realize that you’re not really friends anymore. Sure, you like each other’s statuses and peruse each other’s instagram photos, but you don’t TALK. You can’t remember the last time you spoke and more importantly, you don’t even know if they remember. Somehow it’s even worse. To know that you could reach out to that person if you just had their number and even if you do have there number, if you could get past that first awkward, “So what have you been UP to for the past…9 years.” But you don’t do it. And the moment passes and you’re left a little lonelier, wishing you were your 16 year old self, if only because that version of you would have been able to talk to them.

So then I’m right back to this girl’s three words and the question her message poses. What if you never get your 15 minutes? How do you make them not forget you? After a million years, how do you let them know you haven’t forgotten them? How do you fight the quasi loss that’s bound to come? I’m really no sage about these types of things, but I think you just tell them.

I think you brave the brief moment of discomfort (and the nervousness about rejection) and remind them that their life matters to someone that they don’t see every day. You message them and say that even though middle school was ages ago, you think of them every time Titanic comes on TV or let them know that your Sunday brunch ritual, no matter how long past, was one of the highlights of your 20s. Shoot them a text that conveys ‘yes, you are thought of and often.’ You don’t have to have those awkward phone conversations if you don’t want to and you can continue to skulk on each other’s Facebook pages afterward. But why wouldn’t you want them to know that you remember?

Because truthfully, aren’t we are all hoping that in the busyness of living, they don’t forget us?