An Open Confusion

When do you really draw a line between friends and special friends? What’s really the difference? It’s been puzzling me since I’ve heard people use these terms distinctively. Same puzzlement occurs when they differentiate girlfriend/boyfriend from “partners” and draw a line between partners and lovers. Is a special friend a cross over from friendship where both persons are open to the possibility of a relationship more than friends? That kind of relationship where they can hold, touch or even kiss each other? A kind of step-up? Graduation? And what about this partnership? Sounds like a business transaction to me. I asked a friend what it was and it’s kind of funny because accordingly, partners are unmarried couple who decided to live together to see if they click like a key to a lock. Another step-up from that so-called special friendship? Then, what makes lovers different from partners? Again, accordingly, lovers just go and jump to bed together just for the act, no feelings, no love, no whatsoever. Just a natural instinct to answer the call of sexuality. This is hilarious! And I’m absolutely horrified!

Every day, as I learn more things about my new surroundings, I try to grasp the beauty of it. The people, culture, belief…..they are all different and the difference just created a sort of harmony and chemistry that when put together, it’s a wonder! Like when sunlight touches the rain waters on the ground and created a rainbow. But on the other hand, this same beauty can create a nightmare for someone unprepared! And ignorant! Ignorant of the crossovers! It’s like a sheep in a lion’s den. What a pity!

I’ve been listening to people and I wonder why they come up with profound ideas like these. They play on people’s emotions as if it’s some kind of toy, an amusement where there’s a beginning and an end, where purity of intentions is questionable. The sacredness of love and friendship is nothing more than skin deep….just a feeling…..fleeting feeling in fact and not a commitment. It’s scary! An ignoramus is vulnerable to attacks unimaginable. Attacks on your very core…..on your very being…on your soul, thinking that what appears to be pure and special would, if scratched from the surface, is just but fool’s gold. And what’s upsetting is that like in a three-dimensional art piece, the beauty is on the first glance where colors and shapes complement each other though most of the time it doesn’t make sense but as you stare and see the real picture, it’s mind-boggling and life turning. The beauty of the surrounding is just a mere façade, a mimic of what’s supposed to be real. And you wake up on the realization that nothing around you is real…..even the people you thought were real. You will now have that agony of distrust and begin to question the world you live in. It pains you. The pain would either come from the feeling of being fooled, or just by being duped, or by simply being naïve or stupid. The ache will not cease until you finally accept the fact that this world you are living in is far beyond the fairy tale you force yourself to believe when you were a child…..a fairy tale world where a prince will always save a princess from the witch or wicked step-mother and they will live happily ever after. NO!! The real world is cruel. Not only there are wicked step-mothers and witches but also inhabited with self-centered, selfish, cunning, insensitive monsters living amongst us, just waiting for the right time and the right victim to devour. Their number is overwhelming that it complicates your own ideals and belief and worse, you start to doubt yourself! Is it I who’s wrong? Or should I just join the band-wagon? How about my morals? My values? What legacy will I leave my children? Or my children’s children? Is “When in Rome, do what the Romans do’ applies here? Can I simply be myself without being hurt, without compromising my total essence even if I’m in Rome and I’m not a Roman? I don’t know. But one thing is clear to me, this place is turning people into something they are not! As force of nature or act of defeat, I don’t know.

I am forever an advocate of sacred friendship. That’s the reason why I can only handle two friends…..three at most. Because I seriously do what’s in the job description. And I deliver quality friendship. If I have a lot in my pool, quality will suffer and I cannot call myself a true friend anymore. Insane as it is but the best offer I can give a friend is my life and I only have one to spare (first come first serve basis so to speak). That’s the kind of relationship my friends and I share, a relationship rooted on love…..pure in intentions.. sacred in nature. There are rare occasions of deception, where the bottom line and main goal is one of the basic instincts of a human person and words cannot describe how I despise people such as these. But during these rare times, the weight of my blame is on myself for being unaware and hasn’t seen the glaring warning signs.

Well, that’s life. It’s a gamble. You just have to know how to calculate risk and know what’s at stake. Using your mind will not hurt. The best defense on most cases is wisdom and the skills on how to use it. Control of emotions and annihilation of vulnerability is a windfall. Never let your guard down. Otherwise, you will either crack up or be eaten alive, piece by piece and no one can see your tears in the floodgates of your being nor hear your screams in the recesses of your soul because it’s too late.