The Book of Friends, real life edition

[perevision]

So many of my favourite anime series revolve around the twin concepts of 'loneliness' and 'friendship'. More precisely, almost every anime I've seen from the simplistic to the weirdly convoluted hinge on the idea of 'connection'. Sometimes it's more 'you are like me', but often it's also 'I did not expect to find this common ground with someone so apparently different from me'.

Lately I found myself between projects (trying not to translate this in my head as 'unemployable'), so I finished the Natsume Yuujinchou anime and the Nodame Cantabile manga. They are surprisingly similar. Beings with talent, finding each other. Growing a connection between them, and working to strengthen it.

Sometimes anime has a funny way of externalising these inner concepts. How lonely do you have to be to make friends with spirits? Or defeat someone (often brutally) in battle, before they can become your friend or lover?

I can't say making friends in the 'real world' feels the same as trying to get along with a giant tikbalang or being punched repeatedly in the face before someone pity-friends you. But as someone who grew up VERY awkwardly socialised, even meeting people the normal human way is a bit difficult. It's easy to add someone on Facebook, but isn't it better if you know this person thought about you at least a few times a week? If they kept you in mind? That seems to me just as hard to achieve, sometimes, as battling monsters.

Comments

[angelthorn.livejournal.com]

Somehow it was much easier to make friends in college. Work is possible, too, especially if you're in a team. But in regular settings like say, parties, it's a bit hard. :(

I was at a dinner for an aunt (your relative, actually! Hahaha) and there were two tables. By a not so great stroke of luck, I didn't end up at the table that had my cousins (with whom I'm not very close but I get on well enough) and was surrounded by my aunt's sisters. Needless to say, I felt terrible I couldn't contribute to the convo. I wanted to, but I couldn't relate at all to what they were talking about, because they talked about people I didn't know. :( I just concentrated on the food, which, thankfully was yummy. >D

P.S. I know I don't update a lot (at all), but were you able to add my Wordpress blog to your feed? :) I'm on Bloglovin' if you use that. I signed up for an account but I actually prefer Feedly for tracking my RSS feeds.

[pere-chan.livejournal.com]

I clicked the RSS button but it took me to a page that was all code. Do I just put the page into Feedly? I'll put it on my blogroll too. Look at us social mediating! :D

I hate it when people keep talking to each other about people you don't know, or some experience they all had except you. It's like they're making a deliberate effort to exclude you. Sometimes it goes on so long I start to make tangiential interjections just to remind them I'm there. (Because you can be an introvert and a bit of a noisy asshole? XD) Ok, no, I just ask 'who's that?' 'what's that'? until they have to talk about something else. Or I get out my iPod and read, because it's not rude if they ignored you first.

[angelthorn.livejournal.com]

Strange, it works fine on my 'puter. Try adding the URL to your reader? :)

I don't think people mean to exclude...more like they don't know what else to talk about? Eheh. -_- Hm, I like the iPod method, though I don't have the guts to do that. Then again, I've not been in that situation. I just usually look for a reason to leave. >D Oh, I see something interesting outside, or aha, a coffee table book...doo dee doo...