no boys allowed in the room!!!!

I want my friends to stop moving away, because I'm really sick of having to start this process from scratch again.

This is not bratty! This is recognizing what you need for your well-being, and that is "community." Even if it's a community of only two or three.

“When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.”
― Bell Hooks, Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery

That assumes that there is somewhere that you can go *to* to expect those things.

Yeah, that's true.

it's not community that i miss at all really -- it's having someone to tell secrets to, who knows my other secrets and gets why they're secret
personal life stuff that accumulates
starting that from scratch so many times already, i think i've run low on energy to keep doing it
but my old friends are far away and this just kinda seems like that time in life when people move toward family instead of friends and that sucks when you are a friend, not a family

fortunately, i'm finding it easier to be casual friends than i ever did before
that's good

it's not community that i miss at all really -- it's having someone to tell secrets to, who knows my other secrets and gets why they're secret
personal life stuff that accumulates

Imo this is what community is, it's just, like I said, a community of two. Building trust over time, pooling your (emotional) resources. But whatever anyone calls it, I'm happy for everyone who can get it for themselves.

vocabulary differences! also, agree.

I feel like I have so much of whatever that is in my life, I wish I could share it around to everyone regardless of geographic ineligibility.

Yes, part of it is sharing secrets, and knowing why they're secrets. But other parts of it is remembering dumb stuff that no one else would bother to remember, but you remember it because it's some part of your shared memories. I had one of my closest friends come back to visit London on a flying visit, and we were gutted that the restaurant we always went to had closed down - I didn't even know because I never go to that restaurant with anyone except her - and I got the same drink I used to get at the old place, and when it came she made a comment about how it wasn't the same when it wasn't served in the same distinctive glass, and we both laughed because she always used to tease me that I got it specifically because of the glass, and not coz I liked the drink. And it's that thing, where she doesn't just remember my favourite drink, but remembers the specific goofy glass that I like to drink it out of. No one else in the world would care about a dumb detail like that, but the fact that it's a dumb detail that we share makes it really special to me, that she remembers.

But I suppose stuff like that is just symbolic of the other things you remember about one another. That both of us remember every single person the other person has been in love with during the past 7 years, complete with obnoxious nicknames for the ones we didn't like, and cute nicknames for the ones we did. And I remember her particular ongoing family drama, and she remembers my endless problems with mine. Like, the other week, I had to explain to a ~new person~ about why I am estranged from my brother, and I just didn't want to explain in any detail ever again, but with my old, old friends, all I have to do is mention "OMG, my brother" and there is this decade-long history where they roll their eyes and go "OMG what has he done now" and it's the stuff you don't *have* to explain or justify, they just already know. That is the stuff that is so important. And if that's symbolised by a goofy glass, it's not the goofy glass, it's not having to explain why you like it because they just know.

I keep thinking I am going to make a more profound post than I end up making. And then I don't. I don't think I have profound in me right now.

No, I think that is the profound post you thought you were going to make. :)

I haven't seen my best friend since 2000. But I bought us matching sneakers the other day!

My closest female friend in this city (whom I have known since I was 18! We went to university together and she moved here like 8 years ago) is moving back out west in June and I am in serious denial. We've lived within 4 blocks of each other this whole time. I'm hoping she finds it boring and moves back after 6-12 months.

I am going to put in actual effort to make friends with new-baby moms (but only the cool ones ;) ). Babies are good icebreakers, I figure.

not to change the topic but this made me lol
TTB
http://www.avclub.com/article/coughing-radiant-and-disposible-return-consumptive-202880

I've been in the US five years and have made approximately two friends, like actual good friends. But I don't feel totally comfortable with either of them.

I can't even get on Skype half the time with any of my BFs bc the time zones are all fucked.

I do get to spend three days with two of my oldest friends in July -it's been ten years since that last happened.

It sucks to feel like you are the one making all the effort and all the overtures. It sucks to feel like someone is freezing you out or just moving away from you emotionally.

I have been construed as this type of friend in the past, but only by people who refuse to understand depression or treat it as a real thing. I've also had friends who complained that I wasn't more available to them while I was literally operating a 24 hour suicide line for 48 hours overnight, and there is some overlap there. Lol. That said, there are people who distance themselves for a while out of chronic illness, legitimate despair and an inability to discuss it, or a combo of factors beyond their control, but will be there for you when needed, and then there are just jerks who don't care about you. Sometimes it takes years to figure out who's who.

I decided a couple of years ago to cease trying with my best friend, and he eventually started sort of reaching out and feeling obviously guilty, but it took way too long, and I know the reason is that he just forgets I exist. A person that I have to beg repeatedly to be my friend can't really be my friend.

I dunno. I feel like someone could really make a site which is like OKCupid, but for "finding your new BFF" and matches female friends with appropriate levels of time and commitment and childcare needs, to find someone who can be the friend that each other needs.

feel like this is a legitimately brilliant idea here. would use!!!

i've come to the conclusion today (after talking with my mom and bff on the phone) that i should be happy that my female friends take the time to be my friend at all
i have one super close one, many who are formerly-close but currently occupied
i wish more people were willing to talk on the phone tbh
so tired of typing

A person that I have to beg repeatedly to be my friend can't really be my friend.
ugh so otm

i am really bad at phone conversations and wish i could express myself better via phone. i don't know what it is, but i feel uncomfortable on the phone

they're difficult! you can't see facial expressions or body language, you can't determine turn-taking as easily, etc. i have one particularly hellish memory of a phone conversation that i had in spanish that was the last time i talked with someone and i did not express myself clearly and left things very poorly.

still talking on the phone is something i have always enjoyed because it's usually the best i can get!

i will take letters/email over phone calls tbh. i feel like, for me, phone calls are a dim version of what the person is really like, or something. i cant feel like i'm really talking to them or that theyre really talking to me

man tbh i will take whatever i can get if someone i like talking with wants to correspond with me

hey btw roxy have you watched mask yet?! (not the mask, just mask)

i just actual loled! i forgot about mask!!

you gotta watch it!
cher looks so pretty
http://www.cyfraplus.pl/ms_galeria/fotobase/2395_c.jpg

sexy motorcycle!
http://htarts.s3.amazonaws.com/files/2013/04/mask-1985-01-g-630x473.jpg

awesome group shot, just imagine dylan carlson in there
http://api.ning.com/files/Jx8KmtZz6Stx-3DtvAGCuiHBampEt8e2lRAH7Q8EWbAybEU1sSAa*kTzHIhDHwQJSTZE0QH2P5-E7DYnBqDOurAd4UzqU4Mu/l9.jpg

When I was younger (like teens, 20s) I used to spend literally hours and hours on the phone, talking to my girlfriends. I don't even know what happened to that ability. Like, seriously, I think I have had one phone call with a friend in the past... 5 years or something. (It was about a month ago, I was very seriously at the end of my tether, and reached out to a friend who had moved, saying "can you just talk about dumb shit for 15 minutes because I think I'm losing it" and we talked about trivial annoyances.) Partly it's mobiles, like I actually find it physically uncomfortable to spend more than 10 minutes on a mobile before my ear gets really hot. Partly it's just fear and social anxiety and come on, who the hell wants to talk to me anyway, I'm a miserable depressing old bastard who just wants to talk about pop stars and council tax and boring philosophers no one reads.

I dunno, I feel like the one who gets phased out, because being around people who are severely depressed is no fun. Being around people with anxiety issues is difficult and tedious if you're not used to it, and very easy to write off as "drama" if you don't understand what's going on. And also probably a healthy dose of "BB is so boring now she's stopped drinking, isn't in a band any more, isn't cool any more, doesn't go clubbing any more" or whatever. The not-getting-drunk this is difficult. It kind of amazes me, the insane, crazy, fucked-up shit I would get up to when I was still drinking, and people would still somehow hang around with me. But now I don't get drunk, I'm just difficult and awkward, and just boring and sober and difficult and awkward is way, way less fun than drunk and dramatic, so... the end.

Sometimes I feel like... my life fell quite seriously apart about 5 or 6 years ago. I have spent the past 2 years trying to stick it back together again. But at the end of being that chaotic for that long, it's really hard both to find normalcy, and also to convince others that you're worth taking a chance on. Maybe I don't feel like I'm worth taking a chance on. Maybe I don't know how to trust anyone I haven't known long enough to have lived through the chaotic times with me and still have stuck around.

I am lucky to have at least 3 people who I have known for so long and so well that nothing I ever do is ever going to phase them ever again. But none of them live in this country. And I can't live in the country where they all live. This peripatetic existence we all live is shitty and not conducive to real relationships.

Man, I am a real "up" person today, am I not? Part of this is just PMT and part of it is still being fucked up in the head over the job thing yesterday. But part of this is just... waaaaahhh. I am lonely. I miss having a close girlfriend close enough by to go out for a coffee and a chat. I guess I feel less alone for knowing that I'm not the only one feeling this way.

(Oh, sorry, conversation moved on while I was typing that. Didn't mean to be so much a downer.)

i'm just posting pictures of cher! it's ok! you're def not alone.

can def ID with your first paragraph. i used to spend sooo much time on the phone as a teen, but i didnt feel like i had to perform on the phone back then. long silences were ok

Maybe I should post pictures. But I'd just post pictures of Brandon Curtis and Daniel Kessler and no one wants that. Ha!

I think that the long-times-on-the-phone thing were mostly about not ever having your own space while being a teen. Now I have a whole damn flat of mine own, I guess being on the phone to get space isn't so important? I dunno.

and let us let this thread be as much of a coffee and chat w/ a girlfriend as it can be. i need one of those, too.

xp oh that's true, i hadn't thought of it that way. it seemed like such an affront when mom would pick up the other line and start telling me to get off the phone. like, get out of my space!!!

(I only got online again to post the last chapter of the last book of the Deep Field trilogy, how did I get sucked into the gurl thread, you ladies and the conversations here are far, far too interesting!)

omg @ DF - is it new stuff??

No, no, I'm posting all of the old, original DF stories on AO3, one week at a time. Lots of it has been re-edited and "remastered" but it's still basically the same stories. This is the very end of LIAWOD I'm posting now. It feels like the passing of an age, but it's been so fun to see all those characters again. LOL.

I have done a new story in the ~Deep Field Universe~ but there's no way I'm posting the URL on ILX.

haha the worst was when one of your parents picked up the line to tell you to get off the phone and you were ~talking about sex~ and it was so embarrassing because OMG OMG how much did you hear. What's even funnier was that usually it was my Dad shouting at me because he wanted to get his computer to talk to some other computer in California, and it was supposed to be ~work~ but thinking back on it, he was probably posting to some early 80s proto internet discussion group, oh dear.

my friend's dad secretly taped our phone conversations using a hidden tape recorder in the ceiling that he had connected to the phone line (which was legal at that time in that place because it was in his name)

omg did you totally die

!!!!!!!!!!!

That is so fucked up! Why did he do that?

i had one best friend who went to a different school so we chatted on the phone all evening or met up to eat Monster Munch and listen to shitty reggae tapes
we haven't much kept in touch but she was the only person I would chat to for so long. I realllllly hate the phone now, can just about bear it with my husband.
anyway she has just had a baby! determined to be a better friend.

oh wait I just re-read, it was your FRIEND'S dad, not even your own? uuughhhh

yes i did die but then i kind of mentally reveled in the fact that he knows things about me that he can't unknow and he also can't let me know he knows, so who's uncomfortable now? ha

he was trying to conduct surveillance on his wife, who he believed to be having an affair (he was right but goddamn can you just talk to her about it?!)

i remember girls getting someone on the 3rd line and not telling the other person, people getting busted for gossiping that way

OK, that is super fucked up. Like - you think your wife is having an affair so you spy on your entire family and all their friends? It sucks, but still, confront her, don't take everyone else down with her. x-post to LL

It was suuuuuuper fucked up!

It's less of the secrets-sharing I miss, but more of the mundane chit chat - my BFF and I used to talk on the phone every night before I moved here, for at least an hour. That's why I like this thread, but also the ILS threads - the serious convos are great, but I love just shooting the shit with the women.

Cher was so freakin hot in Mask. I loved that movie when i was a kid.
Now I want a giant spiral perm.

I loved that movie so much.

I didn't use the phone that much as a teen! I knew that teens "did" that and I wanted to want to, because I was supposed to do that, but I just didn't have those kinds of friendships iirc. I had some friends but I think we, like, DID stuff, like go on church trips and bike rides and swim, but I don't remember hanging out for hours talking. I think I had books and my mom for that and friends were more like a social minefield that was sometimes also mean to me.

I can't remember the details of a lot of my childhood tbh.

(If my friends were mean to me, I was also unthinkingly critical and cutting to them, probably--I was not a kind young person.)