Random thought about friendship

[textualdeviance]

It just occurred to me that I never bother trying to make friends with muggles (for lack of a better concept.)

Unless I know someone is some variety of non-mainstream (queer, geeky, atheist, pagan, arts nerd, etc. Or some combination thereof.) I just don't even go there. Not that I'm hostile or anything. I just don't try to make closer connections.

I imagine some folks might think this is closed-minded, but to me, it's just efficient. Without at least some level of personal experience of what it's like to live outside of mainstream culture, there's really no way a given person is ever going to understand me and thus be able to connect with me on an emotional level. It saves us both a lot of time, energy and confusion to not try to make that happen. Life's too short to waste it that way.

The unfortunate part about this is that it may mean I miss out on some of the quieter non-muggles--the ones who pass in normal society unless they make a point of being out about it. Still, I think it's been better, on balance, than my previous habit of banging my head against a wall trying to get someone to feel something for me that they're not capable of feeling.

Besides. It helps weed out the people who only want me around as a token--as some way to show that they're cool/hip/liberal because they have a weird friend--and not because they really care about who I am.

Comments

[sweet-hedonia.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose I can take this too personally, since while I am not queer (except in the "odd" sense), I am a dedicated geek, pantheist and could be fairly called an art nerd...

More than a few of my friends would be classified as "normal," and I think you may be painting people with too broad a stroke. There are perfectly nice people who aren't on the fringes of society, who are understanding and open minded, but just happen to be mid-spectrum. Life experiences are different for everyone, but there is a lot of commonality in human nature. Even apparently normal people have oddities and can be really worth getting to know, and strange ones can be pretentious and choose friends based not on their merits as people, but on whether they are weird enough to be part of their life.

Just sayin'...

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of nice muggles out there, and it's not like I'm going to turn down having a beer with someone just because they're not visibly weird. I'm just not going to get to the emotional investment stage.

Like I say, life is short, and no matter how supposedly understanding or open minded someone is, when it comes down to it, they just won't be able to truly relate to me.

There's a unique perspective on life that comes from existing in a culture in which one is largely reviled, or poorly represented, at best, in politics, law and pop culture. Someone who has never experienced that will never be able to see the world the way I do, and that will always create emotional distance for us. And I don't have the time and bandwidth to waste on something like that.

Obviously there are a lot of asshat non-muggles out there, but statistically speaking, my chances of being able to bond with a given freak are always going to be much higher than what I'd get with someone generic.

Thing is, I don't want someone who is merely open-minded. Too often, that's really code for someone who's condescending or who expects me to be an educator for them. I don't want to have to explain myself all the time to someone who's supposedly my friend. I want them to just know. And a muggle will never be able to do that, no matter how kind they may be.

[tamerterra.livejournal.com]

I think I do the same thing - though, adding in folk who've gotten past feminism 101 etc (not that you can often tell that from first viewing) and removing the atheists (unless said atheist also ticks another box).

Coincidentally, I seem to have a lot of acquaintances.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

As far as atheists are concerned, I can usually smell the ones who are the selfish libertarian/Randian sort, and I do avoid those. It's more the general thoughtful intellectual ones I gravitate toward--the ones who see things something like I do (I consider myself an atheist pluralist, for instance.)

But yeah, I do have a lot of acquaintances, too. Just few whom I really have an emotional bond with.

[hawkdancer.livejournal.com]

WORD

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I kinda do the same thing with friendship. I do have a few "muggles" that I somehow got to be friends with, but in general, I just don't tend to have much common ground with them.