Panning

"Gold panning is mostly a manual technique of sorting gold. Wide, shallow pans are filled with sand and gravel that may contain gold. The pan is submerged in water and shaken, sorting the gold from the gravel and other material." - Wikipedia

On friendships...I didn't know it could be so complicated. I thought friendships were supposed to be easy. Like it should come naturally, right? The problem is how you keep a friendship. I'm really not an expert on this since I've apparently lost a lot of people whom I consider friends before in my life so I don't know. Maybe I'm just not born to be a good friend? Hahaha! Quite possibly. Maybe there's something wrong with me? Possibly too. Though I don't honestly know what. Hahaha! I've tried saving friendships before but it seems like they don't want it anymore so I don't force them to. It has happened a lot to me already that by now I'm really used to it and I don't really depend on anyone anymore, just with a few exceptions. I guess in my case, friends come and go along with boys. :))

I've had a lot of things happen to me lately, bad things...and I guess there's a reason why these are all happening to me, and somehow I'm thankful because it has helped me realize a lot of stuff. I can't say I don't need friends because quite a few of my friends are helping me go through this difficult phase in my life and I'm really thankful for them (you know who you are), but it's really times like this when I can separate the true friends from those who are not, like in panning where you separate the gold from other materials. So I'm somehow thankful that this has happened to me because now I know who my true friends are, and I'm thankful for them because they're sticking with me no matter how bad it is, because right now that's what I need in my life, a true friend. A true friend, not just in title because a lot of people can claim they're true friends even if just to have that title, but a true friend who's tried and tested and proven.

I wish I could give them gold medals for it. Hahaha!

Borderline

This is not a reference to a Madonna song. :-P I felt inspired suddenly last night while I was in bed and I decided I'm gonna write about it today.

In this blog I'm gonna talk about my version of the ups and downs of being friends with a member of the opposite sex. My version, which means what I'm gonna tell here is just based on my experiences and observations. It may not be true in your case, but it's true in mine. This also does not apply to all guys, but from some guys I've been friends with.

It's fun having guy friends. In my honest opinion, it's actually easier to make friends with guys than girls. Maybe because, like Pax had said, girls innately hate each other, which I'm starting to see now too. Hahaha! In my 17 years of experience of making friends, it really takes some effort to make girl friends. Whereas when I made friends with guys, all it took was just small talk and jokes, then voila...instant guy friend. A guy friend is also easier to talk to. They rarely get offended by what you say, unless it's really below-the-belt offensive or that guy is super sensitive. Sometimes they take it as a joke instead. For a girl like me who sometimes can't control what she says out loud, that is really helpful. When I'm with the girls, I always have to control what I say because girls are even more sensitive (not all, but most) and I know that, even I'm guilty of it. So basically I have an easier time being myself with the guys other than with the girls.

The downside (it depends though, it's not always a downside) of this though is that borderline of friendship. It's true that you can't help who you fall for, so you can fall easily for your guy friend. I mean this has happened to me twice already, when I was 17-18 I fell for my bestfriend and it almost ruined our friendship but we recovered from it, thank God. And then when I was 18 turning to 19, I once again fell for my newest bestfriend at that time, and the advantage of being bestfriends is that we know each other really well in such a short time that we've spent with each other that when we got together it was really easy for us already, we didn't have to adjust much.

It gets difficult though when the feeling is not mutual. You might fall for your friend but the friend wants to be just that...a friend, nothing more, nothing less. This is like the classic story already. The unrequited love...we all know that, hell there are lots of songs about that. But sometimes, it just isn't meant to be. This also has happened to me already, a friend has fallen for me but I don't feel the same way, and I had fallen for a friend but he doesn't feel the same way. It's hard when you want to cross that borderline, because you put the friendship at risk. I have already lost some friends because of this, but maybe it just really isn't meant to be. Like that time before when I have avoided this person who used to be my friend, I avoided him because I felt uncomfortable with what he was saying to me and his actions towards me too and the way he looks at me, and he even misunderstood my niceness as being interested to him when in truth I was just really comfortable with us being friends. So I avoided him and he got mad and it was the end of our friendship. If you're in that situation and you would want to save that friendship, that's probably the best thing you could do...just accept the fact that you're probably just better off as friends and don't hope for anything more, rather just enjoy the friendship, and if you were in my situation, honesty is the best policy. Just tell him/her the truth that you just want to stay friends and that it was making you uncomfortable so he/she would be aware instead of giving him/her false hopes. It's really a hard thing to do because people sometimes would get defensive and say that it was not his/her intention anyways, when it was in fact obvious, but at least you were honest that you were feeling uncomfortable, that would at least make him/her aware.

And wow...this blog is long so I'mma stop rambling now. And once again, I'm gonna repeat, this was just based on my experiences and observations, so you're free to agree or disagree, it's not applicable to all, I just wanted to share my view on this matter. Well I hope you learned something at least. :)