Triangle

A triangle trying to squeeze through a circle
He tried to cut me so I'd fit

And doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that hit too close to home?
Doesn't that make you shiver; the way things could've gone?
And doesn't it feel peculiar when everyone wants a little more?
And so that I do remember to never go that far,
Could you leave me with a scar?
-Missy Higgins, Scar

I've decided to give up on NaNoWriMo again this year (sorry, Dante). I've reached a point at which I really don't care about my own story. I read it and I find it very boring, I don't care about any of my characters, and so when it comes to wanting my character to save the world, I honestly couldn't care less if he failed. Maybe it's a phase all writers hit, but I've felt a bit like that since the third day, and I gave a bit of thought to starting over form the start, but I think I'm lacking motivation. At first I was motivated by MrMan5.5 and Julian saying that I'd never be able to do it, but it doesn't really matter to me whether they're right or not. I don't know why this is different to Dante's brother.

Kelly and Lucy were talking about how you can introduce two of your friends to each other, and they end up being closer friends than you were with either of them. I don't think it's so strange though, as not all friends are created equally. Like I was saying in my last post, there are some people who make you feel better than others, so it would be natural to want to spend more time with them. Sometimes you just "click", but that doesn't mean your other friendships are bad.

Although then it leads to neither of them having time to spend with you because they prefer doing things with each other. I guess it's a lot like when people go into a relationship, they become dead to the rest of the world during the honeymoon period. It's probably one of the best parts of a relationship, so why wouldn't you want to spend as much time together during it as possible?

What can you do as the third friend when this happens? If you want to do something with either friend, they will invite the other along, and you will just end up the third wheel. Asking them to do something without the other is just weird, as they'll wonder why you're not inviting your other friend along. They might even go so far as to wonder whether you and the other friend hate each other or had a fight, and then they will obviously side with the friend they feel closer to, so you are left out again.

I think this situation is somewhat similar to the situation of being a new person trying to break into a clique. The old members are familiar with each other, and will have in-jokes, and traditions which will be unknown to you. The only way to feel like one of the crowd is to learn all the traditions they have, and join in. It is not only things people have in common that can tie them together as friends, but the past that people share. The common interests I share with most of my high school friends is a pretty small list, but we all have our high school years to reminisce about, and past classmates to gossip about.

Maybe that's how good friendships are formed, by building a foundation of things you can fall back on. I don't think friends always need to have something in common to be friends. For instance, I consider Dante a good friend, but we don't spend all that much time discussing sci-fi, or RPGs, or the other common interests we have. A lot of the time when we talk, it's more to check up on how the other is doing (and for me to see his latest drawings). We talk about life, uni, argue over who is going to take over the world, etc. Our friendship works because I'm interested in him as a person, and not just interested in having another person on my list of Facebook friends. If we don't talk for a couple of months, then that's cool, it just gives us more to catch up on the next time we see each other.

I think forced friendships are silly. It always makes me think of your typical teen drama where some uncool kid wants to join the "cool crowd" and tries to change themselves in order to fit in. They never end up happy. If a group doesn't accept you, maybe you should consider whether it's really the right thing for you.