Having Friends is Complicated
by
, 12-23-2013 at 02:35 AM (1436 Views)
First of all by my own design and preference I don't have many friends to start with. I am very particular about the people I consider to be friends. And I think with things like Facebook the word friend gets thrown around too lightly, but the majority of the few friends I do have are long distance friendships. They are people that I have encountered over the Internet and connected with, and have formed very close bonds with which have lasted for several years or more. Me being the way I am physical contact with other people is just not something I require, it works for me to just connect with other people on a purely intellectual/emotional level and I can do that without needing their physical presence.
But anyway in part because of the nature of my friendships and in part because of the nature of my friends themselves, being rather unconventional types like me, whom don't really feel the need to conform to societies expectations or traditions, I have never actually bought gifts for, or exchanged with my friends during the holidays, it was never really something that either of us had any expectation of happening.
Now as shocking as it might be, I did fairly recently (I think it might have been sometime over the summer that we first started talking ) make a new friend. I sometimes jokingly like to say that he is still on probation because we haven't known each other that long. But he seems cool and we are actually collaborating together on this artistic project of his and technically he lives in LA but he spends a lot of time up in this end of the state because he doesn't really like the vibe in LA (Who does?) not to mention the lovely constant muddy brown colored sky.
Well anyway, as it so happens I just found that apparently he decided to go out and buy me a gift, which I really had no idea he was going to do, nor any expectation of any such thing occurring sense I have never really done that with my friends before. So now I am just like ack.... because on the one hand I hate to be that person who feels that just because someone gets you something that means you have to get them a gift in return, but on the other hand I am like, am I like a bad friend because I never even thought of getting a present for my friend?
I am not going to do some totally lame last minute shopping thing just to get him something because he got me something, but I have few things I could put together that I know he would actually appreciate.