Logical Catharsis

We'll see if this post makes any sense... I'm feeling too tired to want to write anything tonight, but restless enough to attempt it, as well as tired of circling around the front of this issue and never pushing through to the conclusion...

Anyway, to set the scene: on Friday, between classes at Concordia, I was whining to a friend how I hate weekends when I have nothing to do. Quite logically, she concluded that I was foolish to be whining, given that it is fully within my power to correct this: if I want something to do on the weekend, it is as simple as phoning someone up and asking "hey! are you doing anything this afternoon? I'm bored!"

Now, for whatever reason, although I recognise the truth of this solution, there is something in me that revolts at the suggestion of it, and says in the bluntest emotions possible that there is no way on Earth I'm ever going to be comfortable with doing that. I would much rather do nothing all weekend and drown in my self-centred misery. I said as much to my friend, and she quite fairly criticised me severely for my unwillingness to change, and for being such a fool as to complain.

The whole situation has been on my mind on and off yesterday evening and today, which is an uncomfortable situation, although not exactly a bad one. The worst of it is that I can't really seem to come to a resolution, but instead keep going over and over the same thoughts and emotions and thus have this horrible sick-to-my-stomach feeling that you get if you watch the same movie four times back to back.

I've tried looking at this as a logical problem to be solved, but if it is just a problem of logic, it's a complicated one, and I'm too lazy to graph it all out into syllogisms. Anyway, the problem seems to be expressed best thusly: "while I seem to really like going out and doing stuff with people, the only reasonable way to do such things is one I seem to be unwilling to take". The "reasonable way", of course, being to invite people to go and do stuff...

The logical part of me wants to make a distinction about the situation and then leave me happy with that. It wants me to say that I don't really want to be out having to interact with people, to talk to them and be an integrated part of some group, but that I simply want to be around people. It presents, as evidence, the apparent joy I got this morning at the Marian Centre during the tea break, sitting there amidst everyone else, but talking to none, and the object of no one's attention, just sort of absorbing the swirl of humanity and relationships around me.

Now, the logical part has a point--I do enjoy people-watching. The obvious solution to my dilemma, then, would seem to be that the reason I don't want to go ask anybody to go and spend time with me is that I don't really want quality time with anyone, but that I want to be around people without any qualifications, and thus that I should just go hang out in West Edmonton Mall tomorrow afternoon, and let humanity swarm all around me.

Though it presents a compelling argument, I have to say this part of me is wrong. Although I am an avid people-watcher, and have indeed spent time in West Ed and such places doing nothing more than walking around, sitting, and watching, this is not at the heart of this matter. No, the issue here is as it seems: I want to engage people on a personal level, but I'm too reticent to seem able to do so.

Where lies the problem then? That it is a problem, I am quite willing to confess at the moment, despite numerous reservations when the same question has come up at different points in the past. I've tried, before, to justify this reticence, but I think my friend is right here in criticising me for complaining when it is fully within my power to do otherwise. After all, I claim to believe in free will--and all I have to do is exercise my free will and either go knock on a seminarian's door or dial the phone... but that sends adrenaline through my system like you wouldn't believe, and I begin trying to excuse myself out of it like crazy.

Let's take it as a given, then, that I'm in the wrong for being reticent, and tackle the related question of WHY I'm so reticent. It's not a problem with the Golden Rule Principle of "Do unto others...", since I would love to have someone call me up and ask if I wanted to do something. It is, probably, something rather more irrational.

I've already had a few ideas present themselves to me as to what it might be. Beginning with my beginning, there's nature and nurture. Whether it's genetic or conditioned doesn't really matter to the situation here, since either way, my parents have certainly affected me. Dad is probably worse than me for initiating any sort of social activity, though every indication is that he doesn't really care for it all that much (Dad's rather a homebody...). While Mom is more than willing to call up a friend for coffee, it's always from a small circle of close friends, not from acquaintances in general. By and large, my family background does not encourage going out there and inviting people to do things.

From that, I would note that I am a lot like my mom, but with the notable difference that while I might be just as willing as her to call up a good friend and go for coffee, unlike her I don't have (m)any friends close by to call up, or, indeed, have many such friends in general. It's a bit of a paradox, I suppose: I won't phone people to do stuff until they're good friends, but they won't become good friends until I've done stuff with them, which requires phoning...

It's not fair, however, to lay the blame for this situation at my parents' feet, though it may explain my disposition some. My own history has played its part, no doubt. Though never well-disposed to such things, I also had little opportunity before I was about 14, since we lived in the country, and when you're a kid who can't drive, the initiative to invite people over or to go in and do stuff really isn't in your own hands. Consequently, when we moved to town at age 14, not only was I not inclined to such things, I had pretty much no experience. Although never quite a social pariah, I was always acutely aware that I wasn't quite the most popular kid in the social circle either, quite aware of not being invited to some events and of having to miss others because of inability to come, or of being less than the life of the party when present... all of which leads to a certain amount of insecurity when deciding to plan something, and makes it that much more crushing when you plan something, and it doesn't work out. And, inevitably, it didn't. What can I say? It was junior high school... the most tender years of a psyche's life. I think it was just something as trivial as no one being able to go to a movie except the people who'd already been to it. Or I'm inventing some situation that never happened. Anyway, there's long precedent in my life for associating pain with attempting to start/host anything social. Also, for most of my teenage years, I didn't really care for too much in the way of social life, so what stuff other people invited me too was often enough to satisfy me.

So, knowing all that you might think I'd find it easier to get over this mental hang-up and just do something--right? Wrong. I may be a mature adult now, but the "PAIN!" klaxon still sounds when I start thinking about asking somebody to do something, and avoiding pain is generally something we tend to do.

To delve a little further into the "PAIN!" instinct, it can be also articulated with the idea that I am afraid to impinge too much on my friends. When I mentioned this to my friend yesterday, she laughed at me, and rightly so, and told me (if not in so many words, in impressions), that would they really be a friend if they disliked my presence that much? Either they would be able to do something, and then we would, or they'd not be able to, and then no hard feelings--right? Well, maybe looked at sensibly, but I have difficulty looking at it that way, because although I get along well with people, and can generally making amiable acquaintances easily, I really take a while to develop friendships, and I guess you could say I have a paranoid fear of losing a friendship by taking advantage of it too often. Or, to put it another way, though it may not be true I am so oblivious, I have a fear that I am completely unable to judge just how tolerated/liked I actually am by a friend, and thus I back off completely so as not to lose whatever I do have.

A very foolish and insecure way of looking at friendships, I fully realise, but it is a habit, and bad habits are the hardest to break. As someone who doesn't make close friends easily, and as someone cautious by nature, I don't want to jeopardise ANYTHING. I know this means I'm never going to actually build a close friendship if I keep to the same tack, but that doesn't make it much easier to change my ways, alas.

On top of these predispositions, I have the added problem of being a seminarian. Now, this isn't REALLY a problem--look at most of the others here to demonstrate how having friends is entirely possible for a seminarian--but it does give me quite a few more excuses to utilise in my attempts to defend myself from having to change my ways.

First of all, there is the schedule. It's not that it's so super-full that I never would have time to get out, it's just that it's well-sprinkled across the week. I have mornings off... but that's when I have (and I really do have) to read for my classes. I have evenings... sorta. Night Prayer kicks in three days a week, and I have a night class on a fourth and Community Activities with the seminary on Fridays. These are all good things which I generally enjoy doing, but they all effectively prevent me from going out and doing anything. Now, Night Prayer isn't until 9:30, but I tend to view social events a lot like friendships: I'd rather them rarer and richer than many and fleeting. Consequently, from the above, most of fun people-spent-with time is between classes at school, and after the community event on Fridays, which are fun times to be sure, but which certainly don't fill the gaping void of the weekend.

However, empty weekends being what sparked this whole conversation, it should be apparent that time isn't what I need in life, but a new mentality. Carrying the "being a seminarian" problems farther, there is definitely a philosophical problem for socialising that comes with being a priest-to-be. As such, I have a mentality that says I have SHOULDN'T be socialising too much, getting too close to friends. It says that while I should be everyone's friend, and get along with all, I shouldn't be obsessing over having close friends and worrying about social relationships, since, after all, once I'm ordained, I'm not going to have time to waste on hanging out with people. It also says that I am liable to be moved around Edmonton, around Alberta, even around the world, if they send me to Rome or something, and I'm only setting myself up for pain by making friendships I'll have to cut off at sometime.

Now, I am well aware, particularly if I start thinking sensibly as I'm trying to do right now, that this is a VERY dangerous way to be thinking. Quite apart from needing to be an island unto himself, a priest needs to have a balanced life with good friends, and he needs to be able to relax away from the parish--both with priestly friends and with other friends and family. And when I look at it in this balanced lighting, I only become more concerned, since I'm not doing myself any favours by not taking care of myself socially, that I'm setting up some foundations for my burning out and becoming a bitter, bitter man if this continues too far.

So here, at last, we more or less reach the end of the thoughts that, in some form or other, have swirled around my brain this past 36 hours or so. Some of it is much older, and has been recycled for years, but now is the first time that I've managed to synthesize it all together and make some sense of it logically. Before I move on to the logical conclusion, however, let me add an addendum that just occurred to me to add.

First, a note on seminarians. Now, most of the above issues apply to my relationships there. I have the same reticence problems with my brothers as I do with friends in general, but unlike with friends in general, I seem to be doing a bit better... either because we're thrown together more, or because I've made a more concerted effort of it, I don't know, but although there's still a lot of room for progress, I really don't have much to fault with myself there. The real issue here, insofar as there is any immediacy to it, is with other friends.

And now, the conclusion:

I need to change. For the second time this year, in casually defending a not-thought-through practice of mine, I have come to a conclusion that calls for change. Last time, it was trivial: in order to maintain my opinionated rhetoric, I had to start going to chapel at Concordia. This time, it seems to entail a great deal more: clearly, if I want to enjoy friendships on weekends, the onus is on me to DO something and not WHINE about it. This is hard, I am really feeling, since while my other issue about chapel meant I had to change my actions in order to maintain my opinions, here I have to change my opinions AND my actions in order to achieve the effect I want.

I don't even know where to start, but having--at enormous length--reached this conclusion has drained me for tonight. I'm also rather terrified at the prospect; facing your deepest, darkest fears is not particularly easy. I have no idea how I'm going to do this... if I can. I don't WANT to stay as I am, but change really, really hurts... it's like setting a broken leg: neither the broken leg or the setting feels at all pleasant, but only one is good for you.





Wow... all that took a LONG time to write... that was really cathartic, though.