Work in Progress

"As long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential." - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

Ugh.

I know I'm being dramatic, and usually I manage to keep it to myself or at least avoid blogging about it. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors, and in that quote she's talking about the perfect love affair; one that exists only in theory. You think you like the guy, you think he might like you, and it's great to think about what might happen. It's easy to work out all of the details in your head and get to moments like your first kiss, or saying 'I love you' in increasingly perfect and impossible ways. Then you might have your first kiss, never hear from him again and realize you were better off just thinking about it.

And maybe if you hadn't told him to go fuck himself when you saw him at a party a couple of months later, you could have been great friends. Personally though, I'm not big on second chances.

* * *

"Ugggh... I can't stand him!" my friend is ranting to me on the phone on a Saturday afternoon, the day after we've gone out with some friends. "It's just so annoying how he talks so loudly and gets all up in your face. I just want to scream at him to SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

I wince at her yelling; my cell phone is cradled between my ear and my shoulder and I'm casually re-painting my nails bright Barbie pink with the Chanel nail polish I expensively impulse-bought around New Year's. (I recently found that I could stop biting my nails if I instead painted them and then methodically chipped it all off. It's called replacement, I think?) I'm passively agreeing with her, but then I surprise both of us as I recap my nail polish and sigh.

"I don't really mind him. Actually, I think he's kind of nice."

My friend says nothing, and I feel a creeping puzzlement coming from the receiver. I have to fill the space.

"I mean, I can totally see why you hate him. I just think... you know... that's the way he is, and if you can get past the volume and the constant New York references, he's really funny. He's cute."

A pause.

"I don't hate him, Amy. He... gets on my nerves. I just thought that you..."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I just..."

"It's okay."

"All right."

"Well, I guess I'll talk to you later."

"Okay, bye."

She's one of my best friends, and it's easy for me to see why she's confused. Usually, if she - or any of my other friends or relatives - hates someone, it's a safe bet that I hate them even more. It's not that I set out to dislike people, it's just that I'm not very forgiving. While my sister L might have, at one point, hated her ex-boyfriend from sophomore year, I still hate him. When my friend K hesitantly told me that she was hanging out with a guy who was once a complete asshole to her, I was not so much appalled as shocked.

"But he apologized," K, somewhat defensively, explained to me, dragging out her words, intoning slowly.

"Good for him! You should have thanked him for apologizing and then politely told him to fuck off. Why should he get to be friends with you after the way he acted?"

We weren't on the same page though. (We rarely are, and I think it's why we get along so well: no conflicting interests.)

"But what does that do for me? I'd much rather have him as a friend than not have him in my life at all."

It's a philosophy that makes me uneasy. If someone is really your friend, shouldn't their behavior be, if not impeccable, then always defensible? It's a nice idea, one that I cling to, but all I have to do is look at my own behavior to know that it isn't true. Should I really have given up that secret in order to impress someone? Was it worth it to make that funny but too cutting remark?

The other night my thoughts drifted to an old friend and how we used to drive around Boca, waiting for something exciting to happen. It never did, but we always had a great time complaining about it and staying up all night talking. She was such a fun person, and gave the best pep talks. If I was having a rough day, I could call her, and without much prompting, she would dish out a 20-minute monologue about what a great person I was. Thinking about it, I had a moment of real loneliness for her that didn't wash away entirely when I remembered our bitter falling out and my cutting her off.

When my most recent ex and I broke up, we didn't see each other for almost five months, and communicated sparsely during that time. It was long enough so that when I did finally run into him, my freshest memories were only positive ones, culled from near the beginning of our relationship. After making very brief small talk, I went back into my house and made myself mentally list all of the reasons why we broke up. I relived each late night argument, a midday shouting match and the despondent phone call that finally pulled the trigger. I felt much worse, but had the gradual realization that I actually didn't hate him.

What the hell?

In the past, my brutal decisiveness and ruthless dismissal of friends was a point of pride. I'm the girl who periodically scrolls through her cell phone contacts and deletes people, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing that I don't have to settle for imperfect friends. Now, it feels more like hypocrisy. So what if K missed my party? I haven't bought her a birthday gift in two years. It feels good not to hate my ex. It's much less time consuming to occasionally remember the good things.

The added gray scale in my black and white thinking initially convinced me that my standards had fallen incredibly low and that I was desperate for friends. It's hard to argue, though, that staying home and feeding my anger is a better way to spend the evening than going out to dinner with a big group of people.

Some relationships can't be repaired, but I'm belatedly realizing that most can be.

* * *

"But if something was really important, fate made sure it somehow came back to you and gave you another chance... Events conspired to bring you back to where you'd been. It was what you did then that made all the difference: it was all about potential." - Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever