Breaking up is Hard to do

     Seinfeld knew what he was talking about. He did an episode about  having a friend he did not want to hang out with anymore. His take was that its easier to break up with someone you are dating than with a friend. When someone you are dating breaks up with you well that's a clear message and that's that. It is so much harder to break up with a friend. Especially a friend that doesn't know that their personality is grating and you really don't want to hang out with them anymore. Its nothing specific but definite. I have that a lot. I meet people who would be OK if they just wanted to be a once in a while to get together friend but are so lonely they always want to get together. I try to make sure I sound really busy but sometimes I am bored so I get together with them a lot and then I realize they are really annoying . If only I could break up with this friendship in  a direct way. Instead I start to ignore their calls and not call them back so often or promptly. Eventually they get the hint. It would have been so much easier to be direct about it, but I think it would be more hurtful. So I usually go the indirect route.

close talkers

i never forget my first experience of being on a date with a close talker. at the time i felt as though i was going to faint . i couldn't understand why until i realized how close my date had been standing next to me. he did not have bad breath but he was standing closer to me than a virtual stranger ought to. in general i am a big believer in personal space, especially when it comes to people i don't know very well.
the first few close talkers i have met were men i had dates with, so i figured that thought that instead of touching me they would stand as close as they could to me without actually touching me and be close talkers. well at least they can say they are shomer negiah. then i met women who were also close talkers.  they were not gay. they just had a problem with personal space. until i heard the term close talker coined on the seinfeld television series i did not even have a universal way of describing those who stand eye to eye (literally) when speaking to others. its always nice to have a diagnosis for an idiosyncrasy . once you can define what bothers me about  a person it makes it easier to find a way of dealing with it. or not.

look to the cookie

in new york there is a cookie called a black and white. black and whites have a vanilla chewy cupcake like consistency and are round and flat. on this round , flat cookie is half white icing and half chocolate icing. in one episode seinfeld has a great line about the symbolism of the black and white cookie. he says "look to the cookie" as a symbol of racial harmony. hmmm.
can there be wisdom to be gained from other cookies? perhaps there is wisdom in a chinese fortune cookie? now if you knew me in person you would know that i dont believe in horoscopes , segulahs, mood rings , four leafed clovers or other such hocus pocus , but do bear with me. i dont mean that i think the fortune in the fortune cookie is viable, but is there a reason one is reading the particular fortune cookie message at that particular time? it could be a totally bogus coincidence, but it also might not be. i recently opened a fortune cookie with a message that i think is very true and there probably is a very good reason i got that message. my message was " a good friendship is often more important than a passionate romance." or if you ask me , there definitely aint going to be any romance without a good friendship. i would actually go as far as saying, that if i had a choice between good friendship or romance i would choose good friendship because good friendship can turn into romance, but romance without good friendship is not even worth the gas emitted from cholent beans.

friends that end

when you're dating someone if it doesnt work out , you discuss it with them, you tell them its not working , or you at least figure it out if they never return your calls, or if they just never call you after your last date. usually there is some type of ending, be it clearly defined, or assumed.

when you 've had it with a friend of the same gender it becomes a whole other ball of wax.

one of the first seinfeld episodes tried to reconcile this issue. the episode was male unbonding which aired june 14, 1990. jerry had a childhood friend joel who he outgrew , but joel still kept trying to stay in touch with jerry anyway. at one point jerry tells joel that he thinks that "they should stop seeing each other" and that they have nothing in common anymore. this of course doesnt work. in the end jerry decides to suck it up and tolerate when joel calls him even though he doesnt want him to . its just easier.

i find this subject so difficult. usually when friendship drifts its mutual. its just run its course. sometimes once i get to know someone i realize that they annoy the daylights out of me. and then what do you do? my so- called friend asks me what they have done to fall out of friendship with me. what can i say? i dont really want to tell them. it will hurt their feelings. its just the way they are. im not mad at them at all. i just choose not to spend that much time with them anymore because my mental state depends on it.

im a pretty patient person, but sometimes my patience runs out. some people are so sensitive that i feel like being friends with them requires me to walk on eggshells. which is okay. but sometimes i go back to being just average and not so accommodating, and then these same gendered friends get offended. im just too stressed to be their friend. if they were a guy id just break up with them. no problem . and im a good breaker -upper. but with my female friends i dont know what to do. its much harder to move on . its harder to "break up" .