"The way is clear, the light is good..."

[hermionesviolin]

So, i gave AJ my post-graduation address, including e-mail, which is athene_writer@yahoo (yes, you can all change your address books and send me your appropriate contact info -- though my Smith account will work through the summer) and of course e-mail programs automatically underline everything, so she e-mailed back to confirm the underscore and wrote "Underscores your achievement!"  Tee.  And she wants to take me for coffee or something at the atrium next week.

I stopped by Bobbie's office, and she said nice things about my liaisoning and entreated me to stop by whenever i visit.  She is le sweet.

I was niche culture literate twice today.  Craziness.  I explained to someone where "my hed iz pastede on yay" comes from and knew that D.E.B.S. (whose original i have even seen) was gay.

Oh, the Jolt and how only 3 people didn't post as Guest.  I definitely haven't been on the Jolt in ages (and lo my life is a better place for that decision) but a friend mentioned the thread and i was intrigued.  I have issues with it, clearly, but all i would say has been said.

Unrelated but prompted by the same conversation:

[Poll #488705]

Person: i HATE losing friends to bad terms
Me: Yeah.  (Losing friends period is rather of the suckage.)
Person: true, but i can deal with drifting better than fights and fallingouts
Me: Interesting.  I really dislike drifting more because i can't pinpoint why we stopped being friends and have a harder time figuring out if i still want to be friends and/or how to go about reinitiating the friendship.
Person: i've had lots of friends drift apart
Person: but only a few lost to fights
Me: Ditto.  I feel much more closure about the latter, though, like i know where i stand and what the deal is and everything.

I rock the free world, because in little over a day i redid my recs page for both Buffy/Angel-verse and Firefly a la Doyle (and yes of course i stole code whole cloth from here).  The list format will be up as well, but now you can use the handily navigable grids.  And Netrillium seems to have stopped being a butt, which is additional joy and rapture.  (Makes me feel much less bad about being tied to them for two years.)  And, um, the grid pages aren't actually linked-to yet because i'm anal-retentive and update the site on the first of the month and only then, but they exist, i promise.

Comments

[sigrun.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with your choice. While losing a friend through a fight is still horrible, there is at least a definitive 'end' with reasons that will be relatively clear to all parties involved. That's much better than worrying yourself to bits about why or how things got off track.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yes! I understand everyone else's comments about continued amicability and the pain of fights and all that, but i'm glad to see someone else shares my reasoning on this.

[scrollgirl.livejournal.com]

I've never lost a real friend to a fight, so I'm not sure I can even answer this poll. I said "drifting" though, because it's happened to me, and yeah it's sad. But there's a fondness in the memory, and life goes on. I don't think I could stand losing a truly good friend to a quarrel.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i can definitely understand the "fondness in the memory" thing, as friendship-ending fights definitely taint my memory of the rest of the friendship. I really like knowing why we stopped being friends, though, and drifts taint any future interaction with the person because i don't know where i stand. I think that's my biggest problem with drifting, is having to interact with those people again after we've stopped really being friends. And sometimes wanting to reignite the friendship and not knowing how to go about it or if that's even appropriate since i don't know why we stopped being friends in the first place. And come to think of it, it does taint my memory of the friendship as well because i feel like, "Well were we ever really good friends if we could just drift apart like that?" (by which i mostly mean, "Did she ever really like me?" because i have insecurity issues like that).

topically drifting in

[sarrin.livejournal.com]

weighing in to say, I'm a chronic drifter, myself. I've lost almost every friend in my life by drifting (and I've lost quite a lot -- because I'm like, the world's lousiest long distance communicator), and I prefer it by leaps and bounds. I actually had a fight with a friend tonight, and I can say with total assurance, I'd much prefer never to speak to her again because we just didn't talk than because we fought tonight. I hate the pit of anger: it's ugly. When you drift, it's just ... "I wonder how they're doing; I hope they're cool." When you fight, it's dirty, it's gross, it's ugly, it's uncomfortable.

and (on that lovely note) Congrats on closing a chapter/opening another!

Re: topically drifting in

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Partly i'm just bad at social interactions period so they're so often uncomfortable anyway because i don't know handle them/myself in them. With a fight i know where i stand and how to try to fix things if i want to restart the friendship. But i definitely understand what you and other people have been saying about fights=bad.

And thank you for the congratulations. It's nice to know you're still around, and i hope things are generally going well for you.

[hedy.livejournal.com]

Dude, I thought DEBS looked like that movie.
I'd much prefer a fight than drifting.
OOC, why are you using yahoo rather than gmail?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yay. You and one other respondent agree with me on the fight vs. drfting thing -- though i definitely understand everyone else's reasonings.

Gmail threading annoys me. Technically i have one (and seem to have about 50 invites if you or anyone you know wants one)

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

I've drifted from some people but we stayed amicable.

The fights? Never.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Definitely understandable.

[oyceter]

I've drifted away from quite a few friends before, either because of busy-ness or life changes or whatnot, but with drifting, I always feel that there's the chance of drifting back, depending. But I think I have a pretty different attitude toward this because of my background -- my mom and my dad and lot of people I know keep connections for a really, really long time. So if you grow apart from someone, it's ok, there's always a chance that someday things will work out.

But if a friendship breaks because of a fight (like one of my very close ones did), things get really ugly. There's the finality aspect, yes, but there's also the fact that everyone in one of my social circles knows about it, it affects neighbors and whatnot and there's lots of bad feeling and gossip, and just ugh. Wasn't the best of experiences.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i hadn't thought about the idea of a fight affecting an entire circle of friends since so many of my friendships don't particularly overlap or are online where it is less than an issue (okay, honestly, didn't occur to me mostly because the friendship-ending fights i've had have been with people who didn't overlap with other friends of mine). I tend to find drifting more awkward that way because i'll be talking to people who are still friends with the other person and i'm like "Yeah, we don't really talk anymore, so i don't really know," or people will ask me about the other person thinking we're still friends.

And the idea about the potential to drift back makes a lot of sense. I just always feel awkward trying to restart friendships, or even figure out if i want to try to do so, when i don't know why we stopped being friends in the first place.