We should hang out. ...
How to effectively blow off old friends you're no longer interested in, guilt-free!
“We should hang out!” Spoken with enthusiasm, excitement even, from a young one to another young one, holds so much possibility. It could be the start of an intriguing new friendship, a torrid love affair, perhaps the birth of a mildly radical artistic partnership, or even just an intersting soul to spend a few hours with on those long, rambling weekends.
“We should hang out. …” Spoken more out of a veiled sense of obligation to one of the aforementioned posibilities that long ago ran its course, from an old one to another old one, holds (no, doesn't hold, it gently waves on by) the ultimate non-commital brush off. “I've done with you”, the implied elipses following the obligitorily recanted words seem to say, but I don't have the heart to tell you so directly.
I've said it. And I didn't mean it. It's been said to me far too many times in the short years since I've moved back “home". But in all fairness, I was gone a long time. And in that time I've changed. A lot. I've grown much older, for one thing. All that time I was away I held onto a memorialized version of what life should be like back in the land of the glory days, but places change and age just as the people who inhabit them also change and age. Our priorities and responsibilities shift through each stage of our short lives. Our interests and our obsessions also morph and drift, and as those somewhat trifling bits contribute immensely to how others perceive us, often reconnecting with old friends after several years apart can seem as daunting as pulling driting continents back together. Better to let the sea take that space. Wander off in another direction.
As a shy, introverted, pseudo-intellectual spicy-brained weirdo, it was never easy for me to make friends when I was younger. Now in this later decade when “there's more in the rear view than there is up ahead” you might as well ask me to fly myself to the moon than go out and meet new people, really meet them, and try to integrate them into my life and myself into theirs. The plague years had a strong hand in reinforcing my social anxiety as well.
As a young one I obsessed over playing the guitar, and I was inherently drawn to other musicians - but only the ones I thought looked “cool". I wanted nothing more than to be a “rock star", to absorb all the trappings and strange life that go along with that ridiculous notion. And in many ways I did acheive some of that. There were always people around who were interested in me, tho I know now not really for the reasons I wanted them to be. I wanted to be accepted, to feel a part of something. Family was never a big draw for me, my own being quite strained and eventually broken. I never felt connected to that kinship I imagine others feel for their siblings and parents. As a result I too was a shitty parent, a distant brother, and an estranged son. Music and my musical mates were all I had, all I could rely on. The all-consuming nature of rehearsals several nights per week. The long drives in a cramped van on weekend jaunts to out-of-town shows. The extra days and nights spent writing, composing, tweaking little elements no one would ever take notice of. And when that one wasn't quite fulfilling enough I'd join another, and another. Sometimes stacking three or four projects at once. Never anything of my own tho. Always “jumping someone else's train”. I had girlfriends who would call me out on that. Those relationships didn't last long. I was good as a “hired gun”. I liked it that way. But I really just wanted to belong to something. And like serial monogomy, I would ingrain myself into these projects, become an integral part of them, push them to grow and thrive, and then… I'd leave. Or the project would implode under its own self-important weight. It's been like that all my life. And with all my friendship/kinship energy focused solely on my bandmates, I never learned to make friends. Real friends. I have a few, as we all do by default, but most are distant. I've come to realize, only recently (slow learner) that those bandmates weren't, and aren't my friends. I struggle to even know for sure what that word means, but … nah, we were something else.
Some geniune folks have worked their way into and have remained intermittently constant throughout all my iterations, and I'm exceedingly grateful for those few beautiful souls. I know I could, and I know I should treat them better. The next time I see them, I won't say, “we should hang out”. I'll say, “let's go play some music, listen to some records, talk about our lives, or just sit and say nothing at all.” “How about this Thursday?” Ha! If only I could…
The truth is, and I'm not ashamed to say it, I'm lonely. I miss that connection, that energy spent working together on something bigger than the sum of its parts. That's too lofty a wish for a bitter, strange old bastard, but I sure wouldn't say “no” to a weekly coffee hang, or an occassional jam. I fear as I get older my inability to integrate myself into social happenings will only get worse, and as a result so will the lonliness, until eventually it will all just fade away. It's better to burn out than fade away, innit? I missed that exit long ago.
But hey, I'm still here, so… we should hang out.