9/21/96 - I'm So Happy For You

9/21/96 - Espresso Roma, Isla Vista. With Max.

Max and I were just in an interesting discussion that got me thinking about my own ideas earlier this summer on friendship. (See here.) Max was being his usual curmudgeonly self, saying it was hypocritical to feign enthusiasm over things other people do if you're not genuinely enthusiastic. [This was precipitated by one of his friends getting married to someone who Max saw as unsuitable. He said he wasn't able to act "happy for her."] I commented that part of getting along with people was "feigning enthusiasm" (i.e. showing support), even if you don't really feel it.

He said this may be a California way of looking at things at life, but...I could see there was no point in pursuing it, but I thought to myself, "And that's exactly why most people think of you as a cold fish."

I got to thinking about Max (while pretending to read the Anne Rice novel I brought), and how he most likely will spend his life alone, or at least large chunks of it. And that it's probably better for all concerned.

I thought about my own friendships, and how I'm sometimes seen as a negative and argumentative person, though not to Max's level, of course. I'm trying to determine the right level, to find some middle ground between Max and, for example, Melissa, who gushes every emotion she has to the point where it's hard to take anything she says seriously.

I'm also back to thinking that I want to re-create the "family" feeling I had with my circle of friends. Obviously, this will have to happen up north, and it's not even definite that it will include any of the people who were involved here and are now there. (Sean? Rafe? Not a very stable base on which to build anything, since they don't really like each other.)

But I've tried Max's way of not terribly intimate friendships (how much closer is he to Jodi or Danya, than I am to, say, Serena?), one-on-one, and it hasn't done it. I need a group of people around me, and since my actual (blood) family is a. well, them, and b. probably on the way out (dread) [Oh, not that again], I need to construct a group. It's not quite like Gary, who wants a more traditional family with (shudder) kids, but a family nonetheless, who all get along with each other and choose to spend a lot of time and energy supporting one another.

Where does this leave the "search" (in which I've never actively engaged) for a lover? A "husband?" I dunno, I've never made actual lists like Gary has. [Oh, God, I forgot about Gary's lists.] I've developed deep feelings for such different types. Maybe this desire for a circle of intimacy precludes one-on-one relationships? I know I've never felt the desperate yearning for Prince Charming that I sense is typical of gay men (and straight women). [Oh, haven't I? What are the previous months' entries about, other than wishing for the right guy to come along?] I've never believed that any of the men I've been involved with (including my current...thing, Gary) is Mr. Right.

That myth has never resonated for me, and it makes me wonder if I might not end up as alone, in the final analysis, as Max probably will.

[So ends the Santa Barbara Diaries. I began a new journal upon moving to San Francisco a week or so later. I didn't update that journal as frequently, and there's a lot more sef-pity in its pages, so I'm going to have to more editing.]

[The issue of chosen family and a circle of intimate friends hasn't been resolved in my life, BTW. John is unlike Gary in almost every way, but he does have more traditional ideas than I do about love relationships and their primacy over even pre-existing friendships. Oh, yeah, we've got issues... Is it possible that one can be polyamorous in friendship as well as in sex? Is it possible not to be?]

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