Popular

"I’ll help you be popular! You’ll hang with the right cohorts. You’ll be good at sports, know the slang you’ve got to know. So let’s start, ‘cause you’ve got an awfully long way to go..." -"Popular" from "Wicked" (the musical)

I know I should be grateful that so many people want to be my friend and that several of them are willing to go pretty far to make it seem like we are truly BFFs (keyword being "seem"), but for now, it's very frustrating. Seriously, more than two weeks before school started, three people had asked to co-host a party with me! And I'm not a planner and usually these guys aren't! If an invite hadn't gone out (with the first person to pressure me to make a decision), I think there would be more offers. Like one from the person who threw a party with me last year at the beginning of the school year. My favorite part is of course that these people like to invite others and act like hosts, except for the part where they do any work other than sending out invites and taking credit. To be fair, it's all been at my apartment, so it would be somewhat awkward to do all that much more, though I certainly wouldn't stop them!

It's just that it seems really obvious that several people want to make statements to everyone else in the program, letting everyone know that I'm their closest friend, that we have a solid bond that cannot be broken by any future events. My parties aren't that much more fun than anything else, other people live in my apartment complex and could use the pool here... and this behavior happens with more than just activities and parties. There was the game that existed my first year of grad school where I always lost as people tried to prove they knew me the best - essentially sharing more and more of my secrets to prove they knew me better. That was a great time...

I know that they don't mean anything negative and I should feel flattered, but I just think that it's much more about the alignment or group of personality types in this program. Most of them are very, very dominant, sort of alpha-females. And I am not. I'm fine with someone else taking the lead, or even getting credit for my work (as long as it's not a paper I slaved over or something big). To me, it's almost never worth fighting about and I don't want to be the leader just to be the leader. I don't like decisions. And so it's sort of that all of these people are competing to get the one sort of "follower" on their teams, thus making them the dominating force. Maybe I'm overly cynical and maybe multiple people just feel close to me because I tend to hang out with anyone and everyone, rather than sticking to one group (and so multiple people legitimately feel like my best friend and closest ally), or maybe they all just want to get into this eclectic group and get to know everyone as well as I do. Or maybe I'm just fun to host parties with.

It's just that it's surprisingly lonely being this "popular" (if I can even call it that... I swear, it's just for lack of a better word, I'm not trying to sound like a spoiled brat and the idea that this could sound like that bothers me immensely, but I want to write more than I want to be frustrated with that). Ultimately, despite the number of people calling and emailing and texting and messaging me, when bad stuff happens and I need some real emotional support, I don't really feel all that comfortable calling any of them. I'll tell them later, when the emotion passes, but I just can't confide in any of them. At least not now and I don't even really know why....

Self-Regulation Versus Gossip?!

Earlier this summer I sort of decided that it took too much effort to self-regulate around friends and fellow grad students (mostly because I have to do that enough around professors, at work, with the family) and so I've just been saying what's on my mind for the most part. I like it. It's easier to breathe and function and deal with things, though I know I need to not say absolutely everything... but now I feel like I'm gossiping at times. Expressing dissatisfaction with others and how they might have treated me recently or weird news around the department. I think this problem may be exacerbated by the fact that I'm hanging out with lots of different people and so it's not just confiding in one person.

The problem isn't just that I bring up topics I know might be troublesome, but how do you answer point-blank questions about them? Where is the line between gossip and catharsis? When are you talking about your feelings to think through them and when are you just spreading the word? Is it okay if I don't take pleasure in it? And most importantly, how do I stop? (Because I feel like I only know afterwards when I get a feeling of regret or realize I shouldn't hvae said something AFTER I already said it, so I just want to stop rather than completely understand the line.)

Commonalities in Hardship

I've had multiple conversations about this recently and I think I've been particularly interest because of my scholarly interest in resilience (and related constructs such as hardiness, psychological capital, etc.) as well as in finding benefits from having experienced stressful and/or traumatic experiences, so I figured I'd write about it here and see what you guys thought...

Basically, I was talking to a fellow grad student that I like a lot and we were talking about how we both tend to really like and be friends with other people who have had something terrible happen to them or have had to overcome something. Those are the types of people we feel most comfortable relating to and sharing problems with and those that just "get" us. It was then easy for us to generate examples of people that we didn't like - some of them mutually disliked grad students - who have everything handed to them. Those most despised frequently try to explain that they do have problems, like when they spent their monthly allowance too quickly or didn't get to go to both South Africa and Ireland (just one). They oftentimes tell this to people like me and my friend who struggle to pay for everything on our own and have for the better part of a decade.

So my question is this: Are we (some of us) attracted to others who have overcome something because they are simply similar to us (like is attracted to like, birds of a feather flock together), which is a well-established psychology principle? Or is it that the experience of overcoming something fundamentally alters your personality and viewpoint in some way? As in, suddenly getting a C on a test seems like no big deal because you're trying to make rent this month OR you feel like you can confide and trust someone who knows what it is to struggle, to be less than perfect... And to that point, does the size of the obstacle we overcome matter? Because the truth is that we are all individuals and we do experience situations differently (all of us don't react the same way to the same situation) and thus, might it take different size obstacles to yield the same results? Is there a basic threshold or minimum level of difficulty needed to get to the point where you are more laidback and accepting of others or just reap the benefit of hardship?

So what do you think?

Emotionally Slutty

"I revealed too much too soon. I was emotionally slutty." -Carrie Bradshaw, "Sex and the City"

In yet another way that the ladies and writers of SATC have managed to describe a uniquely bizarre and unsettling moment in my life, Carrie brought us the idea of being emotionally slutty. I, regularly emotionally retarded (literally, other people learned how to handle emotions and I try to fake it and teach myself), have had moments where I've felt emotionally slutty. Sometimes it's really just because I'm so closed off that any attempts at letting others in make me feel naked, exposed, and I soon feel slutty and regret it.

But recently, I did it again with my recently close male friend. I sort of just told him some of the stuff about my family... I really don't know why. I guess I wanted to see if he had already heard rumors (because he's connected to me through school distantly, but we know mostly the same people) and I wanted to see how he'd react, what he'd say. I guess I also wanted him to know that while I'm normally an emotional mess, I'm particularly weird and messy these days (though I feel like I have to stop using that excuse because all of this stuff has been happening for so long, but at the same time, everything still applies). He reacted well, I think, mostly tried to understand and he did try to make me feel better - I asked for personal details about his life and he complied.

I just feel bad about it and don't know how to fix it. I'm thinking that I don't talk to him for a week and then pretend it never happened... normally I know that's a bad plan, but for now, when I feel like I've already been too open and had too much talk about feelings (because seriously, I want to keep hanging out with him and watch more sports and I want to go on his hikes because girls can't go alone, while guys can and it's tough finding people nowadays). I honestly don't even know if I have a crush on him, but the whole thing is definitely extra-weird because we have become a pseudo-couple and it would be easier for everyone else if we were dating, but I just can't even think about that right now, though I feel like any of that tension is exacerbated by my uncontrollable word vomit.

So, do you guys have any ideas? How do you fix emotionally-slutty-slips? Is there an equivalent to an emotional garbage bag I can wear to turn my feelings into a grab bag of mystery and illusions?

A Better Mood

"Sometimes people just aren't who you need them to be, at like a certain moment, and unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it." -Grace Manning, "Once and Again"

In a better mood than in my last post... a very, very full week of sports-watching, parties, BBQs, and drinking. Basically, I'm exhausted, but satisfied. I definitely forget that good friends and just hanging out with people who can distract you are an awesome change of pace and really help me forget that life can suck sometimes. Butterflies are nice, but sometimes you do just need friends... even ones that sometimes disappoint you because they don't always (that's why they're still friends... and not everyone can be there for you all the time and maybe you can't do anything about it, but it doesn't mean that these people don't still care about you and aren't doing the best that they can... I tend to forget that very important lesson sometimes too).