The overestimation of friendship

"Everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends". Seneca 

Now how is one supposed to react to such a quote? As much as the next avid traveller, I would want to say fuck Seneca. But then, my love for Italy and all that originates herein, comes in between. After giving this some deep thought, I wonder (uh-oh). Does the dude have a point? I mean travelling is a major part of my life. So is the rest of it filled with only mere acquaintanceships? Where is all this coming from. Do you want to hear a nice long story? No. Probably not. So I'm going to try to get my point across short and sweet. I am addicted to Will and Grace! Ever since I returned to France and the weather turned so grim, all I have done is feed myself, conduct my classes, feed myself again and stream Will and Grace videos. I love them. They are so beautiful. They are so perfect. They are so not real. Watching the episodes all over again, has made me laugh so much and at the same time crave a best friend like Will or Grace. Someone who's going to laugh with you, cry with you, poke fun at your whims, who's got your back and never judges your choices. Growing up, my life was like that of a lemon. We all know about lemons, we know they exist somewhere, we just don't think too much of them. That was me. Basically anyone who ever acknowledged my presence, was my friend. Such wise decisions come gift wrapped with bad company, early experiments with alcohol, cigarettes and skipping classes. Please do not consider me a hobo! In my defence, I did all this because I wanted to fit in with my "friends". Outside the circle of doom, I did meet some amazing people (two of whom I cannot imagine my life without. Muriel* who is an air hostess and my best-friend since school. Ariella* and me met in higher secondary and we have a love-hate relationship but we still dote on each other) and yet I find myself looking very often for my very own Will or Grace. When I fall in love, it's despicable. The other person in the relationship becomes the third important "friend" in my life and I soon find my self divulging every minor detail about myself to this person I might have met a month ago! Amour is crafty, it spreads a pleasing veneer on the faults of your love-interest and how nice it is to believe you've found the perfect friend in your lover! Buy one get one? I don't think so!

I see my younger cousins today and my ex-students on Facebook. They're facing the same dilemma as me. For this weekend, most of these lemons have organised drinking parties via Facebook. The majority will be attending because they are cool and they may even get to wear make-up. Tomorrow, they'll be untagging some pictures where their eyeliner ran down to their chin and puke down their cool trademarked shirts. Who did this to us? The situations are different. But I can see myself clearly in them. 

It's the media, it's our parents, teachers who tell us who our friends should be. Few days ago, I registered on an international penpal site which helps you improve your language skills through communication with native speakers. But clearly it's like a dating service and soon I found my self scrutinising all friendship adds. I was am looking for the perfect friend.

Now I'm thinking, screw this! So what if someone prefers solitude? So what if we have only two friends till the end of time? What could happen if those two friends had the biggest flaws? I say accept and adapt. For all those lemons getting sloshed tonight, stop being defined by the people around you. I was once in your place (and the third friend at the time was a slimy wanna-be rapper from a suburb in Bombay, who stole money from me to buy wowie aka Cannabis Resin). Friendship is definitely overrated and stop looking for it in every random person! Not everyone deserves to have you as a friend. I need to be selective about my friends of course but at the same time, not so much that I can never find any good quality about them! This lemon has learnt some valuable lessons. Friendship is not as glossy as portrayed on TV. Will and Grace are beautiful together but their kind of relationship is purely fiction. All I can do is come to terms with my solitude or start building relationships based on mutual respect and recognition! 

In other news, I'm pretty sure my Will and Grace episode has loaded entirely, wish me happy watching :)