"best friends day"

This is apparently a Twitter holiday, seeing as that's where I found out about it?

(I joked on Twitter: someone notify Lyra and Bon Bon)

I dunno about the whole concept. My first reaction (probably because I'm tired and am staring down a not-fun thing this weekend) was "Oh, great. Another holiday, like Valentine's Day, that I have no reason to celebrate"

I don't have a best friend. I really haven't since junior high. (I will not bore you again with the story of my erstwhile best friend getting "promoted" to one of the "popular girls" tables). Oh, I have FRIENDS. But many of them are not what I'd call close (at least, I don't feel like I'd be comfortable "leaning on" them for things like driving me to a far-away doctor's appointment or driving me to work for a few days if my car were in the shop*)

Part of it is, I think, the fundamental insecurity I learned as an unpopular kid: how embarrassing would it be to declare yourself someone's "best friend" and find out later that that person was like, "Well......okay. But she's not MY best friend.....Anna is." or something like that. 

(*I have actually rented a car when that happened.)

I also never know entirely what is appropriate. I mentioned watching "The Amazing World of Gumball" a while back? There's a sort-of-funny episode, called The Parasite, where, for me, the humor was not so much in Gumball And Darwin Make An Hilarious Misinterpretation (They think Anais' new friend is being a parasite on her - taking her lunch, copying her schoolwork) as much as it was the uncomfortable image of the smart-awkward unpopular kid-without-friends (Anais) reacting to another student seeming to be friendly.

Jodie, the would-be friend, asks to borrow a pencil in class. Anais, as is the way with many unpopular kids, interprets this as a friendly overture. And immediately she goes into full-creep mode. I can't find a clip on youtube, but she contorts her face into an odd simulacrum of a smile, and declares in a creepy voice, "FRRRRIIIIEEEEEENNNNNDDDSSSS!!!" (kind of like Gollum's "My Preciousss!")

As it turns out, Anais is the parasite - she glommed onto this poor girl who was too nice to push her away. Eventually the truth came out and things went back to the way they were.

But while it's funny, I admit it's a bit uncomfortable for me: whoa, was I ever like that? Am I still like that some times? Do I post too many irrelevant comments on Ravelry or on people's blogs because I'm desperate for "senpai" to notice me? Would someone actually do the tough love thing and tell me to back off if I were too clingy, or would they just snark to their friends about it later on? Or just suffer in silence and go "Ohhhhhhh..." in dismay when they saw me headed their way.

(Yes. There are some very specific ways in which I am broken.)

As a result, I tend to pendulum between what I call "golden retriever mode" where I do things to try to get people to like me (or at least notice me) and freaked-out mode, where I think, "You're being too pushy, too forward, and sharing way too much. BACK. OFF." and I do.

(Is everyone prone to these concerns, or is it just me?)

And it did get worse in adolescence, because there were times when a fellow doing the equivalent of asking me to borrow a pencil would get not just the "frrrrriiiieeennnndddd!" response in my brain, but the "BOOOOYYYYYFFFFRRRIIIIIEEEENNNNDDD!" response. And while I never did anything too terribly stupid in response, I know there were times where I over-interpreted a friendly overture. (In one case in my young adulthood, it turned out - and I was told - that the fellow in question, as they say, "bats for the other team.") And yet, at the same time, there have been cases of a fellow being genuinely interested but v. shy, or in one or two cases perhaps he was even outright hitting on me - and I DIDN'T SEE IT. I don't know why.

But I don't know. There do seem to be people that the friends thing is a lot easier for. And there are lots of people who have a clear best friend, and the feeling is mutual - often this is someone they've been close to since childhood, and because my circle was pretty mobile, I've largely lost touch with everyone out of my past. And that's kind of sad. (And I'm really not interested in going full-blast Facebook and trying to find some of them and re-insinuate myself into their lives: again, the whole "ffffrrrrrriiiiieeennnnd!" thing makes me feel like, "If they really wanted to re-start a relationship with me, they'd seek me out; they're probably perfectly happy in their lives without me as a part of it")