Oct 30 2007
Friends
For some time now I have been wondering about the concept of friendship. My perception of this wonderful and mysterious interaction between humans is under constant devaluation because I spend too much time on the Internet. An Internet friend is someone who is sharing your interests, nothing more and nothing less. They occasionally send nice messages, usually with a link to their own site to draw some traffic, and for the rest they could not care less if you live or die.
I like it that way.
On a community web site one can have 300 friends without sweat. It’s superficial of course, because when these friendships grow into something more elaborate; one immediately has to deal with the complications of virtuality, such as different languages, the usual misinterpretations of e-mail, etc.
In real life having two or three real friends is a considerable investment of time and energy and if I look back, I must admit that my friends often treated me worse than my enemies. Holding on to that thought I must also face that I have probably done the same. I am not the one who sings “Non, je ne regrette rien” or “My Way” under the shower. I have some sincere regrets. By studying my wrongdoings I can easily find good reasons why, but that is beside the point. There is always an excuse and if there is none available; we humans will certainly produce one.
That is what seperates us from animals — more than intellect.
I am sure my friend Sylvaine has a perfectly good reason to describe me on her blog as a person suffering from the Stockholm syndrome. I am fully aware that a lot of people consider me to be suffering from one or two mental diseases and they are absolutely right. For those who are really concerned; I will gladly mail a PDF with the exact diagnosis, based on 20 years of therapy. It is a list of mental dysfunctions, but the Stockholm syndrome is simply not on it and even if it were I would not consider it to be a nice gesture if somebody would post my medical data on his or her blog.
Apparently there is something tricky about friendship. Maybe it is the mirror effect. In our selection of friends we search for common interests, goals, opinions etc. If we become successful at that we find a person who is so much alike that he or she soon becomes irritating. This sounds contradictory, but it seems we do not always like ourselves enough to spend too much time with our mirror image(s).
I may be a medically certified nutcase; but I am not without pride. I am certainly not ashamed of my mental aberrations and I have pretty much learned how to live with who I am after 52 years of struggle. Fighting mental disease is a top sport that requires persistence, endurance and commitment until the last breath.
When I am on the edge of losing this battle I always remind myself of the fact that 80% of the misery on this planet is caused by people who consider themselves to be in good mental health.
