after the big volleyball fiasco of monday night, i decided to sub for a team that needed another player tonight. at least i get to play a little this week. but my back has been killing me. killing me. not sure at all what’s going on here, but man, it hurts.

i’m not so sure what this team’ll be like. i’m hoping that they’ll be cool.

we’ll see.

—–

after finding out on monday that i was disqualified i was pretty bummed out that i couldn’t play and i was hanging out on the sidelines. my friend was talking to her teammate.

teammate: how come your friend isn’t playing?
friend: oh, his name wasn’t on the roster, so he got disqualified.
teammate: oh, that sucks.
friend: yeah, he’s pretty bummed out about it.
teammate: well if it makes him feel any better, you can tell him that i think he’s cute.
friend: oh yeah? he told me at the beginning of the season that he thought you were cute too.
teammate: oh…i’m taken.
friend: oh.

does it really make one feel better that they are told that they are cute if the person who is telling you this has no intention of dating you? that’s not much consolation for me. sure, that’s like saying to a starving man, oh, there’s a lot of food right over there in the next room, but you can’t have any…but the food is really good.

what i really need are hot, single women to tell me i’m cute who are looking to date me.

yeah. that would be fun.

—–

i have a friend who i think it pretty cool and hanging out with them is always an enjoyable experience. we quickly became friends and we get along great. some people get the wrong idea that something may be up between us, but this is probably the farthest from the truth. we’re just friends. she is just a friend.

i have another friend who i thought we were closer. we have gone through a lot together and our friendship over the years have grown to what i thought was a very strong bond. she understands me, even the most subtle of behaviors she can pick up on and understand my mood. she’ll know when something is bothering me when no one else will. she’ll know when i’m really happy and when i’m really sad and she’ll know how to make me feel better about it when i am down.

what i’m starting to realize though is that just because someone understands you through and through, it does not mean that you are very close friends. when asked in high school what i was looking for in a relationship, i used to say i want to meet someone who understands me better than i understand myself. i used to think that that was the fundamental quality that separated friends from girlfriends.

but i’m beginning to see that just because someone understands you at that level isn’t a reflection of the nature of your friendship. maybe i’m just very easy to read. i think that i did confuse that kind of understanding with some kind of deeper bond. i think that it is the case that a strong friendship would have this level of understanding, but it isn’t true that just because you have that level of understanding that you have a strong friendship.

but she and i…well, she’s just a friend. not a best friend, just one that seems to understand me.

it’s something that i’m trying to understand and accept. it’s just weird. i’ve never had that kind of a friendship before.

different people deal with hardship in different ways. i used to think that when someone experiences a great hardship in life, though it may be a particularly trying time for them, after they get through it, they are a better person because of it. maybe it develops a strength in their character, maybe it matures them, maybe it gives them a new perspective on life.

but more and more i’m beginning to realize that this is not the case. just because you experience hardship doesn’t mean that you will necessarily learn anything from it, nor will you be a better person…in fact, it may just make you more jaded, cynical, and unpleasant than ever before.

i think that it is a matter of perspective. some of us feel that we are owed certain things in life and if we don’t get these things, the world is wrong. it’s hard for me to understand how people can walk around thinking that the whole world is out to get them, that there is some kind of implicit conspiracy against them and that the design of the world is created in such a fashion that it is against them. what kind of grand design would it require to have the world specifically targetted to make your life miserable?

how you deal with hardship, how you deal with situations really shape the perceptions of one’s world. it’s a shame to see people disappointed with what they’ve got and believe that they have no control to make things better for themselves.