A Curious Girl: Old friends like bookends

Psychology is driving me mad. Freudian theory makes practically everything you do into a repression technique or expression of an unconscious desire. At least we've finished it now! We are now doing eating disorders. Ooh, exciting :-). I think we are only doing anorexia and bulimia, which is a shame because I think compulsive eaters would be an interesting case. But people claim eating a lot is only a case of bad self-control. I wish they would go and read some Susie Orbach.

Oh well, I shall keep you posted. We're going to watch a video that is disturbing next week, so you'll probably get to hear all about Caraline. Apparently some people walk out because they can't take it anymore, but I don't like to do that. I'll try and watch it all, as Caraline was Claire Beeken's friend, and because of her, Claire went on to start a 'service' to help others with eating disorders. So Caraline might have saved some lives - she certainly had a part in saving Claire Beeken's.

It was embarrassing in psychology today. I seemed to be the only one who remembered any of the 'defence mechanisms' of the unconscious. Until the rest of the class warmed up, I had to answer most of the questions. I wanted to get psychoanalysis over and done with, but I didn't want to seem like a know-it-all (although I have to admit, I certainly identify with Hermione Granger). In some things I know I don't know very much, and it helps to remember these things when my head is in danger of exploding from swollen ego.

I think there must be something going on in all of the my friends' hormones. Everyone is depressed or stressed or just plain unbalanced. Including me. Must sort life out.

My new millennium resolution is this - to be more friendly and outgoing. When I was about eleven, I had just moved schools and out of my secure friendships, and on my own in a class of strangers, I felt extremely shy and unconfident. I felt bad about talking to people I didn't know, and appearing clingy when they were all quite happy in their friendships and making new friends so fast. I wasn't like that. Christina had moved to my school too, and after all our other old friends had drifted away, we remained friends because, in my case, I was too shy to make any others. I remained fairly good friends with a couple of old classmates, but it was Chris I went to, as she didn't appear to have many others either. I don't know why this was, but I think it was either because she was really clever (see point about know-it-alls) or because she was very Christian. Not that this is a bad thing, it can just put people off if you are clever as well, and a bit old fashioned, which Chris no longer is. And another reason we were friends was because I'd found Jesus at last, so it was school, Christian Union, then Girls' Brigade, then Church. Christina started going out with Richard, and then one day, for some reason I never found out, Sara hung around with us (because I was still clinging to Christina, because I had nowhere else to go and my only other real friends were Nicky, who wasn't my even my step-sister then (that actually sounds weird! She is so my sister now) and the girls at GB, who I wasn't really very popular with. I am more a one-on-one person, and that is how I become good friends with people. GB is a group thing, so I don't relate to those peeps as well. So, not being in a particularly vulnerable position (this is when I am at my loudest - my confidence is suddenly amazing) as I was with two friends (well, one friend and one kind-of) I made a jokey remark to Sara. At lunch, we were discussing shaggy dog stories and I said that Soul Music by Terry Pratchett, a most excellent book, is a brilliant, but really long shaggy dog story. Pratchett was my obsession then, which is odd as Chris hadn't even read any! Sara laughed, and agreed with me; seeing me safely with a friend, Christina left with the then love-of-her-life, and realising choir wouldn't be on, as it was the last week of term, (Spring, I think) Sara and I hung out and discovered we had lots in common. Or at least Pratchett - that helped us hang on until we could establish a proper friendship. Gemma usually hung out with Sara (what an odd expression, 'to hang out') so I became friends with her, and this is how my friendship circle expanded. Nicola C, in my class, got pushed around by 'friends' in Year Nine, and so I was nice to her. Then she became good friends with another Gemma, and kept encouraging me to talk to her more. For this, I am grateful, and if I ever remember whem she pays us one of her 'visits', I shall thank Nicola. Nicola realised that Gemma is an entirely more engaging person than I am (probably because we have so little in common; views of love, life, taste in music, films, practically everything. Our only similarity really was estranged fathers) and she started to want to sit next to Gemma. So Gemma's rejected seat partner, Elaine, ended up with me, and her being much more sensible (IMO) and less obnoxious that Nicola C could be (she used to have a go at me when my school report was vastly better than hers), I stuck with Elaine, who I sit next to even now in registration and Chemistry. I don't know how she feels about the deal, but she is in general a nice person to have around, if a little withdrawn - more so than I could be! Mum can't work out how I got a quiet, sensible, hard-working friend. Developing onwards, I got to know more people in different classes, and so was more confident to speak out, but I still have my habit of being a loner from eleven to get rid of. I am still a bit nervous around people I don't really know, but I am improving. Making friends with all of Sara's friends helped! I have lost most of my loner image, partly through mixed form classes, getting to know more people, partly through just simply making more friends. I don't feel so embarrassed to go up to people I hardly know anymore, although I tried talking to some people in my form, going up to their group to join in the conversation, and I felt a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge going to his nephew's house to have dinner... With established friends I am OK, but I am very tentative making friends. So that is my new millennium resolution, and my reason for it. Did you find that interesting? I hope so. I want to conquer my shyness. Hopefully I'll also get a boyfriend in the process :-)

This is why the internet is so good for me. I don't feel so vulnerable, so I can make friends much more easily.

Aren't friends wonderful?

Random word for today:

<< last entry ... next entry >>
top of page

Give food for free.