to thine own self...

at nearly 31 years old (two months today!), i find myself, once again, asking myself the question, "who are you?"

i finally gave in and joined the newest rage in friendship communities online. i had two invitations to join so now i have two friends. i sent out some invitations (five) so i might have a total of seven friends by the end of the week. i decided to see who else was on that i knew might be. i searched some people by the school tool. first, my highschool. only four people came up from my graduating class (one of them, an ex-boyfriend) but they were all "friends". everyone had at least 50 friends.

i then searched individual people whom i knew would be into this sort of thing. sure enough, there they were. one had 115 friends; another had 91.

as i logged off the site after a few minutes of poking around, i thought to myself that there was no way i'd ever have that many people as my "friends" on the site because: a) i don't know that many people who i would be "friends" enough with to ask to be on there; and b) of my friends who i do like enough to be on there, majority of them don't use these kinds of online communities.

this whole 20 minute experience got me thinking about what kind of person i am and am i happy that way?

on the one hand, i'd love to have pages and pages of friends' faces and profiles to scroll through and in turn, being able to see their friends and connections.

on the other hand, i find it tiring just thinking about having to keep up with all of the connections - i know and am chummy with a lot of people but only a handful of them would i spend any time with. and why would it matter to me if i had 10 friends or if i had 100 friends on this site? i don't spend a lot of time with upkeep on these type of sites anyway. it would just be for everyone else to see that i have lots of connections. i know what kind of connections i have; does it matter to everyone else?

and so, once again i'm faced with questioning who i am - really. am i the social loner who will only come out to play and have fun with people i've deemed true friends? or, am i the shy, wannabe-socialite who desperately wants to have a busy life but can't come out of her shell?

i know the answer and 99% of the time, i'm happy and very comfortable with who i am. but every once in awhile, about 1% of the time, i wish i was "out there", experiencing life in a way that, 99% of the time, makes me feel trapped and tired.

the 1% days are very hard to deal with sometimes. and objectively speaking, the people that cause me to second-guess my nature are generally people that i don't have any desire to be friends with anyway. but often, they are the "fun" people who everybody likes because they are fun. one girl i work with (and don't get me wrong - i like her and she's a "fun" girl) said to me one evening out (the night we all went to the casino), "you don't drink; you don't smoke; you don't gamble. what do you do? do you fuck at least? geez!" she laughed in good fun but i must say the comment hurt a bit. apparently, vices make you fun. that's probably why i don't hang out with her and A when they invite me - they're not enough like me. there aren't enough similar substances among us.

that being said, i definitely had a 1% weekend last saturday. i haven't stayed out until 5 in the morning since Walang Hiya - Mazatlan. hmm... 99 more weekends to go until the next one, i guess. :)