This essay is like a football match, it comes to you in two halves
Time
There is nothing new for me to tell you about time and the approach of ‘things’. I fully believe that given enough time, everything you seek will come. It is, of course, not lost on me how easily that sentence can be negated, so let me begin by addressing the obvious ‘but’.
Death.
A thought I have recurrently when people say things will get better is that for some people things never get better, they just die. They die waiting. To die waiting for things to get better feels incredibly depressing. Stories are most brutal when people don’t get to have a resolution; when they don’t have that simple moment at the end where things just work out and they finally catch a break. This is perhaps why so many old Nollywood movies followed that specific recipe: 80 minutes of misfortune and 5 minutes at the end where God answers all the prayers.
Things do get better but not all the time. Some people just die.
I used to be really afraid of death. Not so much afraid of dying, simply afraid of not existing. Death is scary, most scary when it is only around you. There was a day when I was in a cab at about 10 pm. We were driving through a lonely stretch of road and I remember thinking how easy it would be to be attacked by robbers or hoodlums. I remember thinking of them killing me and I remember thinking how relieved I would feel. That wasn’t my first thought, my first thought was that it would suck but soon after came a sort of acceptance. Not that I hoped to die but I thought that death wouldn’t be an incredibly terrible thing. I would no longer have to spend so much time stressed. In death awaits some form of peace. Maybe the kind of peace that is even equivalent to things getting better. In death, there isn’t the wait for something better. Death simply is. Sometimes death has its appeal.
Things do get better but not all the time. Some people just die.
People try to avoid ‘the depressing other’. People prefer to say the optimistic first possibility and ignore the other less appealing one. I think it is possible to acknowledge the depressing other and move to a place where that doesn’t simply mean you live in despair. I think that’s the fear, that entertaining the depressing possibility means you live in expectation of it. I understand it but I think you don’t have to run from realities that suck. I think you can know them, you can acknowledge something depressing and still find a reason to be hopeful. This is one way I like to think of my brand of hope, the unoptimistic one (I first wrote about it last year.)
So when I say that given enough time, everything you seek will come, I am not ignoring that for many people this is not true. In my mind, I imagine the two options
- That what you seek comes
- Or that you die and in death, you stop waiting.
Whichever one happens, I believe the statement holds true. And I believe this is one way to have hope.
P.s Yes, I do realise how unclear this idea sounds and how much room there is to disagree with it. I am still learning to communicate it. I think in time, that too will come.
The place of friendship
When I see jokes/memes about people reaching their talking stage* limit, I have the same thought. I was speaking to a friend about it recently and she echoed my sentiment. She felt the same way I did.
With another friend, I said,
“i hate this thing that exists between men and women who first start getting along”
She replied
“ Yes, the sexual tension”
It’s not the same phrase I use but when she said it, I knew she knew what I meant. There is this ‘we might date/x’ energy that seems to exist every time people start talking. I don’t know if it feels the same for homosexuals but being hetero, I find that this tension is everywhere. I don’t like it, I am not a fan of it, I am not looking for it. When people talk about how many talking stages they have been in and how tired they are, I think to myself ‘that’s because every time you start talking to someone, you think you might date.’
When I meet new people, I am genuinely only looking for friendship. It does not mean other things like ‘I don’t find them attractive or interesting.’ Those things can and do exist; but more than dating, the thing I am hoping for is a new friend. Friendship has more longevity, it is less brutal and I am much better at it than I am at the other. There is also the urgency of dating, dating means that certain things should come and be. Friendship is less urgent and often with enough time, all the things dating demands still come. It takes time. Dating often feels like it comes with some ultimatum, that it is or there is nothing else. Friendship does not, friendship simply is what it is and is able to be something else while still being the same.
Friendship can and often does feel demanding. A few years ago, I heard somewhere a quote that essentially went:
‘friendship isn’t about showing up all the time, it is about showing up when it matters.’
I think this is a solid philosophy. But there are friends I know will be there for me if there was ever an emergency but I barely ever talk to them. Sometimes, you just want to be with a friend, you don’t want them to only be there when you need them. You want them to be there because the sun rose or because it rained or because you felt like drinking coffee. You know they will be there if you were crying but you don’t want to wait for the next time you are sad before you get to see your friend. So there’s that about friendships.
Some people don’t want to make new friends. They have enough people to buy birthday gifts for already. So there’s also that
I think sometimes when I say I am better at friendships I am just confessing all the fears I have about dating — about the ultimatum of it. I don’t know what it is. For this half, I did not want to talk about dating and my fear, I wanted to talk about friendship and my love. But now I am thinking about the two. I wonder if the thing I think is love for friendship, the thing that makes me not like the idea of new interactions being talking stages, I wonder if that thing intersects with people who aren’t afraid of dating, that embrace it — want it.
I like that friendships are slow and unending. I like that about them. I like that with enough time, the things you seek in friendship come: softness, patience, familiarity, ease, warmth and certainty. They come in friendship and they never quite go away. I like that about them. But they come with dating too and they are more guaranteed? Expected? I don’t know anymore.
Whichever it is, given enough time, the thing you seek will come…
Talking Stage: The part of dating where you first start speaking to a person and getting to know them in expectations that you might end up in a relationship.
