The friendings

I block you

from all my cybernetic life reproduction sources.

Its not very dramatic in real life but than these days, much experience of life, people have is that which they gather and share trough the prism of technology and internet. Blocking someone is possibly the kick in the balls of real life. Any yet it must be done. It can be politely avoided, but I am one of those people who burns bridges.

I have a need for it. I need to blow the fucker up, and than watch the smoke and say now the bridge is burnt, even if this means I have to walk miles up water to cross the same river, but ultimately it forces me to create new paths, new relations, and more importantly just deal with the fact something is was not working for me and I must end it and start anew.

I am talking about  Friendship brake ups. We are all used to having a history of romantic brake ups in our lives, - the most decent way for things to end between two , is the break up, how ever ugly- rather than the vague corruption and very slightly noticeable , stretched over tedious amount of time auto destruction of a relation. The second is sickening. However most of the time the second method is what we apply in the case of a friendship which we have out grown, for what ever reason. 

I have several times in my life been in a friendship, which I start to feel is too intense, is suffocating and don't know how to stop it being so, I feel sad to end it.. Than I kind of continue socialising ,with less oomph, less frequently, but my gaging reflex is turned on often during these encounters, my suffocation/claustrophobia feeling is heightened, mixed in with joy at moments which are ok,- at their very being ok, and my being wrong for being so bothered by this up to than, close friend.

And than, upon this bundle of dead stuff mixed in with a little still sappy and green leaf, a spark flies, a situation, a perfect excuse, the fucking destiny , and the whole damn thing goes up in flames with smoke to be seen at a distance. The friendship, I mean, goes up in flames.

And do you know what I feel after wards? Relief. I feel like I can breathe. Like that is exactly what I needed.

Its not entirely logical or maybe it is. But this is a way a number of fast paced friendships, which became very close, very fast, very intense, and yet there are certain elements about that person or our relation , which are bugging, beeping, in the background, which seem utterly irrelevant, but bother, and eventually become of the utter relevance, and flip the whole thing, over and out.

I have wonderful friendships which have lasted decades without this happening.
I think it is intensity of a friendship, that bothers me. And jealousy, the moment I feel like that friend is boxing me into their "best friend " box, and this justifying their  being jealous of my time with other friends, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And these people do exist. Than I turn into a waiting bomb. I mean who has the right to be jealous of a friends hanging our with other friends , right?




The awful thing is, that I do sometimes regret the launching method with which I launched these people into space away from me.  My method is the cutting, clean, with a letter. The letter can be explanatory, of my reasons ,but contains acidic humour, with which I condescend  and provoke  the person enough to make them mad at me and want me out of their life too, right than and there, and the very act of their reading my letter is like signing a mutual ending agreement as by the time they have read it, it will be all over.



The worse thing is, that I have realised that no one disappears. I mean- I have lived in various countries, moved among a huge amount of people of whom many I will not remember the names of, but people do not disappear. People form where ever in the world, appear in your life more than once. So its really never a real end when you end things with a person, because in some context or other you will bump in to them and be forced to communicate against your own pride. Than you may regret having ended it with a "spark" or bad words.

Or what may happen is that after a long break, these people you liked years ago, than hated, than disliked, than did not mind, ,than had no contact, suddenly have something in common with you and you end up actually quite enjoying their company and surprising yourself.  Probably you will be more wary of the person, and it will never be as great a friendship as it once was but neither as chokingly intense.


There are friendships too which end with no burnt bridges, they end with an ice age. I have a friend who iced everyone in a circle, including me for a long while, until the ice melted, our methods may have something to do with our geographic root belonging, I coming form the fiery south needed to spice it, and her coming from the frozen north just freezing everyone. Her method has the advantage of not having insulted anyone directly. And than there are friendship's which just kind of solidify and still, than bouble like lava, unpredictably.



This project I have been painting has pushed me to get in touch with a lot of friends who just kind of disappeared due to "logistics". Geografic distance + life going on,  and time passing so quick , that we where far away from being able to update one another from the spot we last met. But than that special magic, which was relevant and attractive years ago, was just as relevant , the second we met even trough skype.  It was kind of amazing to feel a person after so many years.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that these millions of miles away friends can still be very relevant and present in our lives. Also if stuck in some sparse social context, you are not entirely stuck , as long as the internet is working. On the other hand once it all goes to pot, and you end up blocking someone wishing never to see them again, well you better face the fact one day you will unblock them all on your own accord, so prepare your pride today.

Never the less. Ahh it feel so dam good to burn that bridge sometimes. Who knows if something will or will not grow in the ashes later. A forest fire, makes space for a new forest to grow.