friend sixty-one.
January 30, 2012 at 1:49 am 4 comments
friend sixty-one, “beth prentiss,” is hard to write about. she’s someone i’ve always thought is really awesome and smart, but who i’ve also been pretty intimidated by. we went to new college together and she was a very vocal and fierce feminist, and as a shy, awkward, uncertain feminist, i was afraid of doing or saying things that were somehow unfeminist around her, especially because she was really pretty and i could barely handle myself around pretty peers.
one of the themes of many of these posts is how much i’d like to interact with the people i used to be somewhat intimidated by because i think i’d do a better job of actually talking to them, because i finally regard myself as equally human. friend sixty-one doesn’t live too far from me, so that makes it more possible than with some other people, i think. but then there’s also this weird fear that i’m just going to blab out all of the ways i’ve ever felt awkward and how glad i am to not feel that awkward, and what kind of conversation is that.
my dream conversation with friend sixty-one would be less about me or how relatively awkward or confident i feel, and more about big global issues as well as our grown-up perspectives on the weird reality that was new college. it also looks like she studied a subject that is currently dear to me, so that could be a good start, too.
a big part of the reason i’d like to be real friends with friend sixty-one is because even though she has an intimidating exterior, sometimes these expressions of sheer delight cross her face and that looks like fun.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: college, feminish, intimidating, shyness, smart, social justice, special education.
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Do you really know all those people? 
1.
Anarchist Girl Scout | January 30, 2012 at 3:17 am
I love that girl. I wasn’t ever intimidated by her, per se, but I wish we’d been better friends. I was too busy working to really bond with people I didn’t see all the time.
2.
cubbie | January 30, 2012 at 3:28 am
there’s always time.
(though it’s hard. this grown-up thing is hard for relationships.)
3.
Lisa H | January 30, 2012 at 4:32 am
Something just occurred to me about all these posts of yours.
Every quality that you recognize, affirm, and celebrate in someone else is a quality you also have in yourself. There’s a great discussion of the concept of “bright shadow” in a book called Dancing in the Dragon’s Den. Rosanne Bane explains it as delegating to the people you admire the ability to live out those qualities, rather than embracing them and acting on them in yourself.
Reading her book helped me to see how much I was doing that. It’s something I’m letting go of over time, and I’m much happier.
4.
cubbie | January 30, 2012 at 5:21 am
that’s interesting, lisa.
i don’t THINK i’m really delegating my friends with the abilities so that i don’t have to have them. i think i’m just trying to recognize all of their fabulousness… at the same time as recognizing my own fabulousness.
it’s funny because this morning i was thinking about how my writing is always on some level about the possibility of universality. as a shy awkward dorky person growing up, i got a lot out of livejournal in college, because i would write about things and people would say, “me, too!” and it was much less alienating. and part of the reason i continue to write and i put myself out there is because i think it’s important to find people who share similar experiences, and i write about the awkward ones a lot because everyone has awkward experiences and it helps to read about other people’s awkward experiences because it makes you feel less alone. but what i was thinking about this morning was something like… facebook archetypes? or wondering what types of relationships are common on facebook– the ex-co-worker, the past crush that knows you had a crush on them but things are cool now, the person you met that one time who you really wish you knew better… do we all have them? but your comment is reminding me that the elements of myself that i kind of magnify in this blog are the ones about me as someone who used to admire people because i was scared of myself, but who is actually pretty confident now. but maybe that scared self comes off more than i thought.