"I do that too."


I visited an old friend tonight - for those of you who remember my colorful introductions of all my MO friends, this is the Baptist minister's daughter. In highschool she was one of my closest friends, yet I wouldn't really have described us as very much alike. It is true that we both liked to debate, and we were both good students, and both in choir and French. So okay, there were some similarities. But only 1 of the 4 of those things is an actual personality marker. As a matter of fact, we enjoyed debating each other quite a bit because we often had very different perspectives on things.

Tonight, however, as we each discussed our boyfriends, lamented the inability of men to commit, discussed our future careers (she went straight into law school while I took a year off, so she's getting ready for her last year while I get ready for my first), and discussed our own foibles, we discovered that we really are very much a like. Funny, to be friends with someone for (*stops to calculate in head*) 9 years almost, and to just now realize how alike we are.

I'm not sure we always were this alike, is the thing. Where we found the most similarity was in talking about problems we have in relationships (how long do you wait around for a guy to decide he wants to marry you? Do you risk planning your life around someone who hasn't actually committed for certain? How do you handle planning a life together when both people are very attached to their homes - in two different and far apart states?) And in highschool our takes on dating were very different. I was like "just date around, have fun, even if you know you aren't going to marry this person - that's not the point at this time in life. You have to explore a little to figure out what you want." My friend on the other hand knew exactly what she wanted, and was going to put up w/ nothing short of what she wanted. So she didn't date. At all. In fact, this guy is her first boyfriend . . . and they're seriously talking about marraige. And hey, it worked out for her I guess - he is exactly what she wanted.

But it seems like time, and our life paths, have brought us back closer together. Our need for immediate resolution to arguments, for instance, is the same. And we apparently both have the very bad habit of taking a current action on the part of our boyfriend, projecting it into a future situation, and predicting that they will act in a way we don't like - and then essentially picking a fight about it. It sounds horrible when put that way, and as I said it is a very bad habit. But in our defense, we're both also committed by our religions to no divorce - once we marry, it's for good as far as we're concerned. So we're trying to head off problems before we get there, by trying to figure out how our partner will act in certain situations.

And we're both a bit "restless." She talked about how moving to VA for law school was just another move to her, because she's moved around quite a bit before that, both in state, and also she lived in reno for about six months. She said how she gets "itchy" sometimes to see new places. Her boyfriend on the other hand, has lived in one place his entire life and is extremely attached to that place andreally struggles with the idea of leaving it to be with her. She on the other hand, while as eager as I am to return to MO full time (because it really is a fantastic state that offers a great balance - this is why it's a swing state, because demographically and geographically its like a microcosm of the USA as a whole.), can certainly conceive of moving to be with him. Hmmmm, that sounds an awful like *my* life . . .

We hadn't kept in very close touch in the past few years, so I think we've both grown and changed a lot w/o the other really being around to see it. So it's a bit of a surprise to come back and see how much we are the same. Then again, maybe we were always very similar in the fundamentals and got distracted by the surface stuff which was more immediate.

It doesn't really change anything to have discovered this. But it's nice, all the same. Sort of a renewal of an old friendship, if you will.