My Best Frenemies

Picture in your head a group of your closest friends. The ones that are indispensable, always hear you out - and also put you in your place when you get a "big head." You may have ten years invested in the friendship, or perhaps just ten months, but there's a palpable, close link between each other. It's not a rocky rapport or a fleeting bond, but something steady and enriching. These friends of yours, despite living far away from you, still remain in active contact with you and call you up to see how you are (regardless of whether it's your birthday or not...)

Now, of that cluster of great friends, how many of those did you really, really like when you first met them? How many of those buddies were somewhat obnoxious on the first impression? Did any unnerve you a bit when you started talking to them? If you've had the same experience as I have, then you've probably thought about these questions before. But don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining about the friends I have. I've actually been missing these people a great deal since I graduated college (when they all moved out to the West Coast), and so recently I've been thinking back to when I first crossed paths with them in such a misconstrued way...

In two separate situations, two girl friends of mine have told me that their initial impression of me was negative. Last year, my friend Becca revealed to me that, during a class we took together in college, she disliked me for actively participating in daily discussions. Although we sat next to one another, we never talked, and every day after class she'd complain about my "know-it-all" attitude to her housemate. Then, at one particular party, she came up to me and confronted me. We spent the night talking and dancing, and we quickly "clicked" and became friends, probably because she realized that her perception of me had been flawed.

Another girl friend, Mollie - with whom I lived with for an entire school year - told me soon after we moved in together that she straight up didn't like me when a mutual acquaintance of ours introduced us. She had mischaracterized my "jokester" nature and sociable demeanor as being self-involved and obnoxious. My personality has apparently been misinterpreted by a couple of my friends, but I have to admit that I have also formed incorrect opinions about most of them.

Case in point - on my first day of freshmen orientation in college, I had to attend a group meeting with fellow Communications majors. I didn't know anyone there, so everyone pretty much kept to themselves. Ten minutes into the meeting, a tall black-haired dude with black glasses walked in somewhat awkwardly and looked around for a seat. As everyone stared at him, he very ably made a wise-crack about him starting college on the wrong foot, and his affable nature clearly came through, making others laugh and smile. Yours truly, however, thought to himself, "Geez...who's this jackass? Who does he think he is, making everyone laugh like that?!"

That tall guy, Steve, ended up becoming one of my closest friends months after this initial encounter. He is very much one of those type of friends I categorized in the first paragraph above, yet my initial reaction to him was unabashedly narrow-minded and brash. So, much in the same way Becca and Mollie had misconceptions about me, I also had misconceptions about them (and Steve). These three people are some of the best individuals I know, but their upstanding true selves weren't enough to override my powerfully immediate "first impression" of them.

Why do we behave this way when we meet our "eventual friends" in situations like these? I think it's because their initial behavior and quirks resemble so much our own that we're instinctively wary of embracing their familiar personality, thereby putting our guard up as a defense mechanism. We're allured to, yet also somewhat threatened by, their innate quality - whether it's charming introversion or unabashed sociability - because they exude something identifiable to us. Either they remind us of ourselves ("Who do they think they are?! There cannot be someone else like me. I'm unique") or they show us the kind of person we aspire to be ("How do they pull that off?! What a guy/girl!"). That love/hate vibe we initially feel upon meeting our "eventual friends" becomes the link that cements the rapport. We immediately note their weaknesses because they're similar to ours, whereas their strengths make us want to get to know them better. The result therefore ends up being a satisfying one, if anything for the fact that people can start off disliking one another because of certain quirks or attitudes - and then have those same qualities be what endears them together...

Well...this is only on those lucky and very rare occasions. Usually people like this do end up being total dicks.