IAMT #11: Self-Serving Friendship

blame it on my brain chemistry

A lot of the vitriol I ever develop towards my friends stems from an intrusive thought ingrained in me that screams, “I will not unconditionally love my friends”. The anger comes from an inner conflict of being unable to find satisfaction within the relationship; I’m pissed when I feel like I’m getting less than I’m owed, though content otherwise.

I’m not good at letting thoughts escape me (hence the neurotic need for a blog and a journal chock-full of complaints) and there are plenty of old friends I haven’t talked to in years that I still think about on a semi-frequent basis. Not wanting anymore to fall into that classification in my head, cue my high school friends.

I’d like to say I’ve served as a historian of sorts for the lot of them; I’ve been collecting random videos of them, formally interviewing them on camera, and now, finally, editing it all together into a gargantuan, structured home video. This is the second entry in the series of home videos, with the first being completed in 2019.

Nearing a decade out of high school, I’ve drifted apart from them for sure, only seeing most of them less than a handful of times per year and only talking one or two more times beyond that.

I’ve been loosely preparing for this project for years. Years. Combining clip collection, filming, editing, and even writing this fucking blog post, it’s taken me likely over 100 hours to complete. At times, all the effort put in felt meaningless and I would grow silently resentful. What do I expect of them? Bare minimum in my opinion, but I digress. This was for them, wasn’t it?

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I was spending so much time on this project, watching my HS friends talk for hours, to the point I felt like I was developing a parasocial relationship with them. An odd epiphany I had was when I was complaining to my sister about this. She was questioning why I was doing this at all - if they didn’t care enough, fuck it, they don’t deserve a home video.

There was a self-serving reason keeping me going, and I remembered a friend had once told me I was their only close friend who knew them at a pivotal period in their life.

Since then, I’ve been nervously contemplating: do I keep certain friends close because they’re a part of a history I don’t want to lose? Similar to what my friend said, I have many friends who are the last human remnants from specific chapters of my life. Without them, there would be no one to remember it with, no one to validate my story. No one to prove that I even existed at that time.

It checks out. As I said at the beginning, I’m a hoarder of memories and stories. I collect and record profusely, and this video editing project seems to be no different. My HS friends are a part of my past that I refuse to let go of. So documenting them and stitching it together with the narrative of my choosing must be what I find easier than confronting the dread I feel when imagining myself growing indifferent to them.

This video is for me, in the future. This is the lens in which I saw my friends and a time capsule to remember this part of my life. Or all of this is just a giant cope that I’m using to get me across the finish line, since the deadline is coming up in a few days. Whatever keeps me sane in the final stretches.

At the very least, it’s helped me come to terms with the idea that I’ll hold myself responsible to the role of scribe within that group of friends as long as they provide me the content to do so.

To my high school friends, whom this video is for: thank you for being around to remember parts of our shared past that I wouldn’t ever want to live without.

finale on friends soon,

- chib

[en 1]: debated uploading this since I wrote it during a low-point while grinding out the home video. Part 3/4 of friendship was supposed to be completely different, but I read this to a friend who liked it and that encouraged me to go through with it

this internal conflict about friendship i have is something i struggle with a lot. it’s not healthy and the baseline i’m trying to work towards is that of a secure, stable affection. but in times of crisis, thoughts like these boil over. This post captures that brief moment of frustration that comes with close relationships.

[en 2]: changed the style of the blog to essentially “dark mode”. we’re in a movie theater after all.