Expectations

A couple of days ago I talked to my friend and we ended up on the topic of expectations. Life is filled with expectations whether we like it or not; in terms of family, friends, goals and ourselves. Lately my main focus is toward my friends and my bullshit internship. In terms of friends, I guess I am in a way a little melodramatic. I want my friends to unconditionally do things for me or be there for me without asking why, which in a way I thought it is what I am doing for them now. I guess I fantasized the whole thing like it is on TV. Even the lyrics of songs make its wonderful, you know the "I'll catch you when u fall; I'll be there when u need me". But then I realized that its really untrue. There are no such things. There is always this boundary or limitation to what friends can do and it has disappoint me again and again. The problem is I dont know why I keep hoping and keeping these standards.

During my birthday period one of my friends called me up. "Are u going to do anything for your birthday?" she asked. "No, not really" "Well if u are not then I'm just not going to take off from work. U know how hard it is for me to take off" But then later when her two years anniversary with her so called broken up already boyfriend came up, she took off. When her stonybrook friends called her to go out and karoke, she took off. And even when a lesbian girlfriend called her and tried to reach her all summer, she took off. And my other friend? Well she also just called to say happy b-day. Claims that she cant take off and she spends those two free days with her boyfriend. The third friend called, realized that Im not going to have any plans for the day, said ok and bye bye. And later claims that she was planning a gathering for me the weekend after but since the other friend did not return her call, she gave up too.The fourth one totally forget about it. And these people are suppose to be my close friends? They dont even know how much a birthday means to me. Its probably the only day of the year when I get to realize that maybe life is special after all. The last twenty years were well worth it. Instead, it ended up with me thinking and reevaluating this whole friendship thing. BUt dont get me wrong. There were special people that came up and celebrated my birthday and I cant possibly say how relieve I feel. I hate to say this, but if they didnt even show up, i think i would seriously cry.

So my friend asks, "why do you have expectations? Why can't you be glad that friends take the time off to care about u and be appreciative?" But thats not what I'm made of. To me the definition of friends is people who have gone broken through my barriers and sort of signed an imaginary contract to be there for u physically and spiritually. In another words thats when expectations come in to play. If u are closer to me, I sort of have a higher expectation of u and so forth. I would hope that u understand me and when I need to burst, I have someone to burst to. And not to mention that someone needs me. That I could go on knowing I can provide happiness and comfort to someone too, that I'm important for once.

Finally as I look back I feel really bad. The friend who cant go study abroad has medical reasons to not go and all I could say was for her to think rationally and not let anyone influence her. In the end I realize that I didnt give a friends argument for her to not give up and really pursue her dreams which was going there. I didnt let her know that her presence can be important too. Looking back, I can imagine her feeling a little lonely. I think I would have felt it too. It was too rational, calculating and impersonal. In a way, I hope she reads this. Maybe then I can apologize to her this time from a friend.