My very own "friendship" article

"I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody."

- Benjamin Franklin

What can someone expect on Tuesday 13^th? In Greece they consider it as a jynxed day where people shouldn’t be going out much and rather stay home, cuddling and watch television for avoiding any kind of social dispute.

I don’t believe in superstitions. But I surely believe in how people affect your mood when times are not so bright in the country we live in.

I am so irritated by everything that is happening in Greece and more specifically the impact it is having on my social circle; What I see is that when friends are supposed to stand by each other and help each other when the dark days come, they rather turn their backs and focus on every non sense issue they have in their very own private life. In other words, what I see is pure egotism.

"Egotism is the aesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity." - Frank Leahy

Many of us have spent many hours of our days trying to console, cheer up and even talk some sense into our friends. They may have been through hell and back, or they may be simply in a bad mood and hence exaggerating; still, you make sure to always focus on their problem and try to resolve it as smoothly as possible. I am sure every one of us tries to do so for their peers but some just “lose control” and make the whole matter about you. Or worse, you just nod mecahnically because you are thinking of other stull like how you are going to spend your time at night.

Let’s get more specific. I have had strong friendships all over the world (actually no, just in London, Beirut and Athens) and every year I realize how complex it is getting as we grow up and how exploitation becomes more and more common amongst your friends.

"I don't trust him. We're friends." - Bertolt Brecht

So, as a 25 year-old-not-that-patient person I have figured some ways to not get disappointed and rather move on without giving any importance to what has happened between a friend and me.

First and foremost, be sure you are righteously irritated. Sometimes we get too sentimental and confuse the whole matter (especially when girls PMS). You may be the one who is “awfully” wrong.

Second, be sure to have several groups of friends. If you hang out with the same crowd daily, you are more prone to fight with each other. Your group of friends and your acquaintances should be thoroughly separated so you can interact with as many as possible and in different styles of locations.

Also, make sure to have a hobby. You have no idea how annoying it is to have people calling you from the moment they wake up to the time they get out of the house bugging you on what are the plans for tonight. Having a hobby takes out a lot of your energy (in a good way of course, except if your hobby is selling drugs in the ghetto) and makes you love staying home: Be your own best friend. Be the inner best friend who is always there to protect you, chat or chill out with you, care and love you unconditionally. Life provides us of constant reminders that ourselves is the essence to everything.

Kids hang out with themselves by having an imaginary friend which help them find the ”always-dependable best friend of love, friendship and happiness”  within themselves

Read. Read articles, the paper, the news, tabloids or even Freud. Sometimes focusing on the rich and famous’ lives enhances your mood. Who doesn’t laugh to the Kardashian’s lame fights or to Britney Spears’ weird mood swings?

Never ask the stupid, stupid question: “How could you do that to me?” Frankly, it is futile. This person you are facing is probably a bitch / bastard and if he/she is worth a second shot (which usually doesn’t) he/she will be strong on apologies (if he actually says sorry; because we have a tendency to be very selfish for no reason at all). I don’t agree with Elton John saying that “sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Sorry is sorry: when you mess up big time with a person you love the least you could do is apologize. But again, I agree with the saying: "Friendship is delicate as a glass, once broken it can be fixed but there will always be cracks"

“Being sorry is the highest act of selfishness, seeing value only after discarding it." - Douglas Horton 

Stop being a hypocrite just to show how awesome you are. You have to be a big actor to keep hypocrisy going on. Eventually, you’ll get busted and then you’ll be so lonely that your second self will be your only friend. 

When a friend tells you an ugly truth don’t get offended. It is one of the main reasons why you have friends and family around you: For example if a good friend of yourse doesn’t not like your crowd there probably is something out there that looks fishy. It’s not always about being jealous (although in many female friendships, jealousy is a main reason for fighting).

NEVER and I truly say, NEVER accuse a person of doing or saying something you have said or done too like for example gossiping about you. I have friends who were talking behind my back for ages. Few months later, I was tempted to do the same and they did a whole fuss about it. People don’t understand how much it hurts until their own self is faced with it.

Don’t get me wrong… Friends are wonderful people. They help you in the obstacles you face daily, they make you laugh, entertain you, cry with you when you are sad. All this is what makes friendship so special: Altruism, being there for the other person, forgetting what your own issued and focusing on your friends’. This people are thos that keep us going and grow stronger every day. 

There are now a dozen of people in my life that I consider friends and as I grow up there is a strong possibility this number will decrease even more but I am happy with it, because with each relationship that fades away comes a whole new set of concepts on human bonds and perhaps you will meet other people more suitable to your every day life. Just remember: True Friendship is like ghosts: everybody talks about it, but few have actually seen it.

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others." - Albert Camus

Are you a good or a bad friend? Take the quiz! http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Friendship-Quiz-Are-You-a-Good-Friend-or-a-Bad-Friend

Dear Santa,

2011 was a rough, rough year for most of us. Christmas time has finally come and everyone is trying to embrace the festive spirit and plan to have a good time.

Many things have made this year disappointing but the most essential one for me is the chaos occurring in Syria, my country of origin. It kills me seeing that all these patriots of mine are getting killed, their children taken away and their houses falling apart. It is unfair and I would want to see it stop because this conflict is turning into a civil war. Syria is a beautiful country with a large history and its citizens should be alive and healthy in the year to come to see it rise again with the help of its historical sites and loveable people. Thus, at night, after your scheduled trip around the chimneys of the world, please spend some more time in Syria for spreading some common sense into the local political leaders; make this one person provoking all of it fly far away.

The second thing I would want to see change is all of the Greek government. Really, I don’t understand how corrupt can a European country be. Nothing is right. Greece could be the world’s number one destination for all kinds of tourists: rich or poor, young or old, party animals or couples. Unfortunately, this country’s assets are not being put forward by the relevant people. At the point where we are today, I am afraid the wait for a better life is going to be very, very long. The funny thing is that all of the young generation says the same thing: “we should be more aware, spend less, save more, care more, work, reconsider our priorities etc.” but in practice, most of them are still lazy, scared to take responsibilities and comfortably seated in Business class, traveling towards bankruptcy. Santa, this country has adopted me, taught me how to live and socially exist; don’t let the 300 parliament losers drown it along with their self esteem.

Another thing I would want to see not disappear per se, but at least have less impact on some people’s lives: Facebook. It is a problem and a sin in itself. I have an account, you have an account (I can’t find it but I am sure it is there somewhere) but we all hate it; yet, we can’t seem to get away from it. I have had lots of shocks since the creation of facebook but learned to live with it and moreover, mock the blocks, the likes, the unlikes, the requests and all this jargon people mention in conversations (e.g.: Oh-my-God, he blocked me but then he sent a friend request to his ex he had deleted last year who added him back and even liked his picture and now their status is “in a relationship”!). Get over it, shit happens. Even so, let me say this: Dear Mr. Mark Zuckerberg, despite the fact that you are a Jewish, redhead and awkward, you happen to be a genius, a billionaire and an “ex - nothing” who has managed to change a whole planet’s routine. Please marry me.

Oh Santa, if only you knew how irritated I am not only on a large scale perspective but also in my every day interaction with people. The past year, I have noticed more hypocrisy, selfishness and lies around me than never before. I believe that mankind has reached a point where it became God’s major disappointment. Every one lives for themselves and altruism has become an endangered term. I wish we could all give a little bit more, even if it is a simple smile or just an innocent advice. Let me be a little bit more specific (please consider my age and sex):

• Friends lie to each other because of a conflict of interest (e.g.: An ex friend talked trash behind my back so I stopped talking to her; she is throwing a party; my best friend went and never told me).  
• Friends (badly) lie about how good and happy they are in the hope of believing it themselves
• Men lie because they are cowards, insecure and can’t embrace the idea of having a perfectly good relationship with a woman: They have to mess it up somehow.
• Women, especially those married to wealthy men are getting into depression and put themselves in a miserable position for no reason at all leading them to cheat on a good husband.
• Husbands, wives, fiancées, fiancés, girlfriends, boyfriends: they all cheat more and seek for sexual satisfaction elsewhere than in the bed of their (supposedly) loved ones (The number of marriages that took place in the EU in 2009 was around 2.3 million, while around 1.0 million divorces recorded in 2010, according to Eurostat).
• Women going out are more slutty (yet, attractive) than ever trying to impress and act like they own it when in real life it is not the persona they should be attributed with.
• All of us acting enthusiastic when we bump into a random acquaintance while doing our Christmas shopping and emphasizing on how necessary it is to go for coffee and share each other’s news when in reality, we had forgotten this person still existed.
• Childhood friends who after becoming successful business partners stabbing each others’ backs for money.

These are few of the things that bother me in a small - scale perspective and that I would love to see change in the next year to come or at least make them less obvious.

Santa, I know it’s been a long letter and loads of complex requests that you will have to spend a lot of time on but I have a final one: I would like to find a generous man and establish a healthy relationship that will have more joy than sadness, more affection than jealousy and more laughs than fights. I am not looking for “Lord Perfect” but rather, I someone who respects me and who has an idea about where I come from and where I am going. It may not be my future husband, but at least, I would know that there are some men out there that have self esteem and that have heard of the word “honesty”.

If you have time, please find such a man for all of my single girlfriends because they all deserve someone good that can make them wake up in the morning with a big smile on their face.

On what concerns my single male friends, I see them very happy with celibacy and would not include them in my Santa Claus letter.

Thank you Santa for the time you took in reading and processing the elements of my letter. I also have a list with material goods that you can procure from the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Bloomingdales in New York and Harrods’ in London (at your own convenience).

Give my regards to the elves, the reindeers and of course Mrs. Claus.

Best Regards,

Tamara.   

    

A POEM TO END THE DAY..

http://www.firstgatedreamer.com/images/20100909021105_dsc_6344-one-way-love.jpg

Whenever you need me,

I am always there for you,

In my eyes you can see

Passion and love going through

What do you give me in exchange?

Everything that can make me blue

Many lies combined with rage,

That really makes me see flu.

Shall I continue satisfying you

Or shall I leave and ignore you too?
There’s nowhere else I would be okay,

In your arms I feel I’m safe.

There is where I want to lay,

Every day and every night,

After every single fight,

There is where I want to sway.

You may say I’m an ignorant,

You may say I better go pray,

This love was an incident,

But it’s too late to walk away.

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL WHO IS THE HAPPIEST OF THEM ALL?

"I Like the way it hurts", she whispered to him softly.

When cold invades the place, everyone breaks up and hooks up again for spending the winter cozy by the fireplace with their partner. But are they really in love?

I’ve come to realize that men often remain in a relationship out of pity or boredom. Women on the other hand remain in it out of habit, to boost up their confidence or have someone to nag at night. And then, they both are caught up in the whole social pressure that ends up being nothing but a superficial love life.

They may not talk anymore and may have drifted apart and forgotten the meaning of the “I love you” phrase.  In the world we live, each one of us is so confused with our ego, we forgets there is someone close by that is waiting with his / her arms open to save him / her. And that someone is not always the person you are socially and emotionally associated too. If you are lucky, it may be and in that case you don’t have to look for him / her.

Couples get used to having sex; Love and passion and all those popping hearts around you two will eventually go away. And what remains? Respect, most importantly. When looking for your soul mate, you are looking for the one who will hold your hair when throwing up, squeeze your hand when hurting, kiss you softly letting you know tomorrow will be a better day, the one who will bear your baby. A life partner should know where you come from, how you have been raised; He should never dare verbally or physically violate you. If he does and yet you see the good in him, either make him a better man or change countries.

23.6% of Greek women declare that she knows  a woman from their related and/or friendly environment that it has suffered or is suffering from incidents of domestic violence from the spouse/intimate partners

In theory, we all know that. We all believe that respect within a couple is important, essential and vital (three words that mean the same, but repetition won’t hurt) but what happens when our theory and practice start growing apart? That is, when you know you are seeking respect, but remain with someone who doesn’t give you any.  

I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. A friend of mine went to Guadeloupe for six months to get over his break up with his fiancé after she cheated on him. Another one is seeing a psychotherapist for over two years now. Others lock themselves up until they feel they can love again. There are other extreme cases where people (mostly women) attempt to end their life. It depends on the strength we have and most importantly, on how much we know about emotional competence.

Beautiful women tend to fall madly in love with weird, ugly, scary and socially awkward men. This, I don’t get it. I know the feeling, I have done it too long time ago, but I still don’t get it. A woman may have everything to feel comfortable in her skin and mind (i.e.: financial support, a career, a home, family, friends, etc.) and yet, she feels the need to be loved by this ONE man that has proven he is not the actual ONE; But she believes he is helping her with her confidence boost.

Masses tend to label us according to the way we see ourselves; The stronger we feel the more they respect us

It’s a cruel world out there and human relationships are becoming harder. You never know who to trust, who is your friend and who is taking advantage of you. So when it comes to romance, it is even harder. And the only people you can turn to are your friends, the ones you have known since school and that have confirmed they are truly awesome. Even so, when it comes to choose between the boyfriend and the friends, we often go with our emotional instincts and pick the boyfriend.

We women must start to play it a bit smarter and put some boundaries on what is asked by our dear man or future lover. It’s all about education. Start cutting yourself some slack, feel the power invested in you and act out. If he leaves, he never was there; if he stays, he will be the father of your child.

Imagine you are in the situation where all the bad things of a relationship happened to you: He acted like a jerk and you are now coping with the betrayal, the violence or anything else he might have done. First and foremost, I will start by the cheesy: “You live and you learn”. Next time it won’t happen, you would have pulled the trigger before he opens his mouth.

YOUR Happiness is what makes you wake up in the morning with a smile.

In order to learn, you must first leave. Get rid of the old ruins and start building a palace of your own. You probably won’t miss him; you will miss the person you thought he was.

La crainte du danger est mille fois plus terrifiante que le danger present (Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe)
The fear of danger is a thousand times more terrifying then the danger itself.

You have to understand that by losing this one man, one love or one whatever-it-was-you-had, you are gaining a new social life, more time with your friends, more time with your own self and most importantly the chance to meet a person worth your time with a whole new dimension to it.

ONE is a lonely number; but at least, you are on top.

Cheer up. Really, stay positive and think further about every situation you are in. If I were to give one word of advice: Drink to all those nights that turned to mornings and all those friends that turned to family; it will probably keep the darkness away for a bit.

Friends are like angels: you don't have to see them to know they will prevent you from falling.