I know that often my journal entries are based around relationships whether it's friendship or more. But I feel as though I can write about relationships often and not feel as if I'm exhausting the topic, simply because every single day, every single person on this planet is building relationships. These relationships could simply be from the ground up, meeting new people, acquaintances, if you will. They could be building onto a prior acquaintance-ship into a friendship, they could even be building onto a friendship to something that is buried deeper into the ground, taking complete root and flowering. Then of course there's the ever present marital status, relationship status, the boyfriend girlfriend whatever whatever scenario. Every single day, every single second people are making connections.

Some people simply don't even know what the difference is between an acquaintance and a friend, I'll give it to you in the easiest way possible, an acquaintance is someone you know by sight, but you don't necessarily have any type of 'intimate' relationship with them, a friend would be the next step up, usually this is someone you generally give a shit about at least a little bit. It's sort of funny, friendship, the things that bring people together, the teeny tiny things that establish some sort of common ground between people that manage to let something completely awesome blossom out of say, a common interest in cheese danish from Panera bread. Am I speaking too plainly here? Bottom line is, relationships never start off all that complicated, we as human beings are the ones that bite the proverbial apple and screw it all up. I'm going to speak here about what I know best and that's myself, the rest of this isn't going to be from some psychology book or some crap I googled, it's all personal experience and if you don't give a crap then that's fine, you can take yourself to the red box on the left if you're on a mac or the red box on the right if you're on a PC.

If you know anything about me at all, even as an acquaintance then you know that I am one of those people that will literally talk to anyone about probably anything. I have this kind of bad habit with oversharing and if you've ever talked to me before I'm about 87% sure that I've probably overshared with you in some sense. I guess that's my natural way of filtering out the riff raff from the get go, so to speak. I talk a lot and if you seriously can't handle it, then that's fine, I'm not everyone's cuppa and I don't expect everyone to love me. I think for me, what everything comes down to is honesty. I like to think of myself as a very open and honest person and as of late, I've gotten even more so. I'm not afraid anymore in anyway, shape or form to state my opinion. If you're doing something I don't like, it's likely that I'll let you know. I guess that's what happens when you start to grow up, right? I'm a fan of active conversation, I mean, who isn't, right? You'd think that as people, we're generally wired to communicate with others, but some people honestly aren't. An active conversation isn't necessarily measured by equal give and take or by matching character limits, To me, it's common sense, question and answer, statement and repercussion, When a relationship is mostly played out via the internet or via text, how is it that you can relay emotions? It's not hard, but if I'm explaining something to you, or telling you something I'm excited about then how am I supposed to know you're listening if your responses are never more than a simple 'oh' or 'ok' or 'cool' have some emotion in what you say or just don't I bother. If I care about you enough to tell you something slightly intimate about my life, it means I value your input and your opinion, and if you say you do, then at least give me a worthy response. Let me know you're listening, people!

When it comes to best friendships, we're already way past the honesty issue, I've probably told you about more than you honestly care to know, but for some reason you still don't really mind and in fact, you've probably told me some pretty unscrupulous things yourself and you know what? I probably love you for it. I love a good set of cajones if you know what I mean. We come to each other for advice, or even just an ear or someone to confirm that you in fact aren't crazy, at least in the general sense. I talk you listen, you talk I listen, it's great, this thing we have, right? But what happens when shit goes down the tubes sometimes? Do you back off and get downgraded? Well, if you wanna put it that way, sure, but most anyone that even gets to this 'level' of friendship with me knows better. If you just pull away, nothing is going to get better, if it's on my end, it's generally better to say something about it, because if you wait for me to notice, sometimes it's a bit too late. If it's something that bothers me on your end? You'll likely know very quickly. I think with any relationship, constructive 'fighting' is good. If you just end up shouting at each other then no ones point gets across and you end up saying things that you honestly don't mean and it just makes everything about a million times worse. Instead, just talk like you always do, talk about the issue at hand versus your own individual problems. You might think that's just stuff for you and your significant other but let me tell you, it works when you're just friends too.

I know this is super long, but I have to go with it when I feel it and something just inspired me tonight. I've learned that in life without risk there is no gain and without hard work there are no results. Life is beautiful if you let it be. Take what you will from this, but I hope that it could maybe inspire someone to open up their own mind, heart or life to start something new or build on something already existing. I'm not perfect, no one is, but that's life and I love every single drop of it.