Being my friend is a tiring endeavor. Putting up with my hit-and-miss jokes, struggling through my long-winded, rambling anecdotes and persevering through my attempted alternative choice of music. I’m not a particularly defunct human being and I do have some good qualities, just ask my parole officer (an early example of the mediocrity of my hilarity).
Despite these debilitating flaws I have managed to acquire a rag-tag group of friends over the years. Each of these come with their own flaws. Some are angry, rude, arrogant, short-tempered, bad-mannered, anti-social, over-enthusiastic, lazy, childish and some are even from London. Nevertheless, being the incredibly accepting human being that I am, I have learnt to accept them for these shortcomings because that’s what makes society works. Nobody is perfect and we all need friends.
Back to my original statement – being my friend is a tiring endeavor and I should know. I spend every single second with me. I’m there when I wake up, I’m there when I go to work, I’m there when I go to sleep so I am fully qualified to reach this conclusion. I am exhausting and hard work. Rather than ponder why I have any friends at all (don’t particularly fancy opening up that can of worms) what seems more fascinating is why I insist on spending time with myself, even when the options are there to escape and immerse myself in other people’s company.
So when I embarked on my month-long trip to Columbia I was faced with the, possibly arduous, task of spending prolonged amounts of time with myself. Despite my spectacular company, my girlfriend insisted she was still required to attend her lessons. Without my tour guide by my side and my mind as imperfect as ever I could have been facing the oxymoronic prospect of an overbearing yet lonely period of time. Luckily, I had learned many years ago not to fight this incessant presence but rather, embrace it for situations like this.
If I had never learnt to accept the way my mind works I would never have learnt to be my own best friend and reap the advantages from this weird and wonderful friendship.
Too often people are dependent on their friends, unable to watch the new episode of “How I Met Your Mother” by themselves, let alone explore a foreign city. By accepting my over-analytical, running social commentary of a mind, I now have the perfect travel companion for my time in the States and beyond. I am perfectly happy exploring Columbia’s rustic scenery and busy college life with my own thoughts and feelings as I would be taking it all in with close friends surrounding me.
This is not to say any trip that I undertake in the future will have to be completed as an individual crusade into the unknown. Going “Lord of the Rings”- style around Europe two years ago was one of the best experiences of my life and the laughs we shared and things we saw will bond us for life (for better or worse).
But now that I’ve learned to love my overbearing inner self, I now have a new best friend. I can explore 5 points, listen to conversations I would never have heard, consider things I may have missed and immerse myself fully in a culture different to mine, without having to wonder what everyone else wants to do.
Like all best friends, it isn’t always plain sailing. My mind doubts me, embarrasses me and ridicules me. But like I said, nobody is perfect. We kiss and make up and get on with the day. Thankfully, I’m such a good friend that I can be the bigger person.