Popular!

I have come to realize over about the last year that there are 2 very precarious things in life: Popularity and Friendship. It seems as though culturally, we have such an emphasis on having a lot of friends, a full social calendar, and that if we don't have a solid network of friends and are not invited to all the hottest parties and aren't going out every weekend, that there's something fundamentally wrong with us. I get that humans, apes, are "social creatures" that live in groups, not alone like, say, a bear (you never see groups of them, maybe 2 or 3, but not like 10, so I figure they're rather solitary creatures). But do we need that interaction or is it culturally imposed on us to have these relationships? Why is it that when the relationships fall from grace, so does our self-esteem? Why do we often overestimate the importance of the relationship, either from our POV or from that of the other person? Why do we maintain "toxic" relationships? Why is it sometimes harder to let go of these than it is to stay in them? Why do have such difficulty being open, and honest, and in discussing our feelings *about* our friendships with our friends? What makes one friend closer in one emotional realm and another in another? Do we "rank" our friends, our *good* friends, in our hearts even without thinking about it?

This is just stuff that's been stuck in my mind for a while... I've been biten (and I know quite a few other people) sharply a couple times, yet I muster on and I have to wonder why.

(...cogitate...)