Over the past few months I have taken a leave of absence from the blog-o-sphere. I have been spending my time applying to graduate schools and hassling professors. Next September I will be pursuing the most lucrative of post-graduate degrees: a graduate degree in philosophy. I am excited to pursue my interests in the field and warp the hell out of young impressionable minds. In that vein I will begin this post by beginning with a brief hypothetical lecture on interpersonal relationships. How fun!
Good day and welcome to a lecture on interpersonal relationships. Today I will be discussing the strength of relationships by using requests as a measurement standard utilizing distance and degree as primary factors. I will show that the level of the interpersonal relationship can accurately be measured by using the divergent point of willingness to make a request in regards to the inversely proportional degree of the request and directly proportional distance of the requestee formula. So, young inquiring mind, what does all this poppycock mean? It means that you can measure your friendships based on what asinine bullshit you are and are not willing to ask someone.
For the more keen-witted of those who followed my rambling you probably noted the obvious counter-intuitive bit as your eyes passed over the words inverse degree of request, and you may be thinking, "So, you're telling me Cale that if I needed $5,000 that I wouldn't go to my closest friends first?". "Nope." says me, I'm not saying that at all, you probably would ask those closest to you first, but what I'm saying is that it is irrelevant. When you ask another human in your life for a substantially large favor it's because you really need the favor, not because you feel comfortable asking for it. If you need $5,000 because you owe Gary "Leg-Breaker" McCready money you will probably ask every man, woman, and child available for the cash in order to avoid whatever old Gary is about to do to you. What I am saying is that you can measure the strength of your relationship with someone based on the small favors you are willing to ask him/her, not by trying to avoid getting your legs broken.
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| Gary "Leg Breaker" McCready |
Let's assume two hypothetical situations. Situation A: You are going out of town for four days, for some inexplicable reason you own a cat and you need someone to feed and sift poop for your feline companion. Situation B: You are making a delectable chicken sandwich and you have constructed it to near perfection, but you realize that you are missing some hot sauce, and if anyone knows you, they know you love hot sauce. If you are unwilling to ask your friend Carl for either of these favors, then I have bad news for you: Carl isn't a friend, he's and acquaintance at best. However, let's say you are willing to ask your friend Betty to keep your cat alive and sanitary but not for hot sauce, then Carol is a good acquaintance or a low level friend. The farther Carol lives from you the the stronger the bond is between you. If you are willing to ask your other friend Sammy both of these favors, then Sammy is a good friend and like Carol, Sammy's friendship level increases based on the farther Sammy lives from you. As the favors get smaller, the line where you are no longer willing to ask for your friend's (or acquaintance's) help determines how how high (or low) your friendship level is with someone.
We can see through these two examples that it is by asking small insignificant favors, not large ones, where our true close relations are revealed.
Now, let's keep the inverse degree / direct distance principle of friendship in mind as we continue to travel through Baton Rouge. My sister (whom I will henceforth be referring to as "Julia" because it is her birth name), Dave (Remember? He's that dude from Australia) and I (me!) were heading to a family reunion with a clan of unknown relatives. We pulled up to the house, exited the vehicle in an orderly fashion, and sashayed up to the door and were ushered inside of a beautiful Louisiana house, in the vein that I described in the last post (adornment galore). We did the rounds saying hello to the relatives that Julia and I recognized (Carol, Jim, and me Ma among a few others) and were introduced to the the rest of the Louisiana relatives. We met cousins galore, their paramours, and little baby cousins scampering about. The house was bursting with familial bonhomie, great weird sounding food, and good ol' college football on the tube.
As Julia, Dave, and I made our rounds and our introductions the question of Dave (as in, who the hell is Dave?) was invariably asked. So, I explained to each newly met relative that Dave was an Aussie friend of mine whom I had met the previous week in Austin. As I verbalized the explanation, which had sounded totally normal in my head, it began to sound a little kooky. However, not an eyelash was batted. The prevailing sentiment was: Dave knows Cale, Cale is family, therefore Dave is a quality human. Being from a foreign land, he was cornered by relatives to who inquired of his exotic land of kangaroo and fun accents, but it all seemed to stem from a genuine interest into Dave as a person, his weird island home, and his wild adventure. At least that's what I experienced from afar, I let Dave fend for himself as I engaged in college football speak with the television room crew.
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Kangaroo
Dave comes from a land infested with these beasts. They may look domicile, but they are known to engage in pugilistic pastimes. |
As we continued to mingle with the kin-folk I received a text from my cousin Dana. She asked me to tell Aunt Carol that she was bringing some desert type food and to ask if they needed another type of food stuff. I complied and texted Dana back with the appropriate response. My responsibilities for the day had been accomplished. Eventually the deep south delectables were set, the tardy relatives had arrived, and it was time to begin the Cajun feast. We all joined in a circle, held hands, and said a little prayer in thanks for the bounty, both of people and food. Then we all tore into the Louisiana cuisine like ravenous beasts, or at least I did. Time passed in a blur as I stuffed my face with boudin balls, jambalaya, and 20-30 other swamp delicacies.
After I had stuffed myself sufficiently, those of us tarrying forth to the LSU game formulated a plan to head to the game. The Death Valley crew consisted of Julia, Dave, cousin Alissa (Jim's granddaughter), and a few of Alissa's friends in Baton Rouge. We said our farewells to the family, received numerous bits of sagely advice of how to make the best of an LSU game day.
This is where the tale takes a sad turn. I stopped to get gas whereas the intrepid Alissa trudged on ahead, bless her soul, to meet up with her friends. And she was never heard from again . . . or at least we never saw her again. We had lost a comrade in route, perhaps God had a different plan for Alissa . . . or perhaps it was traffic. Needless to say the three who departed for the reunion together were the three who arrived on campus together.
That is to say, eventually we arrived on campus. Traffic was real bad and real weird. Driving to downtown Baton Rouge is like a tour of economic disparity. We drove through real run down neighborhoods, with poorly painted dilapidated houses, liquor stores, and cash checking joints lining the streets. With the traffic being as horrendous as it was, we crawled through these neighborhoods at 10 MPH. It felt like being on an educational tram ride of impoverished America. Then there was an immediate and abrupt change of scenery when we entered the LSU campus. The campus spread out before us as a vernal introduction into the more well to do part of Baton Rouge
Traffic slowed down to 5 MPH as we drove farther into the campus as people (ourselves included) looked for parking. We parked on the fairway of a golf course, because we real fancy. The golf course was about a mile away from the campus and provided a great introduction for Julia and Dave to the SEC football scene. There are enormous grasslands that would be out of place in the layout for most colleges, however on Saturday game-day their utility was fully realized. They act as enormous parking lots that Tiger fans utilize to set up their booze and food filled event tents. The end result of all these cars parked on the grass has the feel of an enormous, and better stocked, back yard barbecue.
However, I will leave the description of this sprawling college scene for next time. In this micro-post I wanted to emphasize the importance of relationships. Did you pick out the sentence that encapsulated the theme (refer to the beginning lecture for the theme)? I'll give you a minute . . . . . . The crux of this post was was the text from Dana. Think about the last time you were heading to a party and had an obligation to bring either food or drinks, but the responsibility was vague. I would wager a sizable bet that if it was a bar-b-que of an acquaintance you merely picked out what you thought was appropriate and headed to the event. However, if you had a good friend at the party, the likelihood that you texted or called to ask about what to bring or offer to pick up something en route was significantly greater. This comfortable, intimate atmosphere of close relationships was present throughout our Louisiana trip. We encountered immediate acceptance as part of the family, despite how many trinkets we broke or the crazy hours we kept.
This will be the last time I emphasize the degree to which family is embraced in the South. However, due to the long delay I wanted to ensure that is prevalent in your mind, dear reader, as I continue to tell the tale of my adventures in Louisiana. Even as we moved throughout the football game there was a genuine sense of warmth that radiated from the people we met and it was infectious. The people who we spent time with at the game became family for a day rather than party co-conspirators.
Next time you find yourself faced with a minor annoyance think about who you would be comfortable asking for help. These are the people who you can count among your closest friends. They are ready to loan you a shirt when you smell like a 4-day bender, keep your animal friend alive, and keep your shin bones unbroken and weight-bearing.
