Obligated to Nobody

I recently came back from a 3-week vacation traveling around Paris, London, and Dublin. Although I saw many incredible sites, and learned more about topics ranging from 15th century Italian art to the history of whiskey, one of the biggest lessons I learned is to maybe think twice before traveling that long with somebody with whom I had never traveled before.

I had been friends with my travel companion, let's call her Negative Nancy, since I had graduated college two years previously. I had met her through a mutual friend several times over my middle and high school years, and I always felt like I jived well with her, so a full friendship of our own seemed like the natural next step, especially since we had both recently graduated college and were in the market for new friends. From job search anxiety, to the ups and downs of dating, to nasty roommates, we were there for each other through several of the ups and downs of adulting, so I was excited to plan a 3 week, multiple country adventure through Europe with her.

After several days of travel, though, I began to realize that she was not the person I thought she was. At first I chalked it up to different and incompatible outlooks on life: I was very optimistic and solution-oriented, whereas she was a pessimistic realist, and those opposing outlooks definitely clashed. Especially when we were in high stress transit situations, figuring out how to get from point A to point B in a foreign country.

Beyond that, though, I grew to fully understand the extent of the emotional baggage she carried with her. (The metaphorical weight of such baggage being greater than the physical weight of all of our suitcases and carry on luggage combined.) And as much as I tried to sympathize with her fears and insecurities, especially since she was about to start a new chapter in her life and move to a new city, I soon found out that she liked to spend too much time dwelling in her problems rather than working to better her own life, and she liked to drag others down with her. From her moral rigidity and judging me for not complying with her standards 100% of the time, to declaring me, a fairly outgoing, but also a pretty quiet and relaxed person, to be "too extraverted and overwhelming" for her liking when the topic of conversation did not revolve around her, to her belief that her own crankiness, and irritability in a particular moment was more important than how her biting remarks would affect my feelings, she made me question my own likability and sense of self throughout the trip. And since she was the only person with me, I had no other frame of reference with which to judge my sense of self worth. Especially since every time I tried to bring up how I felt to her, she would either reason my feelings away or declare that she felt uncomfortable and did not want to talk about it.

Yes, I confronted her once in a hostel lobby, and she mentioned that she was uncomfortable with talking about it in a public setting, but we were in separate hostel rooms, so there was no other private place, and I did figure that talking to her quietly in a lobby with a whole flurry of activity and where people would not necessarily be listening to us was our best option, even if it wasn't ideal. But for her to just shut me down like that without even suggesting to talk about it at another point not only made me feel socially inept and clumsy, but also as if her sense of social decorum were more important than our friendship.

But one thought allowed me to rise above and liberated me: I have no obligation to anyone who makes me feel bad about myself. And as much as I care about uplifting and encouraging my friends, maybe I myself at one point made someone feel uncomfortable around me, and those people are similarly not obligated to me. Just because I was  friends with Negative Nancy for a couple of years, and just because we had good moments together doesn't mean I need to maintain any ties with her. Just because she comforted me when I lost my job 18 months ago doesn't mean that I have to constantly justify my actions and beliefs to her or apologize to her for being myself.  Was the decibel level of my voice maybe too loud sometimes? Sure.  Did she have a right to not agree with my approach to life? Sure. But my energy and optimism are things that my true friends love and celebrate about me.

Furthermore, this trip helped me realize that she was only really there for me in negative moments, not to celebrate positive ones, which is a very important distinction to make. For example, when I received two offers for job interviews when we were in London, and I excitedly told her about them, she was more disgruntled that my talking with her about it cut into her Netflix and relax time than she was happy for me. 

Though traveling with Negative Nancy was not the most comfortable of experiences, I learned something valuable:  True friends allow for flexibility rather than force me to bend to their will. True friendship allows for moments when one or multiple parties does not act perfectly kind or polite 100% of the time, but they care enough about the relationship to consider the perspectives and feelings of all parties involved, and to make amends when they are the party in the wrong. I learned to greater appreciate the many people in my life who support and encourage me already. As I continue down life's long, winding, and exciting path, I will meet many more people. Some will excite me, others will challenge, me, still others may just plain old piss me off. As I meet these people, I understand the traits and qualities that will not only make the friends I want to have, but more importantly, the friend I want to be.