Can You Be Honest with Your Friend
Can You Be Honest With Your Friends
My sister is a person whom one might define as socially awkward. While neither of us possess the gift of tact, I have become slightly more adept a maneuvering unfamiliar social situations, whereas she avoids them wherever and whenever possible. We both have the same handicap: that being that we don’t possess a filter. Whereas most people know that it constitutes poor manners to point out a hanger from a perfect stranger’s nose, we feel it is our civic duty to not only bring attention to the offensive item, but to introduce it to any other would-be spectator and random passersby.
Fortunately in my old age I have learned to bridle my tongue – at least somewhat – and curb my impulse to point out the defects in others, be they friends or strangers. A-Dub has not mastered this skill yet, so she has opted for silence. While my adroitness at this new skill has afforded me with a growing list of new congenial acquaintances, her failure to do so has resulted in an inverse problem. I have to decide how many people I can afford to let into my circle, while she has to decide how many people she can afford to let out. She calls this number an “optimal number of friends.”
While extroverts gather friends in every city and country they travel to, introverts tend to keep the same friends they have known the majority of their life time. Extroverts shop for friends like trinkets, while introverts collect them like treasure. My sister fits in this latter group. That’s why the conversation she had with a friend a few weeks ago put her in somewhat of a quagmire. It was contrary to everything that was part of her nature.
Her friend (we’ll just call her ‘Shequan’) is very fashionable. I’ve seen pictures of Shequan, and she fits nicely into a certain prototype. Being a large, or curvy, Black woman in a major urban area, she has adopted the persona of a ‘diva’ complete with hair extensions and full glam make-up. She is also a regular shopper
My sister is a person whom one might define as socially awkward. While neither of us possess the gift of tact, I have become slightly more adept a maneuvering unfamiliar social situations, whereas she avoids them wherever and whenever possible. We both have the same handicap: that being that we don’t possess a filter. Whereas most people know that it constitutes poor manners to point out a hanger from a perfect stranger’s nose, we feel it is our civic duty to not only bring attention to the offensive item, but to introduce it to any other would-be spectator and random passersby.
Fortunately in my old age I have learned to bridle my tongue – at least somewhat – and curb my impulse to point out the defects in others, be they friends or strangers. A-Dub has not mastered this skill yet, so she has opted for silence. While my adroitness at this new skill has afforded me with a growing list of new congenial acquaintances, her failure to do so has resulted in an inverse problem. I have to decide how many people I can afford to let into my circle, while she has to decide how many people she can afford to let out. She calls this number an “optimal number of friends.”
While extroverts gather friends in every city and country they travel to, introverts tend to keep the same friends they have known the majority of their life time. Extroverts shop for friends like trinkets, while introverts collect them like treasure. My sister fits in this latter group. That’s why the conversation she had with a friend a few weeks ago put her in somewhat of a quagmire. It was contrary to everything that was part of her nature.
Her friend (we’ll just call her ‘Shequan’) is very fashionable. I’ve seen pictures of Shequan, and she fits nicely into a certain prototype. Being a large, or curvy, Black woman in a major urban area, she has adopted the persona of a ‘diva’ complete with hair extensions and full glam make-up. She is also a regular shopper