Schtick from Cliques

In 24 years of gallivanting around planet Earth, I take great pride in my friends. They come in many shapes and sizes. They live in different kinds of houses, and have different families each. They like food that I usually can't eat. I like them, and for the most part, they like me so long as I'm not being a jerk, which is fine by me.

I have a fair share of friends. If Facebook, Friendster, Multiply or MySpace were the barometer of friendship, I do pretty well, averaging at least in the 400's or 500's or something. (Except for MySpace, but that's because the site never really took off here in the Philippines.) For those not into the social networking schtick, that's not so bad.

What I do wish sometimes were that all my friends were friends with each other too. Or that at the very least, they were cool with one another.

I remember when I was 7th grade, I made friends with this 6th grader kid. He was loud and spoke straight English, as though he weren't as Filipino as his eyes and skin and surname suggested. We were students in an after-school tutorial class, and while we mostly kept to our own year levels (he was part of my kid brother's class), we were cool with each other. He was nice, albeit not so keen on the idea that people can get tired of other people. I figured he just liked chatting with me, because I could level with his banter, how he liked to talk about his teachers, and how my teachers (being a year ahead of him in the same school) were like, and so on.

Nobody liked him. You know how in school there's this geek, or nerd who speaks in monotone and really loudly? Like that. They picked on him and made fun of him. They called him gay. They laughed behind his back about how he talked about nothing but his teachers, how he had no life whatsoever. It was only when I was sitting around talking to him, nobody bothered him. Of course they couldn't; I was one of the biggest, toughest-talking kids with a nasty temper himself. They didn't dare try pick fights with him if they felt I would fight too.

It never, however, stopped them from picking on him. Neither did I really want to stand up for him; I wasn't that close to the guy to stand up to them and defend him. And part of it was because those kids who hated him were some of my friends too.

It's a trend that carried over in many places. My kid sister has a former schoolmate who she hates talking to, hates interacting with. My colleagues in our volunteer group met this girl nobody wanted to be friends with, who everybody else called a vicious flirt, even if she was cool with me. In another group I volunteer with, there's a guy who, hands-down, is one of the most selfless, most dedicated people you'll ever meet, but he got in the hair of too many people, and so he became a pariah in a community that really could've used his help. I fell in love with a girl, and stood by what I felt, even if my colleagues in college said she was bad news, and in effect, I'm no longer in touch with any of those former classmates.

I hate more is how I have to juggle these friendships all at once. I had to maintain ties with fellow volunteers even as they talked behind the back the guy who was doing a lot of the dirty work for them, and they didn't realize it. The college classmates had to work with me everyday in school were slowly losing their respect for me because of who I chose to love. I often had to play "double agent" to people, not to curry favor with them, but just to maintain a sense of order, that I wouldn't make enemies because I "chose sides".

I didn't, and still don't know what the right course of action is. Some say I ought to have stood up for these oppressed friends, that they don't deserve the stick given to them. Yet, I also know that they're in this hot soup because of what they did, or what they failed to do. Sometimes, like the 6th grade kid long ago, they don't deserve it. Other times. they brought it on themselves by making too many enemies, and making too few friends like me. In all cases, I found that my loyalty was never something somebody could erase, but I rarely wanted to lose a friend because I was closer to another.

It's a part of life. I guess people really don't or won't get along with everybody. I still have to make a choice with what's best for the group, or what's best for the one person out of the loop, who probably deserves more than just the cold comfort of a sympathetic smile or conversation.


current music: Gotta Have You - The Weepies