Would you waste time on people you didn’t like?

I had a conversation with a good friend last night. We had met up for coffee and some excellent tiramisu, and were discussing why I didn’t seem to want to meet a lot of people from my past. I told her that life was too short, so why bother meeting people I didn’t like?

Of course, all that made sense to me at the time, but I guess she made me think about my policy towards people. I suppose I’m rather inflexible with regard to those who’ve hurt me in the past. I don’t tend to forgive easily, and even those I have forgiven, I tend to want to forget about anyway. It’s very, very difficult to give people a second chance, especially when the first time wasn’t so good.

But the blade cuts both ways, I guess, and I have disappointed many people in my life. I suppose that, if I want the privilege of a second chance, I can’t be so misguided and egoistic as to assume that I’m the only person on earth who deserves it. After all, if I’ve hurt others without intending to, couldn’t the same be said of others with me?

It’s just bloody tough to do, though. 🙁 I mean, it’s one thing to say that you want to be fair… it’s another thing to actually apply it in real life. It’s just so much easier to be the selfish one, and to take what others can give. It’s so much harder to be the one giving, when others only want to take.

This is the paradox of friendship, I suppose: you never really test it until your friends hurt you, or you hurt them. Until that time, you can’t really be sure you’re friends.

Oh, to be sure, there are those few people with whom you’ve always gotten along. These are the ones I truly treasure, because we’ve been blessed with the ability to accept each other, imperfections and all. But what kind of life would I be leading if the only people I ever really talked to were the ones who agreed with me? Who would take me task then? Who would tell me when I was being stupid, or silly, or arrogant, or insensitive? Who would challenge me when I did things that hurt others? Who would really bother?

The answer is pretty simple: friends, of course. Real friends are those who aren’t afraid to tell you things you don’t want to hear. And real friends are also those who would accept what was being said, regardless of how much they liked hearing it. I have had some real friends in my life, whom I’ve probably neglected or ignored mainly because they told me things I wasn’t prepared to accept about myself, or because they’ve hurt me in ways necessary to my growth, if painful to my ego. The question, the real question I suppose, is whether I’ve been a real enough friend to them to continue to be there for them, even when they didn’t indulge my every whim. When taken in this light, I suppose I may have been less of a friend to them than they have been to me.

Maybe second chances are all right. After all, I’m probably the one who needs them more than most. Would you waste time on people you didn’t like? I’d hope so. Because that person you consider a waste might just turn out to be me.