Frivolous and substantive friendships

Most of the times, I probably come off as being serious and reserved-- probably that East Coast in me. Or maybe that Asian/Japanese in me, though I am so atypically Japanese (as my Japanese friends would say), that I'm going to blame it on my East Coast upbringing. I cherish being able to have substantive conversation with my friends. However, I also need my time to be frivolous, which is probably not a side of me that many people see. Or maybe I am flattering myself into thinking I'm more serious than I actually am. . .

It's like you get into these certain modes with certain people and then to a certain extent, people sort of expect you to carry on in your expected persona mode. Like at work, for example, to certain people, I am gay.

This isn't exactly schizophrenic, nor am I being disingenuous (well, except perhaps at work), but with person A, I might be more sarcastic, while w/ person B, I might be more serious, etc. etc. But in general, probably my serious to frivolous ratio is about 4:1 or something like that (if one can quantify such things).

However, with certain people, this ratio is closer to a 1:1 ratio.

Sagacious Broccoli is one such person who seems to bring out my frivolous side, but without stifling my contemplative/serious side. With her, I can be both frivolous one minute, and have a substantive conversation with her the next. Or better yet, sometimes the conversation is seemingly absurdly silly, but we are talking about very serious things--like satellite friendships and surrogate or imaginary boyfriends and criteria for lifetime partners (being able to speak Chinese is on my list, for example, even though I barely speak a word of Chinese. :-P) and jet-lagged pee. I mean, with whom else can I have a meaningful conversation about jet-lagged pee?

For two short days, I got to spend time with her and see how she lives it up in one of the world's largest cities. She took me all across town--to her favorite shops, hutongs, street food stands, and to fabulously grand restos that serve yummy worm-like things that aren't really worms and fantastic faux smoked chicken. (She even tried to take me bar hopping the day I flew in from Saigon on an allegedly direct flight at 3:40 a.m.!) In the 36 or so plus hours I spent with her, we spent a lot of time talking and catching up about our respective lives, thoughts, dreams, etc., and even more time giggling and being our silly selves.

I don't know why, but she seems to be able to bring out that side of me more than most of my other friends. (I mean, if only she knew how serious I usually purport to be!) Maybe we are not really that funny, but when the two of us get together, we find humor in the most mundane things, all without the aid of any mind-altering drugs or stimulants.

Not counting the time I spent with her in Hanoi, it had been about 8+ months since I've last seen her, but it was like we could pick up from where we left off when we last saw each other.

I sometimes worry about the inevitable process of drifting apart from friends that I'm currently very close with, especially when they move far far away, as Sagacious Broccoli did. To a certain extent, as we grow older, as we move from one place to the next, as our life situations change, and as we ourselves change and evolve, perhaps this is unavoidable, and I accept--and sometimes embrace--this. On the other hand, as was the case with Sagacious Broccoli, some friendships seem to elude such passage of time and evolution.

Which is not to say that in forty years, when we are both nearing retirement and the new "fifty", both of us may not have changed so much that we may no longer have a silly-yet-meaningful friendship. (Actually, I am not sure this sentence made sense. The basic structure of the sentence should be: ". . .which is not to say that we won't change in forty years. . .")

But in the meantime, here's to frivolous and substantive friendships. May they live on into my old age. . . (or until I've perhaps matured a bit.)