Cheeryface

20:40, 30 July 2003

Boing, boing, boing... I think it's starting... yippee! I'm so full of energy right now, it's ridiculous. I just went running and then lifted at the gym and I'm full of glee. Lee-Ann was astounded: "You are so hyper right now!" I was interrupting myself because I was talking so much and so fast and hopping from topic to topic like Tigger on his tail. I would chalk it up to endorphins and adrenaline from my workout, but I've been like this all day.

I spent most of the day driving M.J. around. Remember M.J.? She moved to LA this Monday, so now I have another friend out here! We've kept in touch all summer over email since her visit in May, and we're both superexcited that we're going to be spending the next year together. So I spent the day looking at apartments with her, getting her car, etc. I was totally chatterbox and cheeryface the whole time. But then again, I could just have been in a good mood because I'm excited and anticipating us being good friends.

One of the things that makes me like M.J. a lot is that she's very self-assured and universally nice. She's not judgemental, she's not reactionary, she's truly genuine and friendly. I'm amazed at how nice she is; I wouldn't say I'm that nice a person. To my friends, I'm quite generous and giving, but to random people and acquaintances I don't particularly like I am cold and closed. OK, perhaps I'm selling myself short: I am not as mean, selfish and evil as I'm making myself sound. I hold doors open, I give buskers money sometimes, I let people ahead of me in traffic... but M.J. is just generally more open and accepting than me, I think.

While I admire how easily she makes friends, it worries me, too. I am slow to make friends and horribly anxious even in the most stable and long-term of friendships I have, as with Kristen or Lee-Ann. I'm in constant fear of friends dumping me for the smallest transgressions. For example, the other night I was out with Limes and, in front of someone else, I mentioned something about her that I didn't realise she wanted kept private. I apologised again and again, both that night and the next day, and if she hadn't kept brushing it off as "no big deal, no big deal, no big deal, I swear to God, Hippo, no big deal!" I would have continued self-flagellating, convinced she would never want to go out with such an obviously loose-lipped drunk as me. M.J.'s ease with friendships worries me because with all those friends, why does she need me? What if she dumps me for better people?

I admire how comfortably M.J. seems to find and settle into friendships, unlike me. She compliments me all the time, which is lovely but also so foreign. I don't compliment people very often, and when I do I feel very awkward, I don't know why. Is it because I'm uncomfortable revealing my feelings? Or is it because I feel vulnerable when I admit there's something I admire about someone? It's not that I don't have any compliments to give... it's just that I feel totally weird giving them. Squirmy. Sappy. Awkward. Compliments--both giving and receiving--make me shift in my seat, blush and avert my eyes, laugh nervously and change the subject rapidly.