Oh, right. That's why I don't like people.

OK, fine; I actually do like people. Mostly. Sometimes. On their good days. And mine.

But I've been having a set of experiences this week that remind me why I don't like opening up to people and why I spend a lot of my time in protection/game face mode. I realized that I've been in a "friendship" for several years that was mostly me trying to make the other person feel admired and cared for while I spent most of my time feeling like I had to beg for this person's attention. Not unsurprisingly, that person really felt like we were good, close friends, while I felt kind of like the contents of poopy diaper. And I can't decide what pisses me off more about that situation: the fact that despite much progress over the past few years, there are obviously still situations in which I have the self-esteem of a gnat; or the fact that I even had to tell someone that yes, friends are actually supposed to initiate words and deeds of caring and concern for the other person from time to time.

I'm getting better at understanding who makes a good close personal friend for me; but I still have some hangovers from the time when I wasn't as willing to prioritize my emotional needs. It makes me so angry to feel like I have to fight with someone to explain that being my friend isn't a burden, and that I have more positive than negative characteristics to make spending time with me worthwhile. What a stupid, stupid conversation to try and have with anyone; why in heaven's name would I spend any amount of time trying to convince someone of that if they don't already see it and respond to it? I fell into an idiotic thing where I found someone I really admired and wanted them to like me so much that I decided I didn't need to be valued or respected in return. But I don't need to be liked that much.

It's part of my continued wrestling with what it means to have "friends" in my life. That word means a great deal to me, but gets tossed around in our society so casually; and then I end up feeling bad for not wanting to call people friends who I don't think I can trust and rely on and who honestly don't know me all that well and don't have any interest in doing so. It's not that I think being a friend is some sort of ball-and-chain obligation to be attending to someone else all the time; I certainly don't think of my friends that way. I feel like having to explain the actions and activities that make up a friendship makes it sound like a list of to-dos without any of the joy or magic: call and text every so often, ask someone how they're doing, ask them out for a meal, invite them to an event you know they'd like, let them call you at weird hours because they need to talk, spend time thinking about who they are and what they need and what interests them and what you like about them. A friendship is more than the sum of all those parts, more than a checklist of things you've done that day or week or month.

But I guess that's the point: if you have to explain to someone what it would mean to be your friend, that's not a trip either one of you should take together. Because the other person will only resent the list of tasks they've been given, and you'll resent being with someone who'd rather be doing something else.

Watching history?

So, unless you're asleep or under a rock right now, you've heard the news about Osama bin Laden. Someone on MSNBC just said that "this marks the end of something, marks the end of ... an important period for the nation." My first reaction is clearly heresy at this moment but: the end of what? Do we know why we're cheering? What do we think was accomplished tonight? And did we learn anything at all from these last 9-1/2 years?

We won't know for a while yet what effect bin Laden's death will have on terrorism around the world. It would truly be a gift if his absence caused the al Qaeda networks' acts of senseless killing to stop. But I am afraid that we remain as unreflective as ever about the context within which those acts are taking place, and the changes we've allowed in ourselves since September 11th.

Will we actually seek to understand the social, economic or environmental drivers that caused bin Laden's message to be so attractive to so many, and will we do anything about those issues? Will we stop using "security" as an excuse to destroy our own civil liberties and civic life, to say nothing of how we treat those who are not American citizens? Will we examine our prejudices toward Muslims, the Middle East, and non-white immigrants that we allowed to persist and intensify throughout this period? Will we confront our own nation's role as an agent of violence and injustice around the world?

As I listen to flashmobs cheering outside the White House, my heart has become incredibly heavy, because we are so busy rallying that we cannot ask ourselves what this should mean to us. Much like the national mood after September 11th, I fear that we'll be whipped into a false sense of unity that cuts off any opportunity to think about who we want to be following this event. We will cheer our military might and congratulate ourselves for the path that got us here, without ever wondering about the assumptions that underlie how we act on our own soil and abroad.

We are overflowing with a frenzy of gleeful hate because we killed the scapegoat on whom we'd placed all the blame for our decade of deep fearfulness. Yes, Osama bin Laden bore significant responsibility for the September 11th attacks; but the story of what happened to us that day - and certainly the story of what has gone on since - is much more complicated than that. It's hard for me to cheer, because I'm struggling to understand: did this moment really make us safer, or better?