Dearly Beloved...

Have you ever been told that you act like a married couple with someone?

If you're actually married to that person, stop looking at me like I'm speaking gibberish, because you're not who I'm talking about.

I'm talking about when you're so close to a friend that everyone comments that you're practically married.
Now, I suppose they have a point in some respects. Like the telling each other off for silly things they do and the lack of sex... but really...

Okay, so by now (if you know anything about me at all) you'll have worked out that this is going to be a rant about my best friend Libor.

Yes, we get treated like a couple... constantly. Yes, we've been told we're a married couple (even by each other)... far too often. So what makes a couple different to a friendship??
This is the real question buzzing round my head.

Obviously if you're talking about an actual couple, there's the mutual agreement between two people that you're 'together'. But how do we classify it from the outside? How do we make the assumptions that two people are not just friends.

It's really odd the assumptions you make through the day though. Deciding who you want to be friends with on the pure assumptions you form from what they look like or what they wear. Who they talk to, or how. How often they answer their phone. So what is it that we notice between two people when they walk down the street that screams 'we're together!' then?
Is it when they link arms? Or hold hands?
Or is there something more about how they walk? How they gravitate towards one another?

Sometimes it feels as though me and Li move together, around each other... Like we're connected in some way, moving because of each other. Like there's this weird pull... I dunno how to explain it.
There'll be times where we'll be sat somewhere and one of us will move unconsciously so that the other is more comfortable. Or will reach for something that hasn't been asked for and give it to the other person.

We jokingly say that we're in each others brains. It does get to the point where we know what each other are thinking at times. Answering thoughts aloud instead of having to have them voiced first. Finishing each others sentences. Explaining each other to people who haven't followed the thought process. Knowing stuff about each other without having to ask.
It's as if we're hyper aware of each other; noticing minute changes and understanding what they mean. Noticing when they like something else, or change a habit. When they smile in a certain way understanding the emotion and what sparked it... it's scary. It's like knowing someone as well as you know yourself.

But why does everyone say that makes us coupley?
Does that not just make us really good friends?
Part of me thinks it's because we're both single and of opposite sex.

You know what I've just realised?? My blogs are starting to sound more and more like his... I'm about ready to run away in fear.
It's odd how much you become like someone when you spend time withe them. You retain your core... but the peripherals become more and more like each other. It's like you start to mirror each other.
Maybe that's what we recognise in couples? Their mirroring of each other.

My mum once told me that she did an exercise in college where they had to pair up photos of people who they thought were married. What she found interesting was how similar certain people looked - especially if they had been married for very long. It's as though they became more and more of a mirror of one another as the years progressed.

I think that's one of the weirdest parts of friendship though. The way you soak up each others gestures and sayings; their little quirks begin to be your own. The way someone does something becomes an inside joke or a convenient way to express a feeling or situation.
I think the thing that made me notice it the most is the way in which our personalities seem to have been tempered by each other in this case. For instance, his positivity and optimism has worn off on me (I even got told off for reiterating one of the sentiments in an old blog post of his which I'd initially disagreed with the other day) while my protectiveness and honesty is rubbing off on him.
Think I got the better end of the deal on that one !

One of our friends always says "Never a Lauren without a Libor", and lately it's been true. But part of me is worried that we're going to start annoying each other soon. I mean, I've never had someone so close to me before... but the people I have had close (boyfriends mostly) have always ended up getting on my nerves sooner or later. Not to mention I know that he likes his space...
I think what worries me the most is that the more we're treated like a couple the more we act like one... the less likely either of us are to get an actual partner.
I suppose I shouldn't worry about it though. The end of this academic year will be a decider in many things, best to let things run their course I suppose and enjoy them as they come.

This year, this shiny glittery year, is the last in an era. Perhaps that's why I'm squeezing as much enjoyment out of it as I can. Lets face it, next year is when we have to enter the real world again. Jobs. Work. Bills. Boredom. Loss of student-discount status (right when I've finally found out where they give the student discounts). Settling down. Choosing a career. Probably back to sunny (read scummy) old Grantham.
Next year will be the one without my other half... learning to live without a limb... living with a missing beat to my heart. It's gonna be so strange, and probably very hard too. But if that's what comes next, then that's what we'll deal with. It's inevitable that all of us - all our friends that we have now - will grow apart over time. Doing such different things in such different places... and lets face it, I'm not great at staying in contact with people...
So I suppose that's the real source of my unease. I'm scared of the 'husband and wife' status that I have with Libor because I'm scared of loosing it.
That makes so little sense it's silly!

Like my friend Dan was saying the other day, there's no point getting into a relationship now because it'll turn into a long distance thing far too soon... so what's the point in getting this close to someone if it's only to be ripped apart in 6months time?
It's really hard sometimes, to look at my closest friends - Jodie, Libor, Dan - and think that in a few months I may not see them again except for sporadically. It means two things.
1) I need to learn to keep in contact better
2) I need a set of wheels!
My new years resolution will be to save enough money to do my Direct Access (bike test) and get that bike in Mum and Dad's back yard sorted out so I can ride it properly. A job to pay for it. That way I can blast up to see them any time I miss them too much.
Lets face it, if things continue this way I'm going to spend a hell of a lot of time blasting from (I'm guessing London) to Leicester and Halifax... working as little as I can afford to just so I can spend all my time with the people I love like family.
I suppose I'll stay with my parents for awhile until things calm down enough, and I have a good idea of where I want to live and work.

My head is so full of the future right now...
It's as though I can't stop looking at those paths that are spreading off in a million different directions.
Ones leading to a factory, a job that I can't stand, living in Grantham for far too long after this year.
Ones leading to London, or Derby, or wherever Libor ends up going; following like a puppy in his sure footsteps.
Ones that lead to Leicester, a job that barely pays for my rent while I write and play at being a student with Jodie.
Ones that lead abroad, to some odd hopeful prospect of something more...
Ones leading to an MA that I can't afford, living in debt for longer and longer...

All I can truly see is that I'll only be happy if I'm writing. That's what I've realised I want more than anything. I want to write.
I was thinking about going into medicine like Kaydie and Li... but I realised what I more long for is the idea of studying medicine. The idea of researching genetics.
I want to be the one who peruses the edges of the world of knowledge, understanding what I can and turning it into stories. I want to be the one sat at home typing away on chapter after chapter; handing out bits of story to my friends to see what they think.
To be published! Oh! To be published would be wonderful!!

So there we have it. No matter what I do I'll be sat at my laptop tapping away, creating odd little scenarios, living them out in my mind and putting them into words. Re-writing them, playing them out in more depths. Learning to love the characters I don't yet know, giving each person a depth that matches that of a friend...
I'm looking forward to those early novels that are terrible terrible replications of my own experiences and relationships, and how the next ones will evolve, grow - and so allow me to grow into something more like a true writer.

The thing is, I don't see how I'll do it without my best friend at my side, supporting and cajoling me the whole way. Reading with awe even the worst of my writing, poking fun at my characters, laughing at the jokes no one else could possibly get, dragging me away from the computer when I've spent far too many hours absorbed in my stories, keeping me on track with questions of 'what next??'...
It's hard to imagine even being me without him though; so it's no wonder that I can't picture being a successful writer version of me without him.

Odd how you spend your life being so independent, only to find that after two years of growing closer and closer to someone you no-longer find a distinction between yourself and them, and you become almost wholly dependant on them. Their views, their actions, their caring, all of it means so much that you can't live without them.
After 10 years of being as independent as a girl can be, managing to keep that self-dependence through countless relationships, to find it almost entirely disappeared now is a very strange experience. To find yourself wondering 'what would they think' at almost every turn; thinking not 'what does that look like' but 'what would they think that looks like'...
I'll be honest, being infatuated is nothing to this level of inexplicable consideration. Perhaps we really are like a married couple... less in the idea of a couple, but more in the idea of a depth of caring and knowing for and of one another. To be fair, if I had to choose a person to spend my entire life with it would be him without question.

I'm afraid this blog post has made very little sense.
I don't quite know what I've said, or what I meant to say... so I invite you to attempt to wander through my though processes and I congratulate you heartily if you have managed to follow them with any level of understanding. I'm not sure I've understood any of it.

For now I'm going to go write some fiction. Hopefully it'll be better written than this has been.


Blessed Be xx