Post #3

            Just the other day, I tried to live as an Emersonian friend, though admittedly the experiment lasted for less time than the full day I had planned due to the lousiness it caused for me. Perhaps I should have stuck to it for longer, but the point where being an Emersonian friend appears to be breaking friendships is the point where I feel it needs to stop. I agree with many of Emerson's ideas in his other essays, even the ones that are more "out there," so I trusted his judgment enough to design my friendship experiment around the following quote: "I knew a man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered…" Perhaps I interpreted this wrong, but I took it to mean casting aside all of our "filters" and just being completely honest with people all the time, omitting nothing. In theory, this sounds like a terrific idea, but it didn't work out terribly well for me. Two specific instances stick out in my mind concerning this, one positive and one negative. Let's go positive first as I try to minimize embarrassment (ironically) by giving you the quote out of context: "You're very pretty." I didn't want to be romantically involved with the person I said this to, but I really did feel she was pretty and probably had not been straight out told this ever. Now stop. Imagine, if you will, a conversation beginning with "You're very pretty" and chances are you unless you are some sort of romance novelist you have a pretty accurate idea of how that worked out for me. Moving on, the negative instance occurred when I was tired and stressed somewhat, and someone who I find a bit agitating and exasperating approached me with a big smile on his face and a mouth full of words I wasn't in the mood to listen to. After letting him gab for a little, I decided it would be dishonest to pretend to be interested in what he was saying when I really, really was not, so I said "No offence *name*, but I'm a little too stressed to deal with you just now, can we talk about this later." Even this wording was not very Emersonian, as it assumed such niceties as "no offence" and "maybe we can talk later", but it certainly wasn't subtle either. The effect it has was to send him away grumbling and removing a metaphorical jenga-block from our friendship. Yeah, that wasn't a very good metaphor… Anyway, the effect of both of these honest opinions of people was far from positive. True, Emerson stipulates that the man he wrote about was NOT well-received at first, and that things got better for him, and perhaps I should have been making more meaningful insights, but I had neither the patience nor the intellect for these things, respectively. I cannot deal with the possibility that everything I say has a good chance of worsening a friendship and I'm not smart enough to go around producing helpful insights into people's personalities at every turn. Although some of Emerson's other thought's on friendship may be helpful, this one was simply not right for me.