I've been thinking a lot lately about voids. I was watching a television show, something that is abnormal for me, a show called "Life," and in this show the character is asked how he extracted information from a person over the phone, and he said: "I asked, and then I waited. People like to fill a void." I've all ready talked about the void of noise that we like to fill. It's interesting to relate, but I believe that people like to fill more than just sound voids. I think that people like to fill relationship voids as well.
A relationship void is a tricky subject. In jest I referred to it as the "gay guy friend syndrome,"
which elicited an exclamatory rebuttal from Pelirojo, upon whom I experimented the title. In the interest of public approval and understanding, I will simply refer to this particular point as the "Black Hole Filler."
I call this type of friend, or this type of relationship to which I refer a "Black Hole Filler," or BHF for short, because there are times in every one's life when we feel as if our emotions are really a gaping black hole. There is little if anything of worth found in the there and the wounds or the confusion that we are suffering is such that there is little light that can penetrate the darkness. At the deepest part of the night we may even look up and wish that a certain experience had never been ours, or that we'd never known someone, or that we could be taken away just to show everyone how sorry they would be if we left. These feelings are the worst kind of void, the type that allows us to forget faith, forget friendships, and lose love, if we let it. There are ways out of even this blackest of nights, and I have come to trust in God as a loving friend who really is within reach. It's finding where to reach that is the trick.
This really isn't only an offering of light to those in darkness. It's also a warning. A warning because often we as humans look for something to fill that void in many things. We may look for them in religion, in music, in movies, in entertainment in general, in drink, in lewd companionship, or in a plethora of other healthy or unhealthy things. Most of those don't really fill anything, rather they procrastinate the pain, allowing it to grow. One of the fillers, those BHFs that are common among the honorable are friends. Either friends that are all ready around, or those that present themselves for the occasion.
I believe that such friendships can be good things. It allows those in the Black Hole a ray of sunshine, something tangible, something easier to hold onto than faith. It also provides the filler friend with a chance to understand pain and trial better, which gives an opportunity to grow compassion. I do not mean it is better to rely on friends than on faith, just momentarily easier and sometimes the way that faith saves us. Relying on friends has its complications, which I wish to discuss.
First off, the intentions of both parties are rarely discussed and understood before entering in on a BHF relationship. They spring out of necessity. A person is in pain, and someone else wants to help. During the pain the person is invaluable, helping with a cheering word, a needed smile, a fond embrace or even touch on the shoulder. The BHF is there, to help move through the blackness, to point out the light so hard to see for the person in pain. It is possible that outside of this help, one party feels little or no attachment. It is easy to happen, and often happens on the part of the person in pain. Once the night has passed, the light house is forgotten. This forgetfulness is by now means limited to the pained, though, and often passes to those who are acting as the fillers. If neither party has any attachment, then the risk of hurt is minimal. We must be cautious, however, that we do not treat flippantly any connection or attachment that has been made. It's possible that both people involved see the goodness in one another, and thereby fall madly in love with one another. As long as that love is set up on equality, that's a good thing. Hooray for happiness.
I've heard a lot about co-dependant, which I understand means that a person needs someone to need them. I suppose BHF relationship is a branch off of that. However, let us suppose, for the blog's sake, that a girl feels, for whatever reason, a void in her life. Here comes an average Joe (seriously, that's his name), who happens to find (we shall call her) Rachel attractive. Rachel seeks Joe's company, because he is a happy friend wishing to help an attractive friend out of a painful situation. Rachel improves. Rachel is thankful to Joe, but otherwise forgets him. Joe is hurt. Now Joe has a void. It becomes almost a process of pain. It's not something that always happens, and it most certainly is not only something that happens to the guy, but often the girl as well. I'm not sure how to avoid this. Maybe phone calls, or appreciation in more than distant words of praise would help, but on that front I am an amateur.
To sum up this entire blog, when someone is helping you out of something, or perhaps there is a good friend who is there for you when you have hard times, don't hurt that friend by forgetting her or him. I'm learning that those kind of friends are hard to come by, anyway, and even though we may walk as though blind, if we try to be aware, there is much we can do to make sure that if we ever need a BHF, we won't merely displace our Black Hole into someone else, but rather we will fill it with love. Love's the only thing faster than light anyway, so it can move in and out of Black Holes like nothing else.
Relationships in and of themselves are all to complex to lay out on a testing plate to explain it completely. Tolkien Boy told me that there is no previous experience for any relationship. Each one is different, and it's the truth. I only wished to put on aspect down here.
Oh, and just for the record, and so as to not provoke voids in anyone, I wrote this because of observations in others, and I don't currently suffer from or even feel that I am filling a Black Hole. I might be unconsciously helping some, but mostly I just continue to be myself, Major Bubbles, a Yellow.
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