The Venn Diagram of Social Circles
Maybe All My Friends Should Go For Jazz Together
March is what my entire year builds up to. In a really shameless way, I want everything to work out in my favour and while these 27 days have certainly proved that just because I want it doesn’t mean I’ll get it, I have had a lot of fun trying my luck.
One of these eventful moments included having a rag tag list of people meeting each other. A cross over episode for various segments of my life.
We are all so tidy when it comes to our social life. No embarrassments and no spill overs. Each circle of our life has been so artfully curated that them merging is like letting AI write an A24 film.
I mulled over the group sitting in front of me a lot. My domestic friends who have seen my mess strewn across the room. My work friend who had the opportunity to see what a personality hire is and other unassuming friends who were just picked up from corners of my daily activities where they see me chaotically balance the one task at hand. In the gym, I do not switch between headbanging to the blues and then jumping around to Bollywood; I am much more reserved to tapping my feet to rock.
It is so interesting to see how not only does the lingo change between people but how different habits and quirks get identified. What do you mean Akriti doesn’t watch Bollywood, she can quote the entirety of Tees Maar Khan.
I finally understood why the mingling of different social circles is so “brave.”
Consider the time of Austen. Everyone knew everyone. It was a norm to show people off but now we are friend-hoarding. We have so many avenues and spaces to meet friends and these avenues need not ever overlap, so we have the opportunity to cultivate different personalities. How do we keep these personalities in check if these group collide?
What if they all take notes and then share them with each other?
I have always loved showing my people off. They are each so fabulous and i want them to meet more fabulous people but at the same time, what if they don’t like each other and then by extension not like a side of me.
Our social hoarding has many cons. It prevents us from finding a lot about ourselves. By keeping our friends and social behaviors in tidy boxes we don’t get to see our entire capabilities of mixed quirks. Ofc, I love going to art shows, solving NY times Crossword, punching a bag and cooking up a mess in my kitchen and yes my school was weird. Maybe we all should go for jazz together.
One of the reasons why the chances of your friend circles overlapping is also because we don’t have opportunities or time. There is no third place and our lives have become so chaotic that even meeting people you know and love is so tiresome, imagine meeting friends of friends for long enough to know how obnoxious the common friend is!
This can also lead to missed opportunities. Because most of the time we remain within these groups we don’t interact with “others” even though it might be them that add something new to our paths. You never know who your friend knows. Now, cross overs don’t need to be opportunistic; the new path could just be a new characteristic discovered about your friend because of their interactions with your other friends.
All in all, it is so peculiar that in a time when we overshare and our forever bond with social media, we shake to our core before having an overlap of them in real life. As George Constanza said-
“If Relationship George walks through this door, he will kill Independent George! A George, divided against itself, *cannot* stand!”
But now, I will always know that in all my circles I am an embarrassing and loud mouthed idiot who loves her friends a little too much.