Vices and Virtues

Rambling personal introspective post alert...

So I've just finished work after midnight on a Sunday, having worked all week and all weekend.
The elevator wasn't working so I had to climb down 11 stories of fire stairs on a bad knee.

For some reason I'm thinking about intensity in my life.

I work every weekday with my best friend here. At the same desk. Within arms reach.
Despite working all day together he more often than not he invites me over to his place to eat and spend evenings together, along with his wife and dog.
Likewise weekends are usually spent riding, traveling, shopping, walking the dog, or watching the box together.

To say the relationship is intense is probably an understatement.
Not intense in a difficult way, it is in fact very easy. We don't seem to get sick of each other or bicker. Intense in the sense that we spend so much tome together. We know the details of each others lives. Can read each other very well. Very well aware of each other's character flaws. Not afraid to tell the other to pull his head in or HTFU. Influence each other very much. There is a whole other story to be written about that.

But I can't help but feel the enthusiasm. The inclusiveness. I love it, wouldn't have it any other way. It's like family. Except that you know that these people choose to have you in their life family often has no choice. It's one of the main reasons I'm in New York.

Now he is a pretty intense character too. He doesn't do things half-arsed.
He is completely devoted to his wife. Always in touch. Always looking after her.
He works very hard, and is pretty passionate about things at work.
He will sometimes cycle a couple of hundred kilometers (actually miles) on a single weekend.

I like to think I don't do things half-arsed either. I know I can be pretty extreme and intense about my various hobbies.

I look at some of my other friendships and I see similar patterns.
I have another mate who is so intense & enthusiastic about me that I wont embarrass myself by telling the details. He often tells me that he loves me.

Another good friend back in Aus has so much time for me despite working full time, studying part time, trying to catch a decent wave, trying to break limbs skating, wake boarding, scuba diving, making top beers, building crazy brewing robots, throwing parties, following his cousin on the pro surf tour, and looking after his beautiful girlfriend. I know some day we will live close together again and do great things together.

Mutual enthusiasm in all three cases.

All three of the above friends have seen me go through some of the low points of my life. I'm very open about my life and what I'm feeling and thinking. Privacy and saving face don't really enter into it at all. I like the advice and support.

As I sit here on the opposite side of the world to my home, with one leg straight so as to be comfortable due to my self inflicted knee injury, looking at photos of myself doing 90 MPH across various parts of California on a motorcycle (I'm still working on a post about that trip), I realize that I'm also not very risk adverse.

Sometimes I think you need to take risks, offer yourself up to the alter of rejection to form close & special relationships with people.

At this point in the story the propensity for intensity, enthusiasm, disregard for risk all seem like virtues.

My epiphany was that they may make me a bit of a monster when it comes to meeting new people.
I'm used to intense people, intense relationships, being very open and honest, and taking risks.

Traits that are vices or virtues?

If I meet someone and like them, the intensity that I may bring to bear could be very disconcerting.

If they don't reciprocate or need some time to warm to someone new, trust and open up, then how do I tend to perceive that given what I am used to?

Yes I have run into this issue recently. Apologies to the person involved.

The question is how to proceed? Accept our differences and move on to find someone who is enthusiastic and unguarded? Or try to curb my intensity and see what grows?