Of friends and roles.

When I was deeply into my KaosPilots quest last year, I found a lot of people who became quite keen on my adventure. I went to Edgeware’s Do Well conference and gained a whole host of supporters. Other KaosPilots from everywhere sent me messages on Facebook wishing me luck. I gained a few volunteering at the GK3 Summit.

Some of these were interested in social enterprise, and my project fell into their interest sphere. Some of these thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and promise eternal support and fandom for me. “You’re so inspirational! You’re amazing! Let me know if I can help you in any way!”

My quest ended badly. I didn’t get in the KaosPilots despite multiple tries. A month or two later, I left social enterprise behind (for the time being) at the Brightest Young Minds, and began a very slow and harrowing process of death, rebirth, and moving on to something else (in this case, performance and a hint of human sexuality).

I was looking through my friends lists online and was so saddened to see that many of my previous “major fans” have stopped talking to me, stopped responding. These were people I still respected and admired, people whom I tried to communicate with from time to time even now. But the adoration of before is gone. They’ve found new people to fawn over. I’m nothing to them now. Not even a “hey, how’s it going”.

It’s understandable that the people that heard of me through their social enterprise work would not really miss my presence – they’re scanning for “social entrepreneurs”, not “Tiara Shafiq”. It’s the people who promise eternal gratitude, the ones who said they’ll help no matter what but then disappear – those are the ones I found really disappointing.

They didn’t really like me for me. They liked my role of “young girl trying to be the first of her kind to get into Trendy Social Enterprise School”. Once I left that role I stopped being interesting to them. They didn’t support Tiara, they supported KaosPilot wannabe.

It’s a pattern I deal with most of my life. I’m only interesting to certain people if I fulfil some deeply-held wishes of theirs. Once I changed I no longer fulfill those needs and therefore I’m no longer a friend with a relationship to maintain.

I’ve now learnt that true friends are the ones that stick by you and love you regardless of your interest waves. They’re the ones that were with me when I alternately wanted to be a popstar, a social enterpreneur, a webmistress, and now a Merch Girl. They’re the ones who have seen me at my most vulnerable state and support me anyway. They’re the ones that understand that I am a Scanner, a chameleon, with core principles but fluid means of expression.

I don’t mind people who only connect to others in their circles. That’s cool. It’s when they think you’re awesome and declare major support, but then disappear when you need support for something else, that really gets to me.

I sent a pretty long message to one of my very close friends, Nikki last night; caught her at a bad time and possibly confused her! Nikki’s become something of a local celebrity amongst the Brisbane Twitter set, and has also become quite close to the Edgeware people for her involvement in their activities (like I was a year before). I was the one that got her into Twitter; I’d known her from college days where she had a completely different circle of friends.

She had built a strong circle of friends amongst Brisbane Twitter and their associated circles, but I was concerned that if she ever decides to drop Twitter to focus on something else, all those friends would drop her and stop talking to her. Not out of malicious intent, but because she no longer fits the “cool Twitter person” role and therefore no longer interesting. Who amongst her close Twitter friends only like her because of Twitter, and who are there for the long run?

Who among your friends have declared their fondness for you, but will ignore you once you stop having something in common? Who will cheer you on no matter what you do, be there for you, give you support? Find the latter and treasure them deeply.