I Have a Friend

Well I was going to write about my shocking ride yesterday.
Shocking fitness, shocking bike skills, shocking attitude, shocking mood, shocking gears; but mostly shocking fitness.

No, instead I'm going to write about something else.

I have a friend. In the past few months we have spent a fair amount of time together. Doing random stuff, talking mainly, just about anything really. So I would say that I knew him reasonably well.

And I have found out some stuff about him. Just unimportant things like what he thinks about gays and how he values friendship and how he chooses a girl and what his favourite colour is and what he wants to do later on and what music he likes and what bike he rides. Just the sort of stuff you find out about a person when you have hours to talk. But I wonder if he realises just how much of himself he has told me? From those simple things that he’s told me he likes or dislikes, I can tell so much about his personality, his values.

I know that he is a very strong person.
If there is something wrong he will fix it.
If he has a problem with someone he will tell them so.
He doesn’t need to rely on other people.

I know that he is very determined.
He knows where he wants to go and how to get there.
He doesn’t muck around, he just jumps straight in and does what he has to.
If something gets in his way, he will knock it down, whatever it takes.

I know that he is very down to earth.
(with most things :P)
He doesn’t kid himself about how things really are.
He sees the world as it is, rather than like most people, how he wants it to be.
He is very realistic with his ideas and he doesn’t pretend he is in some fantasy world.

He really isn’t as shy as he says he is.
I have watched him go up to a perfect stranger, introduce himself and promptly start talking about bikes. I’ve watched him go from not knowing a guy in the slightest to half an hour later, acting like a gay couple with him.

But most of all,
He isn’t like the other guys I know.
And I don’t mean that in the bad way. From the experience I have of most guys, they really are immature. Stupid and immature and really with no idea. Now I'm not saying that girls are any different, but I think they really aren’t quite as dumb as boys seem to be. That is one thing that annoys me about teenagers, myself included, is that they are immature. They try to act like they know everything but in all reality, they really have no idea.

But he is different.
I spent an hour on the holidays sitting in the sand with my friend trying to explain to her he is so different, why I still like him, even now. I couldn’t find the right words then and I doubt I will now. But I will give it a try.

It’s like he has more experience than the rest of us. He knows more and he isn’t as quick to draw strong conclusions of things. He has so much more maturity that the rest of us and I could almost say that he finds it easier to talk to older people rather than people his age because that sort of conversation is about real things rather than the silly teenage stuff that we all talk about. To me, he always seems right. I cannot recount a single time when I disagreed with his opinion after hearing his reasoning. I have said before in blogs that I don’t like how teenagers only think about the here and now. And that’s what is different about him. He can think ahead and plan ahead and he doesn’t get caught up in right now.

But in saying this I don’t mean that he’s a boring, stuck up, nerdy guy who just goes around thinking he’s top shit and has no sense of what a social life is in the slightest. Oh no, he has a social life. And he also has popularity and girlfriends and looks and the latest fashion and whatever else matters to us. Basically, he has the perfect teenage life.

I suppose you could say I admire him. Greatly.
I’m not jealous of him because I don’t really get jealous of people, thats just not me.
But I do admire him.
Somehow, he has managed to perfectly combine our teenage life these days with a practical life that includes all of the things that matter later on.
How does he do it, I wonder?

I do know some others like him.
Beth in our grade for instance.
Or a few girls in grade twelve.
Or a few guys I know at Padua.
They have all managed to be practical while still being liked, while staying “popular”, which seems to be the ultimate desire for most teenagers these days.

I’ll admit I have always wanted to be like that. I have always wanted to be “popular” and pretty and have the boyfriends and be liked by everyone and be “cool” and whatever. But I have always been torn between being that sort of person and being the person who goes somewhere, who achieves things in life, who does well in school and goes on to do a uni degree that will earn them a fair amount of money and recognition. And being the “nerd” has always won out. Because being the “nerd” will get me somewhere while being the “popular” wont. So all of those “nerdy-popular” kids I have always admired. Because I don’t think I could ever be one.

I want to describe to you though, what my friend is like when he rides.

It’s like all his worries go away and everything become effortless. If he wasn’t the best at something back at home or at school, then that doesn’t matter because he is the best at riding. He seems to do the hills and the logs so gracefully I suppose. He is just so good at all of this it amazes me. And I cannot even begin to describe the look on his face when he rides. He just seems so happy and excited and just so glad to be alive really! Seeing him, it makes me almost feel like that too, because happiness is infectious, especially his. Throughout our rides I will find myself laughing inside, at nothing in particular, but only because he is happy which makes me happy. When he rides, he opens up as almost a different person. He talks non-stop and makes jokes and pretty much always has a smile on his face, even when he has just had a stack and has blood pouring down his leg. When he isn’t riding, you do see this person, but not nearly as much as when he is riding.

I love this side of him. He truly is amazing. This side of him is what keeps me liking him, even when he doesn’t talk to me and even when he tells me he likes someone else.

I don’t know how many other people have seen him like I have. I know he has lots of friends and lots of people who are very close to him. But I don’t know how many of them have seen him like he is when he rides, like he is when he is so unbelievably happy. Perhaps most of them have seen. Perhaps not. But I like knowing that I’ve seen it, and even now the image of him jumping around on his bike or up and down dirt mounds on the side of the track makes me smile.

Thank-you, I suppose, for everything really.