New year, new reasons to cry

I know that sounds bad. I promise it isn't.

Today was...interesting. A snarky friend, who tends to get bitched at by cluster-folk (one in particular) for all of his comments, was being bitched at for a snarky comment...or 3. This is the fourth day of class, and the unknown-th time I've heard this stupid discussion.

"You're a jackass. Stop it."
*I'm not saying anything that isn't true.*
"Doesn't make it better."

blahblahblah bitch.

So I asked the one doing the bitching why he continued to put the energy into caring. Why not just ignore my snarky friend and be done with it? It's not like this issue is new, or going to be resolved, or will ever have new input (aside from mine on why the whole thing is dumb)

We ended up discussing it, with snarky friend sitting there quietly with his back to us, just doing his computer thing, allowing me to defend him, saying things like "we all know it's just hot air. Let it go, don't take it personally, it's just how he is." This continued for ten or so minutes, as I'm packing my things to leave, as I am disgusted with the cluster-scene in general by this point, and snarky-pants is clearly ready to gtfo.

Eventually, he gets up, tells me this argument will not be won, as it has been lost for months. So we leave and proceed to the UC, where friends of ours are playing In the Groove. Upon hearing what went down, they agreed that the cluster-man we were arguing with was in fact crazy, and that it's never really worth arguing with him. I think no more of it really, except to be a little annoyed at how intolerant a group of socially outcast nerds are.

About an hour ago, snarky-pants and I are chatting on AIM, and I suggest that, although he's going to be very busy writing an operating system this semester, an effort should be made to spend some time together socially. This is met with:
'''
maybe? my life is hell, but probably?
thanks for sticking up for me, by the way :)
'''

And he proceeded to head offline to halfprice. (Running away after nice statements. Can't say I blame him. I've done it.)

Now, I didn't flat out cry. But I did tear up. I've met a bunch of new people this year. And the three that I'm going to say are the best, and probably the only real friends I've made, have all been appreciative of me and things I've done for them. Gifts, favors, compliments, whatever. And I know friendship isn't about doing things for recognition. But it is about doing things for other people because you care about them. Which I do, and it was my motivation at all times. But there is something really great about having kind gestures accepted and appreciated. (Less great options include being ignored and being rejected/ridiculed, which is always something I'm afraid of.)

Now I'll be honest (like I wasn't already...) because of his snarky demeanor, it was touch and go for a while at the beginning of our friendship. At first I thought he was just a jerk. Then I worried that I would try to befriend him and get ignored/pushed away. Now I'm getting more comfortable being my normal loyal, caring, generous self, and I was really touched that this angry-on-the-outside guy accepted it.

So...a long post about nothing of great importance to anyone but myself, but it was an emotional touching thing and I felt like writing a Facebook status about good friends or something, but I couldn't get it brief enough, or cryptic enough. So I wrote more. Although I think I've had inspiration for the Facebook status so I think I'll go ahead and try that.

Tomorrow, (hopefully) I'll write up about my first week of class and give a progress report on my new year's ...whatever I decided to call them.