Cliques and attraction and such.

In secondary school, the friends we make are usually based more on convenience and proximity than a natural gravitation towards like-minded people. For example, the cliques in my secondary school class was like this: the sporty girls, the clubs/societies/musical group girls, the guys (yes, all seven of them) and mine, those in uniformed groups. (There are also a few misfits here and there, but they're everywhere.) As you can see, we largely congregated according to our CCA type. Whereas in junior college, people tend to group according to personality type instead of CCA. For example, my class consists of the jiak kantang (or trying to be) clique, the cheena clique, and mine, the quiet/geeky/homely sort. But in their respective cliques, the individuals come from an assortment of CCAs, from sports to music groups to clubs and societies.

My reason for this phenomena is this: in secondary school, we're still relatively unshaped and impressionable children, so we naturally stick to people whom we do similar activities with. Therefore, even if we had the capacity to be really different people, the fact that we were still adolescents meant that we had plenty of room to develop in a similar direction. As for the dynamics of junior college clique formation, our personalities have already been shaped by our interactions in secondary school. Even though institutions within the larger institution, i.e. school, like class and CCA does facilitate communication among individuals with more varied personality types, it doesn't impact the formation of cliques as strongly as it does in secondary school.

I raised this to Wanlin recently, and she said that her friends in secondary school were mostly people who had index numbers near to hers, which somewhat affirms my point. Now that college life is so fragmented, - even more so because we're an Arts class and have different timetables - forming cliques based on proximity is a trickier logistical issue. I suppose this could be a good thing, because it means that we would have to go out of our way to find like-minded people, and as a result of greater effort being contributed to making the relationship work, perhaps the friendship forged will be stronger. (Which is untrue. In fact, might I say that the friendships formed through pure mental compatibility is even more short-lived than those that are aided and abetted by physical proximity? Based on empirical evidence. Confirmed.)

On the other hand, this could mean that one's circle of friends is severely limited to like-minded people. For example, I am a more introspective introvert. This would mean that I would gravitate to other introspective introverts too. However, this is very limiting in terms of getting to know people from all walks of life. Because of my fixedness of personality, I have inadvertently filtered out people whom I could have potentially gotten along with because they don't appear to be introspective introverts on first sight. In addition to denying myself potential friends, it also means that I am less open to new ideas. For example, I find myself having a hard time trying to like anime. The people I hang out with in school watch the occasional bit of anime, and whenever they speak of it I don't exactly try to pretend to be interested. On the flip side, I've been looking up Gothic Lolita stuff online ever since Erica decided to make it an interest of hers. Perhaps I just happen to objectively like GothLoli better than anime. Or perhaps it just means that my personality is more receptive to change when interacting with an old friend whom I spent the large part of my formative years with, as opposed to a newer friend in college.

I was thinking of what I find attractive in a partner WITHOUT physical attributes, and I realised that the qualities boiled down to things that I prefer in both a partner and a friend. For example, I tend to people who:

1. Speak good English and/or express themselves well in English
2. Are lower-upper-middle-class
3. Are reflective

These are typical of both guys I am attracted to and people that I befriend. Therefore, if I strip away all physical qualities that I prefer, e.g. tall, lean, tanned, etc., what I'm essentially left with is a non-gender specific person. Which means that the defining factor of a romantic relationship is really just physical attraction! Not like that hasn't already been established but reaffirmation of the truth still surprises sometimes.

This is a quote from Huifang's blog.

"Liking interesting things doesn’t make you interesting."

Let's assume that what makes somebody interesting is relative, that it is up to someone else to determine whether someone is interesting or not. It is true that liking interesting things doesn't make someone interesting, but it does help. However, they're more interesting like how a book is interesting, not really like how interesting a person should be. Let's say I'm interested in music, and this person likes music as well. Therefore, I should find him interesting. But he will only be interesting as an encyclopaedia of knowledge of things I find interesting UNTIL he decides to engage with me on a more personal level.

I guess using books aren't a very good example. After all, I have reread Anne of Green Gables lots of times, yet with each reading I learn something new. It does help that I'm doing 20th century Literature, so knowing a bit more about the sociohistorical context enriches my understanding. However, there's only so much thought that music as a relatively enclosed area of knowledge can provoke, I think. It's really about... connecting human spirits that makes someone truly interesting. Or something to that effect. I've had my fair share of people whose psychological profiles I'm interested in, but somehow fail to engage me as a person. I can't quite say why.

(And the interesting part is that my secondary school friends; I've never bothered to psychoanalyse. It just never occurred to me to try to. My college friends have really interesting psychological profiles, but somehow... there's something in the quality of our relationships that's lacking, as compared to the friendships of yore. Maybe there's a trade-off somewhere. Perhaps psychiatrists can never be friends with their patients.)