mes amies imaginaire

Ever had an imaginary friend? A make-believe friend, someone you may have conjured up to play masak2 with, or to keep you company. A make-believe friend can come in various forms. For my brother, it's the army troops he addresses whenever he's playing with his toy fighter jets or tanks. For Mac, it came in the form of Blue, as seen in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for the unitiated, that's a cartoon).

Occasionally in movies you'll come across the typical character of a kid who believes he has an imaginary friend, and treats him like he's real(e.g:gives him food, asks the parent to give the imaginary friend a kiss goodnight too, that sort of thing). I find it horribly pretentious at times, a commercialisation of a thing movie producers deem as the epitome of cute child behaviour. The whole kid-with-an-imaginary-friend thing has been overplayed too much, for me anyway.

But on the other hand, i was one who believed in having imaginary friends myself. Not so much of a constant imaginary companion whom i spent the whole day with and pretended to feed, bathe, and play with, but more like, an imaginary someone to talk to when i was alone. When i was younger, if i was playing by myself and mom wasn't around, i'd pretend to engage in a conversation with someone imaginary. Sometimes I'd pretend to treat him/her like a guest and make them a beverage to drink, using shampoo foam mixed with water. Sometimes i'd write letters and address them to myself, pretending someone sent them to me. Or if i just bought some new shoes, still in its box, i'll pretend my imaginary friend gave it to me as a gift, and i'd open it up like a present. Strange, yes.

Hmm. would it freak you out if i said i still talk to imaginary friends sometimes?

wakaka, i don't pretend to cook for my make-believe friend or address letters to myself anymore. don't worry. I'm not schizophrenic or anything. It's just that once in a while, when i'm feeling down, or when i'm feeling stressed out over something, there are some things i'd like to say. sometimes blogs and online journals aren't sufficient enough. sometimes I want to whine and vent my feelings vocally. But, as a lot of the stuff that frustrates me are usually petty, self-centered thingies, it would be unfair to burden someone else with my complaints. So what i'd do is, i'd pretend to hold a conversation with someone imaginary. I know, it sounds pretty crazy and pointless to do this, but amazingly enough, it works.

You see, the thing that makes these conversations work is the fact that you get to choose what your imaginary companion will say. Because in real life, sometimes, when you tell someone something you think is important, you don't quite get the reaction or response you had hoped for. In the end you just wind up feeling disappointment in your friend and ashamed of yourself for sharing such things. With an imaginary friend, on the other hand, you can imagine the person you're talking to saying the right things, or you can imagine that person actually just sitting quietly and LISTENING to you, WANTING to know your problems and wanting to help you out sincerely. in short, you can be as self-centered as you want to with this make-belive person, without worrying about annoying them. and of course, another thing is that you can imagine your make-believe friend to be anyone you want him/her to be. You can make them out to be the friend that you've always wanted to give a piece of your mind to. You can pretend it's the person you've wanted to talk to so badly but never had the guts. You can imagine it's just a stranger who happened to catch your eye and struck up a conversation with. It can be anybody.

would it be insanely melodramatic to say that most of the conversations i've had with my made-up friends are better than any attempt at a heart-to-heart with a real person?

But of course, there's the downside to it too. The downside is at the end of the conversation with your imaginary friend, when you realize that while it was definitely therapeutic having a talk with a made-up person, you still wish that someone real, someone living and breathing and not just imaginary, had said and done the things your imaginary friend did. It's that kind of paradox.

On a lighter note, take a look at this video of john butler from the john butler trio playing a guitar instrumental called 'ocean'. It looks incrediby hard to play, he seems super skilled(he played awesomely save for a couple glitches at the beginning), but then again, I know nuts about guitar, maybe everyone can play that way after a certain point of experience and practice. I just adore the tune and the playing because it's so pretty. The timing of the video with the sound is a bit off, but it's not really obvious unless you look closely or until the end of the clip.