A Case for the Hard-to-Handles

Please choose your least favorite person from the list below:

a)   Stoner athlete

b)  Fake bitch

c)   Shy prude

d)  Loud-mouthed know-it-all

Isn’t it nice how clean and organized we can make things once we typecast? Since middle school we’ve all been steadily growing into our adult bodies and slotting ourselves into the appropriate societal niches. No longer do I aspire to become president, ballerina, and mom with equal measure of hope.

And, as we find our strengths, certain weaknesses of others start to rub us the wrong way. We each have collected our list of unpleasant personality types. I don’t really mean people whom we find morally reprehensible. But just those who are, well, irksome, annoying, and not worth our time.

I’ve been sitting around thinking about what most everyone takes for granted, and it seems like we all agree that friends are people whom you like and choose to spend time with for no other reason. Looking at my list of nearest and dearest, though, I’m not sure that’s what makes for the most lasting or enriching friendships. Here are a few points in favor of seeking out friends who aren’t the first pleasant acquaintances you happen to collect.

1. Friendships that require more work last longer.

One of my friends from high school and I had just the worst rapport. We fought like dogs or siblings. On multiple occasions he came up to me and said, “Thank you for saying XYZ nice thing to me today. This morning, I had my hand on the button to remove your contact info from my phone.” We were—in a word—incompatible.

I can’t map out exactly how it happened, but after years of bickering, sometime near the transition from junior to senior, we just stopped fighting. We’ve gotten along perfectly since. This isn’t the only friend with whom I’ve had this happen, but in each case, the season of fighting is followed by a much longer period of harmony.

When I think about why these friendships survive as others crash away on the rocks of different time zones, I have only one plausible conclusion: We earned it. I fought to keep them in my life, and they fought to keep me. I don’t know why we were fighting for it. It was only proximity that had thrown us together. Yet, because it was together that we learned how to make ourselves understood, our friendships based on proximity grew into something more lasting.

If you find yourself in the middle of a difficult relationship with a difficult personality, consider sticking it out. You may be building the foundation of a structure you will one day hold dear to your heart

2. Difficult friends prepare you for difficult colleagues, children, and all of the other people who you don’t get to choose.

Once you’ve stuck it out with a close friend and ironed out the kinks, other people’s highs and lows are no longer as striking. Your colleague won’t have your deepest insecurity in his back pocket to whip out in a moment of anger.

It blows my mind when people who dislike most other humans have kids. How do you think you’ll possibly get along with these quasi-random personalities now permanently entrenched in your family?

In the spirit of deepening your love for humanity at large, find its outliers and learn to love them first. It only makes loving the rest of the spectrum easier.

3. Learning how not to judge a book by its cover takes the kind of practice that caring for difficult friends offers.

Never have I spoken to someone for more than 2 hours without getting some kind of surprise. Lives are complicated. Perhaps the clean-cut girl in your philosophy section has a cult following in the death metal scene that would leave you floored. Even if her life is just as you would have predicted, there’s an emotional richness to her story that you’re missing out on right now. People are beautiful and messy and sublime. Befriending those who don’t stand out to you can serve as a humbling reminder of human complexity.

Now that I’m here in my adult body with my adult mind and several of my adult life choices already made, I’m surprised to find out just how much of a typecast character I am at Harvard. Whether I’m (erroneously) assumed to be the quiet white girl from the suburbs or the snotty little know-it-all, the eyes defining me fall blind to the intricate pleasures I do have to offer.

The “unappealing personality crowd” for much of my life has been a “them” rather than an “us.” Yet as I age, I find more division and more judgments available for use. At this point, I think we all have personalities distinct enough to prove unappealing.

Please remember that the next time you’re on the brink of reaching out a hand to meet someone new, or when you’re just about to unfriend that difficult somebody on Facebook, they are me, they are you, and we all are sublime creations stuffed into types just waiting to be let out.

Veronica S. Wickline ’16, an ancient history concentrator, lives in Kirkland House.