Part+ Part + Part = Sum

The sum is greater than its parts.

Of course this is mathematically true, but in the context of our interpersonal relationships can one part not significantly detract from the sum to the extent that the sum is no longer worth it?

(Just shelve your wise ass, math savvy comments: if the largest part is negative then the sum is negative blah blah blah--I do want to interject that if all parts of it are negative then the sum is not in fact greater than its parts--so HA!)

Tauren and Summer invited me to dinner last night. I was tired but didn't want to renege on them per usual, so I happily went to Arriba Arriba. We had some wonderful and stimulating conversation about race and the conflicts of dating across it.

What brings me to the sum and parts issue is the comment Taurean made when the darker, arguably morbid, part of me surfaced at the end of the evening. He's made them before and they always make me angry because I feel invalidated. He's one of my best friend's and by not valuing this part of me it makes me question the basis of our friendship. He only wants to deal with happy, bouncy, bubbly me--which is me most of the time, but it's not all of me. More importantly I think in many ways it is the cover above the real me--thus feeling invalidated.

He chooses not to be around me when I'm "like this", but in that choice he is saying "This part of you. Don't like it. Won't deal with it. So be the you I like or bounce" I think men have a greater tendency to do this than women. This is not to say women don't or even that I haven't done this. But man's (male!) fundamental nature is to fix things and Taurean can't fix me, so that disengages him. That hurts. It makes me feel uncomfortable about expressing a part of myself around him--so how am I to be myself?

I also experience a degree of cognitive dissonance because as a actor, he should be able and willing to cope with this aspect of me. But he won't. If we are so close and he confirms regularly that we are, then why won't he?

More pressingly, I know he's not a fairweather friend, but he certainly is a "mood dependent" friend. In disagreeing with a part of me, he is going farther than plain contratian Taurean he is discounting the value and my ability to control this aspect of my being. I mean, what's next...don't be wear green?