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Lilly Friend Project

Questionnaire: "Ross Geller"

Posted on: April 16, 2025

Preliminary Questions

Do you live within a thirty-minute radius/are you comfortable commuting to Murray Hill or elsewhere in Manhattan to hang out with me?

[REDACTED]

Are you crazy?

Can you supply a personal website or social media profile?

[REDACTED]

Once I review your application, I will reach out to have a more formal, sit-down interview to be my friend in Manhattan. This interview will be videotaped and I will be posting the footage on social media. Are you able to report to Manhattan and spend at least an hour for the interview?

Open Questions

Why are you filling out this questionnaire?

Curiosity; what else drives us so deepest, right? Or said another way: consciousness more than doesn't know itself, its "unwaryness" precedes it. So goes an anonymous tale.

How many "close friends" (by close friends I mean people that you see more than twice a month if they live in the tri-state area or if they are a long-distance friend that you speak with at least twice a month) do you have?

2

Do you listen to Billie Eilish? If so, why?

In the act of loyalty to answering honestly, I know of Billie Eilish. Music wise, I am faint to hear her sound. But to give some solidity, I will find a popular song, and return here with a more desirable answer. (Returning): "Lovely" was somewhat interesting. I mean it has substance, just not the manipulation of frequencies to my taste.

It's Saturday morning! What time are you up and what do you want to do with the day?

It varies. What I want is never constant by mark of a particular day. To guess my average case, however: Up time: 5am What I'm doing: Physical preparation; cold shower, meditation, walking. I likely start writing. The early afternoon comes before I know it, and I take a stroll to meet the world.

Have you ever had an existential crisis? How did it come about and what was your ultimate takeaway from it?

I am currently in one, although I'm philosophically contained. This is a personal matter, of course, but it came out of of a mix of mental and spiritual holes about my conscience. Because the process of the situation hasn't concluded, an ultimate takeaway is yet to come. However, a street maxim "F**k Everybody!" sounds nice at times.

You are at a party and a topic comes up that you could go on and on and on about that nobody else knows anything about. What is the topic and would you talk about it or not talk about it?

Topic: Poetry There isn't too much a way in answering this that doesn't call for a nerd moment or "too elaborate a response." Everyone possess an instinct of when they feel safe talking about a topic they have great knowledge of. But the absolute uncertain future precedes us. What we don't know, in other words, is how we're going to feel when we feel how we feel i.e. on this specific matter. But to answer personally, depending on the moment, and how I feel, I'm likely to speak on the art form that told me I'm a writer--perhaps more than a musician (this is psychologically of my current existential crisis).

What do you think about feminism? How did you come to that conclusion?

I read bell hooks recently, the Will to Change specifically. I have yet to review my readings of her work, but my views on feminism, for sure, have changed. I think it's instrumental to the awakening of men in dominantly patriarchal societies that have over-prided themselves in "being" the superior end-all product of Nature. I think feminism won't survive to a long-lasting practice, but its impact throughout the second half of the 20th century, the female writers that emerged when they did (bell hooks and Audre Lorde for example), says a lot about moral interpretations and the primitive innocence of being human. I appreciate the serious feminists that see both sides of the coin, such as seeing (as bell hooks mentioned), that there are single mothers raising their sons with camouflaged sympathies to patriarchal ways, one being that the mother allows her son to hit her, so that he can build a sense of superiority for the world outside of which she raises him, so that he is prepared for when he becomes older; this is a scary form of self-infliction, the cost of seeing what benefits a kin at the risk of one's mental and emotional health, simply because there is a misconstrued view of the father absence.

If there was an alternate reality in which you had a debilitating, life-altering addiction, what would you be addicted to?

I would be addicted to sounds and frequencies.

What are your dreams?

It's in and out, sometimes I don't have them (as far as I know), but when they arise, I see very abstract images e.g., flowers, buildings, and people I know. Once in a while a family member appears. Then there's the one's where I die, but I also never see my death. I haven't had these in a while. Lately, my dreams have been a little more serious than goofy.

Do you believe in ethical consumerism or is it a drop in a giant well that has already been dug by multinational corporations so it doesn't matter?

Hard to say. But problems are life's specialties.

Multiple-Choice Questions

What qualities are most important to you in a friend

What is the worst thing on this list

Work is:

Which poet's writing do you most connect with?

Do you feel like you've lived one life or lots of lives?

How do you feel about answering all these questions:

Aristotle once said; "my friends, there are no friends." How do you feel about that:

Essay Question

Please describe a friend breakup you have gone through. If you haven't gone through a friend breakup, please explain why you think you have never gone through a friend breakup. Outline a major friendship in your life and explain why it is successful.

2018, I betrayed a friend. He had a romantic interest in a woman who became my friend, girlfriend, and now ex-friend. I made a decision marked in betrayal, but responsive to the ex-friend that was morally judging me for some time. I faced the fear of talking with him about it by becoming romantically involved with the woman, although the affectionateness between her and I was completely genuine. What made the situation mostly awkward for me was that I realized what I was capable of after all was said and done. I was old enough (27) to know I could act like that, but to feel the misdeed or slow disentanglement of the friendship is what hurt the most. I admitted to him that I became more than friendly with her, but not with ease: we were in person.

Not talking to me for a while, and dodging his heated texts, I let him breathe for a month. My emotional switch was off for a while; I didn’t feel the pain till after a year later.

We met at a diner downtown. Things weren’t causal but neither tense. It seems he thought a great deal about everything, and before I realized it, we were back outside, and the last thing he said to me was “You lost a friend.”

I wondered how I answered him back at the diner, as if he was expecting a wise or pleasing answer to show that I learned my lesson per say. But I don’t know, this was a long time ago…though it feels like yesterday.

Not sure what kind of elaborate story (if at all) you may be interested in. But this is as wonderfully told in person than what print can entail; I find writing about this a little bewitched.

Yet you have requested 500 words minimum. Fair.

The woman and I were compatible in ways, perhaps dangerously. We found we were great as friends, and hazy as romantic partners. And the saying that after coitus we can never go back to that initial emotional exchange is as solid as a rock. For details, we politely mingled on book-mutuality, our affinity for words, the black experience in America, art, love, mystery, minutiae. We spoke about everything.

Surely we were in love, but very young ones, late 20s–I am 32 now. We’re both creative individuals. She’s a ballet dancer. I’m a jazz musician, now a teacher in music and facing this existential crisis, something beyond the pain of the broken friendship.

But we were in love too quickly, I mean by voluntary force of action, wrestling against doing the “wrong thing”. I don’t mean to be philosophical in this regard, but it didn’t feel all wrong that I became romantically involved with her. I have never been jealous of anyone in my life, and even though I speak with a confessing tone, I like to say circumstances take hold in lieu of appearances in “Appearances are deceiving.”

So nonetheless, that is the story.