You have to dig pretty far down into something I've written where I'm complaining about a specific person verses “this is wrong with humanity.” Very rarely do I ever feel genuine hatred or disgust with myself and instead I try to explore what the path to being all I want to be really looks like, and what I'll do with the power when I have it. When I have money that I’m worried about wasting, ideas about myself I don’t immediately think are fair, or a rocky interpersonal situation I’m not sure how to navigate, often it’s best to wait and do nothing.
The problem is that today “doing nothing” looks a lot like constantly being engaged or entertained, but is the active forgoing of any larger responsibility than to be placated. It's the months of the same video game. It's working yourself to death for the sake of it. It's retaining a pinch of dignity that at least you're not wildly ill-informed, even if nothing in your life suggests you'd make a real move towards a fix.
Arguably one of my biggest complaints about modern society is how they actively attack their ability and frankly duty to respect what they have. Whether you have good friends in your life or your health or a car or some vision that you believe your current actions in some way speak to you achieving. I find instead that people are “happy” to distract themselves. They get bogged down in abstract politicizing of hardly debatable things. They timidly go from one superficial relationship or suffer some ignorant power dynamic until it's on to the next one, and if you don't exist at their exhausted and exploited level, you're setting yourself to be bitten by their unresolved resentment.
Of course, when I say “you,” I mean anyone that they wish they could be more like but refuse to practice their habits or respect what they're doing. Now that it's a pattern that has happened twice to me by the same person regarding the same things, I feel comfortable speaking to it plainly. Colin stole from me. Colin stole from me because he believes money is more deserved to be used as he pleases instead of what he obligated himself to. We'd all love for this to be the case. It bit me when I fucked about with taxes. It's caught up to many of my friends in paying back loans. Life is hard, give me my cigarettes and pizza, “oh well” other guy.
Now I said the instance has happened twice. The specific and real failure is that of being true to your word and then an exercise of cowardice. The reason I have a more expensive than I wanted it to be broken van in my parking space is because 3 or more months before we were deciding whether or not to move out, both Colin and Byron said they'd sign the lease and make for the transition out to the land easier. In some poor or miscommunication between Byron and Colin, I find out relatively last minute that actually I'm about to be out on my ass alone or struggling to find random people to occupy a space we were all trying to eventually move away from.
That's not the conversation that happened though. Instead, I was given “the original” plan between Colin and another friend of ours about living situations. You know, a conversation I was never privy to, and one that has nothing to do with leaving me thinking you're going sign on to the lease. Instead of just saying, “Byron said something confusing and disconcerting, how can we work this out?” Colin obligates himself to another lease, leaves me in the dark, and I have to become the nag that drags out why I'm the last one to know I don't know who I'm going to be living with or whether I'm going to be.
So Colin moves out. He pays the last month's rent, but the bills are due. He's made it his pattern to pay the bills last, a week after they're generally due, and in this instance decides he wasn't here so he's no longer obligated. Man, it'd be great if it worked like that! You know how many weeks I've been gone from the house at studies? Several months collectively. And for those of you who think it's wildly expensive to rent the power it takes to keep a computer on or food in the fridge, I'll gladly show you my electric bill breakdown. Did I complain about the thermostat fuckery? Did I refuse to pay when the water bill actually went up with me gone? Of course not. I signed up to pay bills, then I added the obligation to studies.
The bills are in my name. So, as Colin pointed out, I get fucked regardless if I don't want to make up the difference between me and Byron. Great point, really shows a respect and focus in your work attempting to justify. Add the irony that he's stated out loud his desire to contribute more in the toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent sense, but never really found the gumption. 80 / 12 is is $6.66 a month, for anyone curious.
So Colin lays our friendship at the feet of $40. For him it might be a negligible write off that annoys me, but truly isn't a big deal. Except, friends don't steal from each other. Friends relate honestly when they're scared or confused by something and don't just let things fall through the cracks waiting for my inevitable attempt to address it, only to have the circumstances thrown in my face. I attempt to give freely. One of my plans was to literally build a dwelling for both Byron and Colin after figuring out all the things I did wrong in the one I built for myself. No one in your life is going to feel that way about you or offer as much. The lack of respect you show yourself, I feel palpably for who I wished to be for you.
Now, this is a pattern that certainly goes well beyond Colin. Back when I bought the alcohol and me and Hatsam cleaned the house or cooked food, the resentment built up there and spilled over too, of course in my lap. Things that were never a problem became problems overnight. People that claimed friendship and happiness and good times all around had mad shit to talk the next morning or in the shared mouth-breathed air of the dorms. I know how it goes. Especially as we keep getting older and feel more and more like who we wish we were has made a solid attempt to slip through our fingers.
Simply, I still don't care if all you can do in service to your tortured life is find ways to backhanded slap me. I'm not losing friends. You're losing an opportunity. Clearly time spent together means absolutely nothing, but you'd think in practical terms, you'd bleed me for all of my naive dreaming and investment before you thought $40 was worth it. I think the strategy of grandfathering in people who after college still find themselves tired, broke, and mostly espousing their proclivity for video games is certainly my fault. I'm not free, and the payment is respect. People who steal from you don't respect themselves, and therefore cannot respect you.
Who's out there waiting for me? Who's waiting to find their moment to blame me for their shitty decision making? Who's going to tell me it's just that I talk so mean or am some endless list of impossible character flaws that you were scared I'd light you on fire if you were honest? Come on people, get it out of the way early. I haven't named names since the Julie/John fiasco, and I'm sure 75% of you don't even know who those people are. Like John, Colin gave me an ultimatum. I'm picking myself and the standards I hold for my behavior and relationships I wish to keep and respect. Good luck in the world you create for yourself.
