I’m so amazingly frustrated anymore. Everytime I try to have a conversation with someone regarding issues that matter to me I get the “You just don’t understand” line. A girl I used to be best friends with goes off on me because I made a comment regarding the fact that I don’t agree with people who do pot and who get drunk everynight for the hell of it. We live in a relatively “small town.” It really isn’t small it’s just boring, and everyone I seem to know except for my best friend and I and a few select others resort to getting high and drunk every weekend to keep themselves occupied. Call me the rebel but I just think that claiming to be too sheltered from the outside world and resorting to drugs is a bit cliche. Not only is it cliche but it’s stupid. It’s illegal and nothing good comes from it. Anyway, I basically said this to her, and she got all defensive on me because she’s evidently smoked up before, and her current boyfriend is a real burnout, and gives me this whole “you don’t know what you’re missing. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it, if you ever had the guts to do pot you’d like it and you’d do it again. You just don’t understand… bla bla bla” horse shit for about 5 minutes… Then I find out a guy I dated for a little while is a big fan of the “shrooms”. And a guy who I considered to be one of my best friends lays on me that he has a problem with drugs and alcohol, claims he’s gonna stop, and then continues to call me up drunk everyweekend, and then i get the speech from a “friend” of mine about how the fact that I don’t sleep around makes me some sort of prude bitch, and that I don’t know anything about life and that I “don’t know what I’m talking about, I don’t understand anything” and with my current knowledge and firm groundings in my beliefs I’d like to think that I’m the only one with my head on straight anymore, but I start to wonder, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe I really am missing out on everything. Maybe I really don’t understand. I’ve lived a good life. my parents are happily married and supportive of me. I’m the only one in the family so far that hasn’t screwed up royally… I live in a relatively nice house, and I don’t consider myself to be oppressed like the other upperclass suburban kids in my school. So I have never really felt the need to resort to altered states of consciousness to deal with my problems or for pure entertainment. So knowing this I think I make perfect sense in my reasonings for not acting like a douche. Yet for some reason I don’t understand anything, and I don’t know anything about life, and I don’t have any right to voice an opinion because I’ve never been at risk of getting pregnant or getting arrested. Is the whole world around me backwards, or am I just some naive stupid teen that needs to enlighten herself on the ways of the world. I’m just so sick of people telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about… The real question is: Are they right???
Woah. Now there’s an outpouring.
Do what you think is right. As you mature, your values may or may not change, but stick to what you believe in. If a clean, drug-free life is what you want, then stick to it regardless of the opinions of your peers. But don’t assume the moral high ground. Just do what feels right for you, and good luck.
Just my $0.02.
There is nothing wrong with your lifestyle.
OTOH, there is nothing wrong with your friends’ lifestyles either, so long as they take some basic precautions to protect themselves and others. Don’t drive drunk, use condoms, stuff like that.
You shouldn’t take these comments as simple insults. Your friends like what they’re doing, and want to share the fun with you. It’s really a kind of backhanded compliment.
Hijack/
About five years ago, my roommate and two other guys got wasted, and decided it would be a scream to TP his sister’s yard. Unfortunately they also decided that it would be good for me to join in, so they came over to get me first. I thought it was a juvenile, stupid thing to (these were people in their 30s and 40s) and I wouldn’t go along. It came very close to getting violent because one of them wouldn’t take no for an answer, and literally started dragging me out of the apartment. Fortunately, my roommate realized I was dead serious and stopped his friend before I brained him for laying hands on me.
I mention this as an example of how your friends may try and push you into stupid things, and if they are already somewhat out of control, it could get rather ugly. [/Hijack]
I agree, do what feels right to you, and don’t worry about what others think.
Sounds a lot like my city (just outside of Detroit). Nothin to do but have sex and do drugs. I don’t do drugs and I don’t sleep around, so I try the best I can to go meet people from other cities who do other things for fun.
And the whole comment of “If you tried weed, you’d like it and keep doing it”, well I have tried weed, and it wasn’t great, so I didn’t do it anymore. However, I will admit, I like to go out and get drunk from time to time, but not just cause I’m bored. You should just ignore them and find some smarter people to hang with.
And don’t try to change THEIR lifestyle. Trust me, 99 out of 100 times, it won’t work.
<plays “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth” by the Dandy Warhols as mood music>
You don’t sound out of the loop to me, just well adjusted and comfortable with dealing with reality. There’s something to be said about people who embrace life without crutches.
As for the people in your town…There are three basic kinds of people you could associate with in life: those that feel the same way about the things that matter to you; those who feel differently but are accepting of more than one view point; those who feel differently, are hostile about it and will chalk the difference up to “you couldn’t possibly understand” and make it out to be a bad thing. Associating with more (although not just)people in the first two groups than the third will help you mantain your sanity and happiness. Hopefully you’ll discover more like-minded folks after high school.