This is addressed to, lemme see, just about all of my friends, both online and off.
I need to start hanging around with Normals for a while. Yeah, they’re boring, with their linear thinking and inexplicable love of sports, but there is no work involved in staying their friend, either. Their motivations are clear and remain the same every time I talk to them. Their reasoning is easy to understand. They think I’m weird, but I am, I guess.
Like that curse about living in interesting times, there is also a curse in having interesting friends. You are a drain on my personal resources. My own world is held together with chewing gum and baling wire and being friends with you threatens that flimsy structure.
In that spirit, I will no longer offer to help anybody. It never did any good, anyway. It just left me feeling crappy and realizing that I can be mighty meddlesome if I don’t control it.
Therefore, I will sit idly by as you self-destruct. This you may find especially helpful, as I can, and have, made things worse. But I have learned I cannot stop your self-immolation.
I will not build any close friendships. These always result in misunderstandings. I will return to my aloof, wisecracking personna. With plenty of winkies so nobody takes me seriously. I have been taken far too seriously lately.
This is more a reflection on my own flaws than it is on you. It is not your fault that you drive me crazy. I become too involved too easily. I have to stop that.
drop, my good acquaintance–may I call you my acquaintance?
In the spirit of true acquaintanceship, let me assure you that I will not self-destruct if you are mostly indifferent to me, that I don’t need your help and, most importantly, that I have never, ever taken you seriously. As your forever acquaintance, I pledge never to call you at 3:00 am, never to borrow your money or your car and never to ask you to make my bail or meet me at the emergency room.
In my turn, I will not always read your posts, I will not offer you advice, I will be singularly clueless about your inner turmoil and I will not always be there for you when you are down in the dumps.
Within those parameters, drop, you’ve got an acquaintance in me. Just ask–if it’s really superficial and it fits my mood and my capabilities, you’ve got it.
Ah, superficiality! What I’m looking for in my acquaintences!
As for me, I will not take advantage of your licence to practice law in the State of Illinois. My father got wise and stopped taking the bar exam when the Feds transferred him. “Sorry, you’re a dear friend but I can’t help your son, the car thief. I’m not licenced to practice in Indiana/Montana/Washington.”
Oh, Droppie, I know what you mean, and I agree with you 100 percent. I used to play Jewish Mother and Dutch Uncle for my friends: chastising them and ooh-ahhing at their misbehavior and urging them to get a job/break up with so-and-so/stop smoking/stop taking drugs, etc.
It got exhausting, it never worked, and all I had to show for it was a rep as a scold and a judgmental bitch. So you know what? I no longer give a good goddam WHAT my friends do. They wanna smoke crack, or get into debt, or date psychos? Fine, let 'em. One friend called last New Years to tell me of the wild sex and drugs orgy he’d been to, and I just smiled, “Well, I’m glad you had a good time, dear.” He was rather taken aback that I didn’t so much as ask if he’d used protection.
My husband is an academic, and I have to deflect as many GD type questions (what do you think of tort law reform) as traffic ticket questions. Folks, I am a corporate dweeb, not a philosophe or Perry Mason.
PS–I won’t be responding any more, drop, lest you start thinking I care or something.
Falc, thank you for your understanding AND for not taking this as a personal attack. Even if you were one of the people I was talking about, which I won’t actually admit. And I remain on call, BUT I won’t be soliciting new business.
I’m just burnt out. Which comes from sticking my nose into too many places it doesn’t belong. Some people have taken me to task for that, and they are right. I need to concentrate on fixing my own life, which I’m able to avoid when I’m “fixing” everybody else’s.
HS, you needn’t take any extraordinary measures. I know you don’t care. Shit, I barely care, myself.
No, your problems didn’t make it worse. It was many things and the only way you entered into it was because of all the totally different emails I wrote you in my mind and never sent. It made me realize that my annoying habit of looking at things from all sides makes me PREPOSTEROUSLY unqualified to tell others how to live their lives. Despite the many ways I have (almost) screwed up my own.
[sub]Pssssst! You wanna know what I think it REALLY is? I think it’s because I’m coming down with a cold. I get introspective and grumpy when I’m sick. This is compared with my NORMAL mood of introspection and grumpiness.[/sub]
