Such a Hassle
"Link is a hero/pimp of Hyrule. When Link is not saving Hyrule, he is usually chilling with his ladies. He gets the rich bitch.....I'd like a sugar mama."
This statement about how much I rule by one of my friends gives me two possible approaches to the next week:
I can either A) Be gloomy and feel like shit and be pissed and depressed, or B) Be happy I have the most fun, hilarious, loyal friends and brothers of anyone I know.
Now, we all know that I'm too much of a procrastinator to ever make a Plan A work.
Let me set up a little background to an overabundance of high school dramalike bullshit.
Last year I lived in a dormitory with a guy we'll call Jay, because that's his name. Jay is 24 and I lived in the room with him for a semester, then we both got sick of me having to stay out of the room all the time so he could fuck some random girl who fell for his alleged moves, which he lovingly refers to as the "Easy Mac."
Despite his stubbornness during arguments and lack of any real ability to make solid points, not to mention being barracaded out of my own room multiple times...and the fact that he constantly smoke(s/d) weed, and one time while high ended up putting his girlfriend into a headlock essentially for looking at him funny...I had a great deal of respect for him in the beginning.
He was roundabout a good person, intelligent in most aspects, hardworking to say the least. I essentially lived with him for a span of eight months. Even though we got separate (but equal) rooms at semester so he could bang his girlfriend, he still lived next door to me. I'd go over to his place one day and we'd watch a movie, talk about whatever, he'd come over to my room the next day and tell me about something funny that happened at work as I tinkered with his computer for him, giving him parts from one of my old models for free to fix his broken heap. Most days we'd eat dinner in the dining hall together. I even ended up smoking with him quite a bit more than I should've. We had a grand old time.
I was even friends with his girlfriend. She and I worked at the same place a few days a week, and the first semester we had biology together. Over the summer we lived in two dorms that faced each other and we'd go to work together every day, sometimes sitting outside at a picnic table to talk. This semester I have class with her two days a week. They seem happy together, and I'm happy for them even if she might be put in a headlock now and then.
I'm running along, doing what I normally do, and one day my ex-roommate won't talk to me, doesn't even look me in the eye. I think that I'm imagining it because he's never said anything before, and surely if I'd done something he'd just tell me.
About five more scenarios pass in similitude. During the third I'm on my way out of work with spare food and ask him if he wants any, he looks away. The fourth I see him walking toward my dorm in a parkinglot. I nod to him and make eye contact, so he does a 90 degree turn completely away from where he was going (i.e. where my vehicle was parked by the doors). The final time was yesterday at some mutual friends' apartment. See, having lived together, we made a lot of mutual friends. Basically everyone on the male end of my hallway still hangs out with each other.
There are the two owners of the apartment along with five more of us in this place long before he shows up. No one knows what his problem with me is because he's told no one but his girlfriend. I'd given him time to cool off and see if he'd get over it, and haven't wanted to put him on the spot in social situations, which have been the only time I've been within talking range of him. I know no one else knows, because they've been badgering me. I asked his girlfriend in passing when it first happened, and she denied knowing, but I knew she was lying and didn't press her beyond the initial question. No one has any clue what's going on; one friend said all he could think of "is if you were trying to get on his girlfriend." But I don't find her attractive in the least, not because she's a bad person or necessarily unattractive. Just because she's a short frumpyish art major with poofy hair and security issues, and I do not under any circumstances try to "get on" someone that much like my mother. Nothing personal, it's just that I'm not from far enough south to prove Freud correct.
It having been weeks since I first asked, and me having known that she was lying, I asked her again when she was alone with myself and a friend. That's as little of a scene as I knew I'd be able to make, and I knew I had little time to probe for whatever I could get, which I knew wouldn't be a straight answer. I essentially asked her what was wrong and said that I knew she had been told, so just come out with it. Only not so gruff. She started to, as the locals say, him-haw around, so I became more direct. Basically, I just said that if one of her friends whom she'd lived with and been good friends with for almost a year just stopped talking to her out of the blue and I knew but she didn't and didn't have the opportunity to find out, wouldn't she want me to be straightforward with her?
She jacked around a bit, saying she wasn't a part of it. I told her no, she shouldn't be a part of it, but because she was told, she'd been made a part of it. I explained that I understood that with Jay, I could probably not make reparations, but that I could at least attempt to avoid repeating whatever it was that I did to him in the future. I think she understood that, but felt like saying anything would be betrayal. Good enough, I can respect that. She said, "All I can say is that you need to talk to Jay." Really, that's good enough for me. I don't see why she couldn't have just said that the first time I asked weeks ago. "It's not my place, you need to ask him."
I don't know how to get to his house now, I've only been there once months ago. I don't have his new phone number and it won't be listed until February. The only time he'll be around me is when he's forced to in a social setting. He's done his best to weed me out of the group. People will get calls from him when four of us are sitting there, and the person will say, "I'm just here with D and C..." When your friends feel uncomfortable even mentioning your name and no one knows why there's something wrong. He's tried to offer his house for any parties just to ensure that I wouldn't be there. But it's actually amusing, since his stereo broke, and I know all they were doing is drinking and smoking green anyway. I don't really smoke anymore, but I know how hardcore it blows when you don't have music. It made my soul laugh.
When he eventually was confronted with the statement that I had no real way of getting a hold of him other than what I was trying, he said, "You know how to use PeopleFinder." It's a lovely little thing on our school website where you type in a person's name to retrieve their e-mail address. This poses two problems: One, if you hate someone so thoroughly, you probably aren't going to respond to or even open an e-mail from them; Two, only a fucking douche would try to resolve something through email if it was at all possible to do it any other way: e-mailing was so out of the question that it never even occurred to me.
At the place yesterday, I found out he dictated that the duel is going to be at his house so I can't go. What's the duel? There have been two so far, and I'll just say that even if you're a hardcore smoker, all you'd have to do is stand in the room with about 25 other people and you'd feel it. I don't really care because I don't do that crap anymore, but once I found out, my best friend from the group pulled me aside and apologized up and down. "I'm so sorry you found out about the duel, I wanted to tell you so many times but I didn't want to make you feel bad," on and on. I just told him not to worry about it, and thanked him for trying to spare my feelings, assuring him that I was fine with it.
When Jay and his girlfriend were about to leave, this thoughtful friend of mine said he was going to step outside to smoke. Having an old cigar I wanted to finish before it became totally dry, I stepped out with him. It took a long time for Jay to come out, but that's okay, cigars last a long time. My friend told me before that he had intended to catch Jay on his way out and ask him what was going on, but it worked even better with me there, because Jay would just blow off the question as he had done before: I think everyone in the group had asked multiple times.
I said, "Hey, Jay," and he turned his head down and away and kept walking. I didn't even hear him say anything, but my friend told me later on that he had roughly just said, "What." Period, no question mark...he had no intent of waiting for the answer. Bless him, my friend steps up and says, "JAY."
He stops, and I start to ask something similar to "Do you mind telling me what I've done?" but all I get to is "Do you" before he yells, "Yeah, I've got a problem with you!" For the sake of easy writing, I'll just state now that all of his words were angry half-shouts. Knowing how to work an argument from my lovely family experiences, I put to practice the knowledge that a mirror is the worst thing to be in an argument. Fire with water, I remain calm, quiet, and passive.
I ask him to elaborate, and he's determined to be as uncooperative as possible. I should state ahead of time that he's very good at coming up with what, on the surface, seem to be viable arguments, but when pressed correctly and tested a little beyond where most people give up, prove to be loose and weak.
Firstly, he says that I have no integrity. Why is that? Because when I have a problem, I don't tell anyone about it, I keep it to myself. I think he was using the wrong I-word and really meant to say that I was "introverted," but he used the word integrity. Now, I don't see how not vocalizing a problem that you don't deem worthy of vocalization means that you don't have integrity, because I surely voice the ones that matter to me if I can't figure it out for myself (which I highly prefer to do). But his logic is quite flawed here, because he had this problem with me, yet failed to address me about it on multiple occasions. So, we both have no integrity. Only he's 24 and giving something the silent treatment with no integrity, and I'm 19 trying to rationalize all possible outcomes and solve my problems effectively with no integrity.
Secondly, he says that I'm passive aggressive and take pot-shots at people (meaning him, since it'd be illogical to make that claim for other people, with him not being around me all the time) and try to pass it off as funny. According to him, sometimes I'm joking, but a lot of the times when I say something I try to pass it off as a joke but am "really playing hardball." Giving someone the silent treatment and making your friends so uncomfortable that they don't mention you, then staging an anual get-together at your house simply to ensure I can't go...seems a bit passive aggressive. As for the humour, I don't take pot-shots at people. I'm too arrogant for that, quite honestly, and too old. If I have something to say, I say it. I realize I'm deadpan, monotone, frown all the time, and my humour is sparse, but if you can't understand it after living with me for a year, that means you're a dumbass, and even though I'm not taking pot-shots, I probably should be, because you obviously don't understand the alleged 50% that aren't making fun of you anyway.
Thirdly, he retraces his steps. This happens a lot in the arguments of people who make up things on the spot. After several weeks of the cold shoulder, you'd think a person would've thought out exactly what they were going to say to you. Obviously not. I'm accused of talking shit about him behind his back. Like I said, I respected him a great deal. I was always honest with him, never cheated him or ripped him off or lied to him. If he asked me a straight question, I always gave him as straight of an answer as possible. I don't even grant that favour to a lot of people I held far, far above him. Aparently, he's under the impression that I'd say bad things about him to his girlfriend on the way to class. I don't deny it, but I can honestly say I don't remember doing so. All I remember talking about is the weather, because practically every day she'd wear a jacket with a hood on it and complain that it was cold. I'd tell her to put the hood on, she'd refuse to, and I'd tell her not to complain if she wasn't going to do anything about it. In as jokingly a manner as possible; I was joking, after all. If I did say something negative about him, I don't remember it so it obviously didn't bother me that much. It was probably just the fact that it was 8:00 am and I was groggy and pissy and he'd done some minimal thing the night before. If that's the case, I probably blew it out of proportion and then forgot about it ten minutes later. People do that. All people. I've heard him bitch about so many things and so many people it's ridiculous. I told him that I haven't and don't say anything without the person present that I haven't or wouldn't say to them directly. For as much as I can remember, that's true. If I say, "Greg is annoying," and he's not there, I don't give a shit if you run back and tell him, I'll fess up to it and say, "Yeah Greg, you annoy me a lot, but obviously I still hang out with you so I don't dislike you despite." My mistake of course is not in stating the first part, but in not stating the second.
He also states that I go from one person to the next, latching on as I go. When I first meet someone or am first introduced in a social situation, I take it one person at a time and size everyone up. I told him as much, but I doubt he remembers: When I meet someone, I think to myself, will this person matter to me in five years? If not, I don't waste my time. I can see where he'd see my sizing up as latching on. But what do you first do when you go to a party where you don't know anyone? You don't go into the room and talk to everyone or no one; neither approach works. You pick out a person to talk to, chat for a little bit, move on to the next person, see if conversation's any good with him/her. Supposing he was referring to our group of friends, as they're the only friends he knows of mine, I met them in an order. First one, then a long time later his roommate. A month later new people move in down the hall, and I talk to one off and on, then his roommate. I never really went out that much. That's to say, it was a lot for me, but not as much as them. I don't see how I was latching onto people, and if he felt that I was latching onto him, well, no shit, the first person you meet is your roommate, and after four months of living together I'd hope you felt a stronger bond to that person. I knew he didn't view me as anything but shit under his shoe, but I still respected him and put him first out of loyalty if nothing else. So I felt, so he didn't.
He said that I should've gone to him instead of "hassling everyone" and hassling his girlfriend. Asking her once in a conversation of less than probably seven seconds isn't quite hassling. I'd asked her again that night, because I was determined it was going to end that night. I knew she'd go running to him about it because I really did put her on the spot for about four minutes, but I wasn't rough with her, I didn't demand anything from her. I simply posed and posed again, what would you want me to do? In retrospect, that was a guilt-trippish thing to do, but it's about the nicest way I could find what I was looking for. As I've said, I have more experience with confrontation than people give me credit for: I know how to minimalize anger, or at least reproach, whenever possible. I even told her as much, that "I fully expect you to run off and tell him about this." She looked startled that I'd be so blunt to call her on that, but it was true. And she did. He more than hinted that I was hassling all our other friends too, but honestly I hadn't said anything to them because I wanted it to be between only he and I. Which it should've been: if he hadn't, oh, say, talked about me behind my back to his girlfriend, I'd have had no reason or opportunity to hassle her. With everyone else, they were asking me, and I'd simply reply that "I don't know. You know as much as I do." They'd go and ask him because the situation he was creating by being so publicly cold was making them uncomfortable. But, as I pointed out to one of them, no one's going to turn on me for no reason. If they're not allowed to talk to me or invite me with them, they're not going to take silence as justification.
So though he said, "I don't need to justify myself to you," he does need to justify himself to them. After he left, the friend that went out to smoke/create an ambush pointed out that whenever I'd continually press for examples, he'd just say things like that. "I don't need to justify myself." Like what? "Tons of stuff." Give me an example. "I've got tons of examples." If it were really that bad, wouldn't you be able to remember some of it, even if you were being put on the spot?
He said that I had talked shit about him to his girlfriend and that, "obviously it's worked out between her and I." Hmm. Seems like a pot-shot to try and make me feel bad without directly stating how it didn't work out between him and I. Because I was totally trying to go out with him.
That of course must be me playing hardball and is definitely not expressionless sarcasm, much like this statement.
Sure I'm disappointed that he decided I suck, but I'm not going to go cut myself and write sad poems about it. He said that I could've damaged a relationship that brought him happiness, so how could he respect me? Maybe I'll be able to answer that once I dwell on the question of how I can respect him after attempting to damage the relationships I have with all of our mutual friends that make me happy.
The only thing sad about this is that even after having lived with me for several months and having been friends this long, he still doesn't know me at all. I'm one arrogant motherfucker and I know it, but I can honestly say I would've been one of the best friends he could ever hope for.
He says I need to put the critical eye to myself and stop applying it to others so much. I forgot that he could see inside my thoughts to know that I was being harsher on others than myself, but it's that critical eye that I push people so hard with that I push myself with a hundred times harder. I've mentally murdered myself so many times it's ridiculous. Once driving myself to the beginning of schizophrenia, landing myself in suicide counselling, a mental assylum, having two nervous breakdowns of such magnitude that one required hospitalization and the other three different shots to keep my body from going completely into shock. How many people drive themselves that hard? I wound up a masochist for a long while simply for pushing myself too hard to be so many things that I couldn't. I expect so incredibly little from people and am so easily pleased.
It does make it difficult to understand when people are this unhappy with me. I do make mistakes; I do not make mistakes on purpose. That's why they're called mistakes, and that's why I do my best not to hold grudges. It's sad one with such a critical eye of others can fail to see the hypocrisy within himself. At least I know I'm an arrogant elitist bastard. Knowing who you are and choosing who you are are different. I think that I know who I am but have little choice in the matter, whereas he chose who he wanted to be not really knowing what exactly that was.
When another friend stepped outside and asked what the problem was, I told him, simply, "It boils down to a personality conflict."
While "hassling" his girlfriend, I had said I was too old for this. I hope that when I'm 24, I'm still too old for it.
This statement about how much I rule by one of my friends gives me two possible approaches to the next week:
I can either A) Be gloomy and feel like shit and be pissed and depressed, or B) Be happy I have the most fun, hilarious, loyal friends and brothers of anyone I know.
Now, we all know that I'm too much of a procrastinator to ever make a Plan A work.
Let me set up a little background to an overabundance of high school dramalike bullshit.
Last year I lived in a dormitory with a guy we'll call Jay, because that's his name. Jay is 24 and I lived in the room with him for a semester, then we both got sick of me having to stay out of the room all the time so he could fuck some random girl who fell for his alleged moves, which he lovingly refers to as the "Easy Mac."
Despite his stubbornness during arguments and lack of any real ability to make solid points, not to mention being barracaded out of my own room multiple times...and the fact that he constantly smoke(s/d) weed, and one time while high ended up putting his girlfriend into a headlock essentially for looking at him funny...I had a great deal of respect for him in the beginning.
He was roundabout a good person, intelligent in most aspects, hardworking to say the least. I essentially lived with him for a span of eight months. Even though we got separate (but equal) rooms at semester so he could bang his girlfriend, he still lived next door to me. I'd go over to his place one day and we'd watch a movie, talk about whatever, he'd come over to my room the next day and tell me about something funny that happened at work as I tinkered with his computer for him, giving him parts from one of my old models for free to fix his broken heap. Most days we'd eat dinner in the dining hall together. I even ended up smoking with him quite a bit more than I should've. We had a grand old time.
I was even friends with his girlfriend. She and I worked at the same place a few days a week, and the first semester we had biology together. Over the summer we lived in two dorms that faced each other and we'd go to work together every day, sometimes sitting outside at a picnic table to talk. This semester I have class with her two days a week. They seem happy together, and I'm happy for them even if she might be put in a headlock now and then.
I'm running along, doing what I normally do, and one day my ex-roommate won't talk to me, doesn't even look me in the eye. I think that I'm imagining it because he's never said anything before, and surely if I'd done something he'd just tell me.
About five more scenarios pass in similitude. During the third I'm on my way out of work with spare food and ask him if he wants any, he looks away. The fourth I see him walking toward my dorm in a parkinglot. I nod to him and make eye contact, so he does a 90 degree turn completely away from where he was going (i.e. where my vehicle was parked by the doors). The final time was yesterday at some mutual friends' apartment. See, having lived together, we made a lot of mutual friends. Basically everyone on the male end of my hallway still hangs out with each other.
There are the two owners of the apartment along with five more of us in this place long before he shows up. No one knows what his problem with me is because he's told no one but his girlfriend. I'd given him time to cool off and see if he'd get over it, and haven't wanted to put him on the spot in social situations, which have been the only time I've been within talking range of him. I know no one else knows, because they've been badgering me. I asked his girlfriend in passing when it first happened, and she denied knowing, but I knew she was lying and didn't press her beyond the initial question. No one has any clue what's going on; one friend said all he could think of "is if you were trying to get on his girlfriend." But I don't find her attractive in the least, not because she's a bad person or necessarily unattractive. Just because she's a short frumpyish art major with poofy hair and security issues, and I do not under any circumstances try to "get on" someone that much like my mother. Nothing personal, it's just that I'm not from far enough south to prove Freud correct.
It having been weeks since I first asked, and me having known that she was lying, I asked her again when she was alone with myself and a friend. That's as little of a scene as I knew I'd be able to make, and I knew I had little time to probe for whatever I could get, which I knew wouldn't be a straight answer. I essentially asked her what was wrong and said that I knew she had been told, so just come out with it. Only not so gruff. She started to, as the locals say, him-haw around, so I became more direct. Basically, I just said that if one of her friends whom she'd lived with and been good friends with for almost a year just stopped talking to her out of the blue and I knew but she didn't and didn't have the opportunity to find out, wouldn't she want me to be straightforward with her?
She jacked around a bit, saying she wasn't a part of it. I told her no, she shouldn't be a part of it, but because she was told, she'd been made a part of it. I explained that I understood that with Jay, I could probably not make reparations, but that I could at least attempt to avoid repeating whatever it was that I did to him in the future. I think she understood that, but felt like saying anything would be betrayal. Good enough, I can respect that. She said, "All I can say is that you need to talk to Jay." Really, that's good enough for me. I don't see why she couldn't have just said that the first time I asked weeks ago. "It's not my place, you need to ask him."
I don't know how to get to his house now, I've only been there once months ago. I don't have his new phone number and it won't be listed until February. The only time he'll be around me is when he's forced to in a social setting. He's done his best to weed me out of the group. People will get calls from him when four of us are sitting there, and the person will say, "I'm just here with D and C..." When your friends feel uncomfortable even mentioning your name and no one knows why there's something wrong. He's tried to offer his house for any parties just to ensure that I wouldn't be there. But it's actually amusing, since his stereo broke, and I know all they were doing is drinking and smoking green anyway. I don't really smoke anymore, but I know how hardcore it blows when you don't have music. It made my soul laugh.
When he eventually was confronted with the statement that I had no real way of getting a hold of him other than what I was trying, he said, "You know how to use PeopleFinder." It's a lovely little thing on our school website where you type in a person's name to retrieve their e-mail address. This poses two problems: One, if you hate someone so thoroughly, you probably aren't going to respond to or even open an e-mail from them; Two, only a fucking douche would try to resolve something through email if it was at all possible to do it any other way: e-mailing was so out of the question that it never even occurred to me.
At the place yesterday, I found out he dictated that the duel is going to be at his house so I can't go. What's the duel? There have been two so far, and I'll just say that even if you're a hardcore smoker, all you'd have to do is stand in the room with about 25 other people and you'd feel it. I don't really care because I don't do that crap anymore, but once I found out, my best friend from the group pulled me aside and apologized up and down. "I'm so sorry you found out about the duel, I wanted to tell you so many times but I didn't want to make you feel bad," on and on. I just told him not to worry about it, and thanked him for trying to spare my feelings, assuring him that I was fine with it.
When Jay and his girlfriend were about to leave, this thoughtful friend of mine said he was going to step outside to smoke. Having an old cigar I wanted to finish before it became totally dry, I stepped out with him. It took a long time for Jay to come out, but that's okay, cigars last a long time. My friend told me before that he had intended to catch Jay on his way out and ask him what was going on, but it worked even better with me there, because Jay would just blow off the question as he had done before: I think everyone in the group had asked multiple times.
I said, "Hey, Jay," and he turned his head down and away and kept walking. I didn't even hear him say anything, but my friend told me later on that he had roughly just said, "What." Period, no question mark...he had no intent of waiting for the answer. Bless him, my friend steps up and says, "JAY."
He stops, and I start to ask something similar to "Do you mind telling me what I've done?" but all I get to is "Do you" before he yells, "Yeah, I've got a problem with you!" For the sake of easy writing, I'll just state now that all of his words were angry half-shouts. Knowing how to work an argument from my lovely family experiences, I put to practice the knowledge that a mirror is the worst thing to be in an argument. Fire with water, I remain calm, quiet, and passive.
I ask him to elaborate, and he's determined to be as uncooperative as possible. I should state ahead of time that he's very good at coming up with what, on the surface, seem to be viable arguments, but when pressed correctly and tested a little beyond where most people give up, prove to be loose and weak.
Firstly, he says that I have no integrity. Why is that? Because when I have a problem, I don't tell anyone about it, I keep it to myself. I think he was using the wrong I-word and really meant to say that I was "introverted," but he used the word integrity. Now, I don't see how not vocalizing a problem that you don't deem worthy of vocalization means that you don't have integrity, because I surely voice the ones that matter to me if I can't figure it out for myself (which I highly prefer to do). But his logic is quite flawed here, because he had this problem with me, yet failed to address me about it on multiple occasions. So, we both have no integrity. Only he's 24 and giving something the silent treatment with no integrity, and I'm 19 trying to rationalize all possible outcomes and solve my problems effectively with no integrity.
Secondly, he says that I'm passive aggressive and take pot-shots at people (meaning him, since it'd be illogical to make that claim for other people, with him not being around me all the time) and try to pass it off as funny. According to him, sometimes I'm joking, but a lot of the times when I say something I try to pass it off as a joke but am "really playing hardball." Giving someone the silent treatment and making your friends so uncomfortable that they don't mention you, then staging an anual get-together at your house simply to ensure I can't go...seems a bit passive aggressive. As for the humour, I don't take pot-shots at people. I'm too arrogant for that, quite honestly, and too old. If I have something to say, I say it. I realize I'm deadpan, monotone, frown all the time, and my humour is sparse, but if you can't understand it after living with me for a year, that means you're a dumbass, and even though I'm not taking pot-shots, I probably should be, because you obviously don't understand the alleged 50% that aren't making fun of you anyway.
Thirdly, he retraces his steps. This happens a lot in the arguments of people who make up things on the spot. After several weeks of the cold shoulder, you'd think a person would've thought out exactly what they were going to say to you. Obviously not. I'm accused of talking shit about him behind his back. Like I said, I respected him a great deal. I was always honest with him, never cheated him or ripped him off or lied to him. If he asked me a straight question, I always gave him as straight of an answer as possible. I don't even grant that favour to a lot of people I held far, far above him. Aparently, he's under the impression that I'd say bad things about him to his girlfriend on the way to class. I don't deny it, but I can honestly say I don't remember doing so. All I remember talking about is the weather, because practically every day she'd wear a jacket with a hood on it and complain that it was cold. I'd tell her to put the hood on, she'd refuse to, and I'd tell her not to complain if she wasn't going to do anything about it. In as jokingly a manner as possible; I was joking, after all. If I did say something negative about him, I don't remember it so it obviously didn't bother me that much. It was probably just the fact that it was 8:00 am and I was groggy and pissy and he'd done some minimal thing the night before. If that's the case, I probably blew it out of proportion and then forgot about it ten minutes later. People do that. All people. I've heard him bitch about so many things and so many people it's ridiculous. I told him that I haven't and don't say anything without the person present that I haven't or wouldn't say to them directly. For as much as I can remember, that's true. If I say, "Greg is annoying," and he's not there, I don't give a shit if you run back and tell him, I'll fess up to it and say, "Yeah Greg, you annoy me a lot, but obviously I still hang out with you so I don't dislike you despite." My mistake of course is not in stating the first part, but in not stating the second.
He also states that I go from one person to the next, latching on as I go. When I first meet someone or am first introduced in a social situation, I take it one person at a time and size everyone up. I told him as much, but I doubt he remembers: When I meet someone, I think to myself, will this person matter to me in five years? If not, I don't waste my time. I can see where he'd see my sizing up as latching on. But what do you first do when you go to a party where you don't know anyone? You don't go into the room and talk to everyone or no one; neither approach works. You pick out a person to talk to, chat for a little bit, move on to the next person, see if conversation's any good with him/her. Supposing he was referring to our group of friends, as they're the only friends he knows of mine, I met them in an order. First one, then a long time later his roommate. A month later new people move in down the hall, and I talk to one off and on, then his roommate. I never really went out that much. That's to say, it was a lot for me, but not as much as them. I don't see how I was latching onto people, and if he felt that I was latching onto him, well, no shit, the first person you meet is your roommate, and after four months of living together I'd hope you felt a stronger bond to that person. I knew he didn't view me as anything but shit under his shoe, but I still respected him and put him first out of loyalty if nothing else. So I felt, so he didn't.
He said that I should've gone to him instead of "hassling everyone" and hassling his girlfriend. Asking her once in a conversation of less than probably seven seconds isn't quite hassling. I'd asked her again that night, because I was determined it was going to end that night. I knew she'd go running to him about it because I really did put her on the spot for about four minutes, but I wasn't rough with her, I didn't demand anything from her. I simply posed and posed again, what would you want me to do? In retrospect, that was a guilt-trippish thing to do, but it's about the nicest way I could find what I was looking for. As I've said, I have more experience with confrontation than people give me credit for: I know how to minimalize anger, or at least reproach, whenever possible. I even told her as much, that "I fully expect you to run off and tell him about this." She looked startled that I'd be so blunt to call her on that, but it was true. And she did. He more than hinted that I was hassling all our other friends too, but honestly I hadn't said anything to them because I wanted it to be between only he and I. Which it should've been: if he hadn't, oh, say, talked about me behind my back to his girlfriend, I'd have had no reason or opportunity to hassle her. With everyone else, they were asking me, and I'd simply reply that "I don't know. You know as much as I do." They'd go and ask him because the situation he was creating by being so publicly cold was making them uncomfortable. But, as I pointed out to one of them, no one's going to turn on me for no reason. If they're not allowed to talk to me or invite me with them, they're not going to take silence as justification.
So though he said, "I don't need to justify myself to you," he does need to justify himself to them. After he left, the friend that went out to smoke/create an ambush pointed out that whenever I'd continually press for examples, he'd just say things like that. "I don't need to justify myself." Like what? "Tons of stuff." Give me an example. "I've got tons of examples." If it were really that bad, wouldn't you be able to remember some of it, even if you were being put on the spot?
He said that I had talked shit about him to his girlfriend and that, "obviously it's worked out between her and I." Hmm. Seems like a pot-shot to try and make me feel bad without directly stating how it didn't work out between him and I. Because I was totally trying to go out with him.
That of course must be me playing hardball and is definitely not expressionless sarcasm, much like this statement.
Sure I'm disappointed that he decided I suck, but I'm not going to go cut myself and write sad poems about it. He said that I could've damaged a relationship that brought him happiness, so how could he respect me? Maybe I'll be able to answer that once I dwell on the question of how I can respect him after attempting to damage the relationships I have with all of our mutual friends that make me happy.
The only thing sad about this is that even after having lived with me for several months and having been friends this long, he still doesn't know me at all. I'm one arrogant motherfucker and I know it, but I can honestly say I would've been one of the best friends he could ever hope for.
He says I need to put the critical eye to myself and stop applying it to others so much. I forgot that he could see inside my thoughts to know that I was being harsher on others than myself, but it's that critical eye that I push people so hard with that I push myself with a hundred times harder. I've mentally murdered myself so many times it's ridiculous. Once driving myself to the beginning of schizophrenia, landing myself in suicide counselling, a mental assylum, having two nervous breakdowns of such magnitude that one required hospitalization and the other three different shots to keep my body from going completely into shock. How many people drive themselves that hard? I wound up a masochist for a long while simply for pushing myself too hard to be so many things that I couldn't. I expect so incredibly little from people and am so easily pleased.
It does make it difficult to understand when people are this unhappy with me. I do make mistakes; I do not make mistakes on purpose. That's why they're called mistakes, and that's why I do my best not to hold grudges. It's sad one with such a critical eye of others can fail to see the hypocrisy within himself. At least I know I'm an arrogant elitist bastard. Knowing who you are and choosing who you are are different. I think that I know who I am but have little choice in the matter, whereas he chose who he wanted to be not really knowing what exactly that was.
When another friend stepped outside and asked what the problem was, I told him, simply, "It boils down to a personality conflict."
While "hassling" his girlfriend, I had said I was too old for this. I hope that when I'm 24, I'm still too old for it.
posted by red at 00:49
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