WRONG

Anyone that knows me knows that I try to be serious about things, with a slight sense of humor:




The main character always says the same thing: "I didn't DO anything."

But bad things keep happening.

I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety, and depression.

I didn't DO anything to make these appear, they just did.

And like in the movie, I'm responsible for them as if I DID do something to make them appear.

That sucks.

It's like being responsible for a person in another country because you just happened to have the same last name.

Sounds stupid, but it's reality.

Things happen because of my issues: alienating friends, isolation, random outbursts, severe headaches...

... and there's NOTHING I can do about any of them.

I just sit here, crying my eyes out, hoping that - at some point in time - I gather the strength to either stop it on my own or find help.

In the film, Larry Gopnik didn't just sit around and wait for things to fix themselves.

Like Larry, I tried my best to just understand what was going on.

I went to counseling, sought help, tried any treatment recommendations from friends, family, and other professionals.

And I found that after all that... taking medicines, practicing yoga, meditation, trying to always "stay centered"... the same issues still happened... and it still took the same amount of time to "heal" as it did before.

It seemed that there was really nothing for me to do.

I could sit around, and "it" would magically resolve itself.

I decided to stop wasting my time doing things that I didn't like that didn't really work to fix anything.

I kept veganism because I actually stopped having indigestion problems when I gave up meat, dairy, and eggs.

Otherwise, everything else was just there to keep my mind or body preoccupied with something to do.

Seeing that I have PLENTY of things that I'd rather do than those, I went ahead and just focused on doing that (my desired things), and left those other ones alone.

However, I was still confused about the relationship-human-interaction thing.

I've watched it happen.  I've watched other people do it, and it STILL seemed confusing.

So, I just stopped trying to pretend that I had "friends" and go out and actually try to achieve making real ones.

It was hard.  Dedicating time to people is no easy matter.

People are all different, and there are so many nuances to take into consideration, that one can be left spellbound just trying to understand them all.

I tried to take the simple people... the ones that didn't seem to change much when interacting from person to person.

But the downfall of that is that those people treat everyone the same, but you don't know "WHO" that "everyone" is based on.

You can get treated like a masked villain for all they care, just because they base all of human existence off of it.  And there's no way to convince them of otherwise.

So, I put those individuals on the shelf of life in the Acquaintanceship section, then went on about gathering more friends... still the ones that treat people, mostly, the same, but them knowing that - intuitively - each person is different and they have to learn what those differences are... and yet, they will be able to open themselves up subconsciously to see that.

I figured that I gave enough of a description to really "open myself up" to a good group of people that could "possibly" fit into my friend genre.

Nay.

Even more complications... these people, although fitting all the descriptions above, are kind of... self-centered.  They think they're better than the rest because THEY KNOW they take other things into consideration.

I tacked on my new-found knowledge, and went about my merry way, looking for more friends.

I skipped relationships in the intimate realm because I've had enough of those (and enough encouragement to have those) to get a good gist of what's right-and-wrong with them.  So for the remainder of this section, I'm going to keep focusing on friendship.

After meeting my first few friends within my revised definition, I started to develop a since of comradeship. I felt like I belonged and was starting to finally "get the swing of things".

And then, the ball hit the fan and smacked me right in the face: If you weren't "in" the group, then you were "out".  And it was a harsh line to contend with... seeing people being kicked out left and right made me want to flee the group faster than boiling molasses running down a hot asphalt slope.

I wanted to give up, then something popped out at me while walking along a busy street during an art showing.   I saw something that I hadn't really seen in the movies or TV: People don't really hang in groups of "friends"... they normally just have one or two people they hang with, but usually, it's just one.

There were no close-knit group of 20 or 10 or 5 people... if they were together, it looked like it was happenstance that they all *knew* each other.  Otherwise, they would break off into pairs.

And that's, ladies and gentlemen, where I finally found out where I went wrong, and what I was trying to need to do.  And how doing that thing was just failing me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Friends are, basically, singular people that you hang with.  Everyone else is an acquaintance until further time that you ALSO spend singular time with them. (Give or take a few unique circumstances.)

Although I STILL have not quite gotten the swing of the friendship thing, I think I've gotten a firmer hold on it than before.

I hope this helps explain to those that I'm still: A) Trying to find out this friendship thing and what it really means and; B) Having emotional issues tied to it so much so that it makes me hurt inside and bust out with fury.

Thanks for listening.