Jan 30, 2006 15:18
"Everything seems to be up in the air at this time [x2]
One day soon it will all settle down
But everything seems to be up in the air at this time"
-Camper Van Beethoven
I feel I should update from the last entry.
I spoke of a CD I was making for someone. I made it and immediately didn't like it.
Not that it turned out especially badly (one song just shouldn't have been there), but after listening to it, I realized that it was great for expressing how I felt three months or so ago.
I have reevaluated that situation and decided that no action is necessary; the person for whom it was dedicated will now have to be made a different CD. But it's nowhere near as pressing.
As what?
You never know. And sometimes I don't either. I still need a damn burner in my house.
The pub jukebox project is still underway; I'm gonna have some local DJs mix a few up for the occasion that will keep the mood lively.
No work yet on Freebase Masons. Except I now know my FM stage name: ChoreBoy
Now about the other thing, the thing about sexual tension, or latent sexuality or whatever... That isn't really entirely accurate. I mean, there exist persons who take that attitude that being friends also implies having 'benefits'. It doesn't really happen. I mean, it has, but not so much anymore. It just made me unnecessarily wary of contacting certain people just to hang out. Which kind of spread to other people.
What I'm trying to say is that I am alone a lot, and it's my own doing, my own choice. So I really have no right to bitch about it.
Except that I have recently been coming to terms with the idea that my primary mental illness (suppressed and denied, bottled, all of them, for years; well-contained) is depression and not something more interesting and exotic like schizophrenia. It bothers me that so many things have transpired (and not done so) because of sheer depression, and that I never bothered to acknowledge it or even to examine for it, and when I did actually recognize it sometimes I just pretended it wasn't there and that I had it under control. I didn't. Do I now? What is control when it comes to mental illness? This kind of shit can't be taken on alone, no matter how smart I can convince myself that I am or am not.
Therefore, maybe I do have a right to bitch after all.
Going back to the original point: I had been feeling like the people who called themselves my friends were only using me.
Since then (not really; I've had this concept for a while now, but I forget things sometimes) I have been thinking about the notion of being used. It seems to me that if one person "uses" another, chances are the person who is ostensibly "used" is also using in their own way. I've heard the phrase "she uses people for sex" many times about many people (and with different pronouns, etc). But sex is not something one person just does to another. Not just one person gets laid in the process, both do. Except, of course, in cases of rape, but that is obviously not under debate here. Same with company, or cigarettes, or whatever; you share what you want with your friends and the people you care about.
There is such a stigma attached to that phrase, "being used". I'd say it happens pretty often, openly and otherwise, and unapologetically.
I'm a big fan of metaphor. Lately my game with the evangelists I encounter (one came to the door last week) is to translate their ideas of God and Good into my own agnostic language and say essentially the same things right back to them and then watch them bluster about the mistakes I am making. (I haven't gotten to excercise this much, but I'll post whatever results there are) "Being used" was just my depressive reaction to what might, under the exact same circumstances, be considered "helping a friend". I have no problems with helping friends, or them even asking for help. Maybe they should just ask to use me. Or what about the phrase "taking advantage of" in reference to a person? Taking advantage of a sale at liquor store does not mean that the store is getting screwed over in the process. Maybe it does. I'm talking in circles now and am confusing myself. Anyway, I should be less selfish and quit thinking of myself as being used.
And honestly, would I be a self-respecting heterosexual if I didn't appreciate at least the fact that I have friends who feel comfortable asking for help in the form of the very real need of intimacy?
Double edged sword, though; I am single and am not trying to have a relationship. That is the real problem I had at that last posting; there was a girl who seemed like she (literally and figuratively) wanted to get her claws into me for good. I'm flattered, you know, but I won't do the boyfriend thing right now. [as an additional confession, I have been putting off a conversation with this girl for a while. I think she might be a little crazy. And she's also young and naive. And I'm a procrastinator.]
Wow. Isn't that enough already?
I suppose so.
The evangelist at my door made a crucial mistake: He told me I was wrong. Because the Bible says so. I told him I was fully aware of what the Bible had to say about Heaven and Hell and that I have made my own decision for myself and by myself. If your intention, for any reason, is to get someone on your side of an issue, don't fucking tell them that they are wrong. After that, there's not much room for anything but arguement. Maybe that's what that old bastard wanted.