On the Nature of Internet Friends

This entry will be dedicated to the ever-awesome Corinne, whose blog is currently the only one I really read that often. She's probably the only person that really would even consider checking this one since it effectively could just be called Don Whines Constantly Like a Bitch and is updated only slightly more often than never. I used to blog all the time on the old one but felt like the things I wanted to discuss often included frustrated references to the things people had done in real life, which I soon realized I couldn't fully unleash since I had effectively given the link out to everyone I knew back then.

Yeah, that was dumb. Somewhere along the line I created this blog instead by adding "x2" to the URL (Isn't that a bit like no one recognizing Superman as Clark Kent when he takes his glasses off? I think that might be one of those "tropes," but I'm far too lazy to go look up the name). I transferred over every entry I had from the old one so I could read them at my leisure or whenever I felt the need to reflect on how much I seem to avoid looking at the good things in life and only focus on the bad.

No, I'm not going down that road again -- I promised myself I'd write about something other than self-loathing today, and I think that something will be the dichotomous (Is that a word? Do I care?) relationship with the idea of having friends on the internet.

I'll save you the boring paragraphs to come and summarize now: like many things, the key is not to overindulge -- you never want to be at a point where all your best friends are people that are hundreds, even thousands of miles away from you -- but there's no reason you can't have them and in fact, I consider myself somewhat blessed to have met so many great people over the years. While I do greatly wish I had spent way less time on the internet growing up, there are still a handful of people that I keep in touch with from those years when I first began; years of sitting in AOL chatrooms roleplaying in Rhy'Din, specifically in that bloated OCS guild that became a second job for awhile.

Hard to believe that was something akin to ten years ago, at least. I think I was ... 19? I'm turning 32 tomorrow? I don't remember. When did it become so difficult to remember things, by the way? Is it age or alcohol? I forget.

I generally refer to my non-internet friends as "real" friends but have long been uncomfortable with that title. Most of the people I still communicate with on the internet are people that I've shared so much with during the bad times. These people were there when my mother and father were divorcing and my father was pretty much a jilted asshole (something I didn't really understand until she who shall not be named left me for someone else several years later, and honestly there's another subject that'd be worth a post at some point, maybe -- examining the relationship between your parents relationships and your own), and I had graduated high school with no plan of attack for a future (Yeah, I really should start on that sooner or later), and they're people that you talk to at your best and your worst. And while the title of "real" friend and "internet" friend is more meant to be based on cosmetics, it still often seems like the "internet" friends get more out of me than the "real" ones do (which would be another subject to blog about sometime).

Ever notice I have a real difficult time staying on my topic? I'm a one take guy; I'm not editting this shit later. That'll happen if I ever get serious enough to do this on a regular basis maybe.

Maybe.

Its taken years to realize but if I'm just going to be sitting at home by myself most of the time anyway, there's nothing wrong with it. My "real" friends should get priority and do in most counts, but there isn't any reason one can't have both. Your net friends will come and go, but you'll always have the memories of the good conversations and connections you made, even if you don't remember the specific details of them. And as long as you spend time outside experiencing the world, you can log in to your messengers and social media sites and comment and like and +1 to your heart's desire.

Holy crap blogger has changed -- my post wiped there, but there's a menu to get drafts back out and make edits! That's probably been there for years and I've never noticed. Anyway.

So here's to the texts you exchange from people you might not have met, the late night phone calls to the girl on the opposite coast, the lifetime of possible meetups, the people in the chat room rolling fake internet dice with you, and the people you're teaming up with to fight screen filling dragons and such with. Yes. I want a better life off the computer, but having one on the computer has probably kept me going through a lot of the things that made me want to quit.

One take right there; that's how the pros do it.

Still have no job.

Still feel sick.

Still have no idea what I'm going to do next.

I think despair or true depression has set in because I care and it kills me to be where I am, but looking at the prospect of changing is just a subject of abject terror.

I was going to type more but I've lost my train of thought already. But things aren't good.

Death

My other grandmother apparently passed away this week. So strained was my mother's relationship with her mother that it took several days for the news to actually reach us, despite the fact that my mother will likely be the one doing all the arrangements and lawyer visits and such. The whole scenario bothers me, possibly more than when my father's mother passed away a few years ago -- at least in that scenario there was a family connection there.

I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of why my mother doesn't like her mother -- I know her side of the story, at least some of it, and know that my father's relationship with his mother was much better and that at least when she passed on, she would have lay on her deathbed knowing she left a strong family behind. I felt fairly horrible then, I only really saw her once or twice a year tops.

And in all honest that just happens to be the relationship level my brother and I were really raised with after we started closing in on puberty or so, I would guess. At that point, its very difficult to turn back, and even to this day I feel very little lingering attachment to my outside family. Hell, I don't feel that great of an attachment to my inside family. I find I'm often jealous of my friends whom, despite having to deal with more drama because of it, seem to have much more stable and caring support systems because of that.

The first time I really noticed the difference was when I started dating Nicky (that's right, can't have a blog post without mentioning her, can I? Of course not). She would tell me how much her mother was asking about what she was doing and what I was like and her and her father couldn't wait to meet the boy who finally caught her daughter's interest after never really getting involved before. I was scared shitless naturally, born and raised on a lifetime worth of sitcoms that warned me that your initial meeting with her parents is an experience you should approach with something akin to abject terror, and even got so nervous that I made myself sick and cancelled our first dinner together. When I had quit my job, Nicky told me her mother was concerned but I took it to mean her parents were judging me, and for awhile I was really leery of being around her family.

"Oh there's my daughter's deadbeat boyfriend, could you guys go elsewhere? Thanks."

Obviously that never happened but it sure felt like it. All in my head, as usual. I'm digressing. It wasn't until much later that I realized exactly how nice they really were and how I had effectively screwed up that relationship by being so negative about it. In retrospect I surely didn't know any better; after all, it wasn't as if I had dealt with family that often. One could look no further than holidays to realize the differences between us: I had spent the past few years trying to dodge holiday dinners while she was expected to visit two or three houses on major holidays.

Why am I even talking about her? Oh, because I was getting to something or another. Recently, some good friends lost a grandparent they deeply cared about and I was amazed by the way the siblings had banded together and worked through issues with the rest of their family; by the number of people there at funeral, and the way they all held each other up afterwards. Why was I deprived of this? A part of me wishes for it, and a part of me is more like my mother: the less people that interfere in my life, the better.

That being said, I know her way isn't the way to life too. Nothing changes when you sit alone; this bout of unemployment probably furthers that. I've done nothing but feel sorry for myself and play video games, and likely thats all I'll do for awhile because I'm afraid of the world or change or whatever, I don't know.

Way off topic now.

A few years ago, probably while I was with Nicky and working in the mall still, my grandmother entered my store. We talked a little bit, not long, and she told me about how she had leukemia (I think thats what it was, its been so long). Knowing full well she had borrowed large sums of money from my mother and never returned it, I had expected to feel angry and not care but was a bit surprised that the sort of sadness in her eyes having not been part of our lives for so long was there. Mom, of course, was not thrilled at all and warned me to be careful of her. I never saw her again.

And like anyone dealing with the aftermath of a death in the family I'm hating that choice. I was too weak to risk my mother's ire, probably because I lived with her and still do and did not want to rock the boat, and meanwhile this woman went to her deathbed knowing her daughter was avoiding her calls and her grandchildren didn't care about her. And my mother simply doesn't seem to care that much; she seems to view this more as an inconvenience than something she's sad about. Any time I've broached the subject before there seemed to be little desire to ever bother mending the fence.

I wonder if its shock.

Or if she simply moved on and it isn't that big of a deal.

I have to think too that somewhere, in the back of her head she sees the scenario a bit like I see it: a solemn kick in the nuts that life is cold, short, and unfair, and there's very little you can do to change it. Because now that both my grandmothers are dead, I'm reminded that in a time, quite possibly a time not so far from now, I'll be facing the same scenario. My mother or father will be gone, and I will be responsible for at least some of what happens to them and their estate, and that when they die it will be another reminder that my time on the planet is running far thinner than I wish it and my life will seem even more worse and hopeless because of it.

And I'm left wondering what the point of it is still. Which is where I've been stuck for awhile, I think. I want to live, and I want to be happy and have a job that doesn't make me feel like I'm worthless. I want to be married, maybe even have children, and experience the drama that comes with it.

In the end though there's just me. There's always been just me, and I'm not sure after all these years there will be any way to incorporate anyone else anymore.

Fuck, even now this is just selfish indulgence on my part I guess. Me, me, me, how it affects me, how I can whine about something else. Frustrating.

It might be time to tell myself I have a serious problem. Actually though, in retrospect, I've been aware of it for a long time but it doesn't seem to be something I'm all that keen on fixing.

I think I'm one of those recluse people that just gave up on life somewhere.

Not really sure why that is. Not really sure how I'm supposed to motivate myself to fix it; I'm afraid of change and just afraid of everything in general. I don't really even know what I want so much as I know I want to be happy doing it, but it doesn't ever seem like I'm going to be overwhelmingly happy with anything.

Maybe there's just too much time on my hands to think about it. I have a lot of great friends but no one whose "special place" I get to touch on a regular basis, let alone do other things with. (In all seriousness, just a bid to use "special place" there; thanks for sticking along with it). And that job is awful. If I could just replace that.

Then again, its always if, if, if with me.

Random whining over.

I still miss you.

Sometimes I awake in the morning to thoughts of you still being beside me and hear the sound of your voice whispering that nickname you used to have. Days I didn't care that I hated my job or lack of direction because you didn't care about those things either; days I'd forget about all of it when I watched you sleep or looked into your eyes when you said something inane and we'd both laugh at it for no reason we could readily understand.

I hate that you have the life that I wanted with you with someone else but I'm glad you're so far away. I hate that you don't seem happy and some part of me still feels compelled to seek you out and rectify it despite it no longer being my problem.

I loathe that so many years later the thought of you writhing in my sheets still turns me on in ways other women haven't when they were doing so.

I pray that someone will someday replace you, but I don't honestly believe it will ever happen.

I love me now, but I'm ashamed of where I am still, and ashamed moreso of my fear of changing it. You showed me there was no reason to be afraid; you gave me reason to want more out of life than I had, and you took both of those with you when you left.

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