Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork

That’s what life has felt like for me lately. I’ve come to realize a few things about myself, and the company I keep. I’m really bad at picking friends. I have a policy, albeit its beginning to look like a poor one. When I meet or speak with someone for the first time, I assume they’re “good people.” This is starting to backfire on me.

A “good person” is a relative thing I’ve discovered. Someone who doesn’t kick dogs, or yell obscenities at random people could be considered “good” by some people. This is a mistake I have made in the past. Not being “bad”, does not necessarily constitute being “good”. Well, if you were trying to have balanced karma…maybe…but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve discovered I need a bit more out of people.

I need a friend who isn’t just using me…unless I’m being used for sex…that I think I can handle. I’m the type of guy who has no clue what is going on, until its already over. In other words, I’m very trusting, and people take advantage of it. There are a few reasons for this, so let me explain a bit about myself and maybe you’ll get a better picture.

I was pretty much abandoned as a child. My father died very early in my life and my mother shipped me off to my grandmother’s to live. Why? She didn’t want me. I was reminded by her constantly that she wanted an abortion. My grandmother, who was pretty much my defacto mother died a few weeks after my 9th B-day. With no where else to go, I ended up with good old “Mom”. She remarried a nice guy with no spine ( Opposite of my real father who made her have me). He’s actually a good guy, but he’s better trained than her dogs. So, I live with them until I turn 12 and she gives birth to my sister. Since she’s now ready to have kids and have a family, I guess she wants to start over. I get sent to Military Boarding school until I graduate from high school. So, essentially I moved out of my parents house when I was 12.

What are my reasons so far for not picking good friends…oh, that’s right…no parental guidance for choosing them, and being socially constricted by going to an all male military school. I have more. Just wait.

So I end up going to VMI, another military institution (see a trend here?) for college. I graduate in ‘98, but all I know when I get out is I don’t want to go into the military. I mean hell, I’d been marching for almost 9 years, and paying for it. I never wanted to wear a uniform again. So what do I do? I move to the fan in Richmond, get a job bartending, grow my hair out long and do every drug under the sun. I did coke, meth, smack, shrooms, acid, E, K…you name it, I did it. I was a junkie for a good 5 years. I would work for tips, and the tips would go for drugs, and the drugs would get sold for rent, and the rest would go for drugs. Needless to say, most of the friends I had during this period, were only there because I had money, and I sold drugs. Ask anyone who sells pot how many people they think would still be coming to their house to visit if they didn’t have weed to sell. I found that out when I quit. So, yet another reason I’m bad at picking friends…I’m instantly looking for an ulterior motive for them to be hanging out with me.

But wait, there’s more…So, I quit doing drugs..(on my own. No AA or NA thank you very much) and I started to become super dweeb, James. Hanging out at a party full of fucked up stoned people is just not that much fun when you’re sober. Especially since I felt I needed to be fucked up to socialize. I became a wallflower. Anyone who ever talked to me the first time, I ignored any bad first impressions and figured I’d give ‘em a chance. I mean, I had been a total loser burnout. “Give everyone a chance” I thought.

OK. So far we have; fear of abandonment, protective paranoid thoughts, socially immature, and a desire to have anyone’s approval.

All this makes for bad friends. I tend not to make the same mistakes twice, but it still gets me when someone I thought I trusted turns out to be a two faced ass. I just wrote all this cause I’m pissed off and it feels good to write masturbatory gobbledy-gook where i blame everyone else but me.