(Headnote: You’ll have to pardon the relatively dramatic kick the goodship Nonpersons has been on lately, I usually rely on my ally The Warden to counterbalance whatever I’m doing, but with a tidal wave of words from yours truly flooding the site in the last month anything he could do would just end up getting buried into a fusillade of my textual fury.)
During my time on these tubes I have encountered an unusual amount of desperate, lonely, and in some cases, eccentric people. This is because, due to my nature, I tend to avoid websites and such that are extremely large and/or popular. In the more obscure corners these kinds of people thrive. One of the deciding factors for my leaving Open Diary ten years ago stemmed from the fact that the place was outgrowing it’s users. Now, this experience in dealing with these types of people, is that you find out something which I feel is extremely important in life… that your situation is not special or unique. Odds are, someone else has been where you’re going or has just crawled out of where you’ve been. I forget where this quote is from that summarizes that sentiment, but I think it was a video game. I want to say Max Payne, but I’m not sure. Anyway it goes something like this. “There are no apocalypses, just personal ones; and nothing is a cliche when it’s happening to you.”
In the process of moving around on the internet I’ve made several friends that I no longer speak to. That’s always been the way I’ve dealt with my life, in general. I’ll team up with someone for a while but when I feel that whatever bond we shared has been resolved or the common thread is severed I move on. This is a pre-emptive action on my part, since I’ve lived under the fatal assumption that everyone will end up leaving me eventually, so I make the first move. Hit the road, so to speak. Now, it’s not like this assumption is entirely baseless. As a matter of fact, nine times out of ten once someone has gotten what they want out of me, whether it be some advice, an emotional crutch, or simply a friendly ear to listen to them, almost invariably they stop speaking to me when the trouble passes.
This has not made me bitter, believe it or not, since I understand how these things work. Once the situation passes, once the trouble is gone, well what else is there for two people to say to each other? It’s not like I have a lot in common with anyone. In general my outlook is fairly pragmatic in terms of making friends. If they stick around for a long time, if we have a lot in common great, but you know that nothing lasts forever. It’s become increasingly difficult for me to trust anyone, or even get close to people. Instead I look for all sorts of reasons not to. I know that I should not be acting this way, but as much as I seem to enjoy saying ‘good-bye’ to people, one can only take so many partings before it begins to become extremely tiresome. Being left behind can do things to your ego no amount of insults or violence could ever hope to. And you know what? It’s my fault for taking these things personally, but I guess at the time I didn’t quite grasp the situation as clearly as I did then, looking back on it.
There was a girl, her name was Terra. I started talking to her on the tubes a few years ago. She had a real psychopath mother, the kind that drinks and wants to control every aspect of your life. The kind that uses fists when that doesn’t work. I spent weeks convincing her she needed to move out and take control of her own life. I said that damn it, it’s scary to go out on your own. It’s scary when someone you depend on to live is like that and makes you think you can’t do it and threatens you when you try. But, you just gotta do it. You can’t live your life in fear of what will happen if you try to be happy. I’d text message her quotes from The Art of War using some internet site that you can send texts through. Well, she finally ended up leaving her mom. Said I saved her life. Went and started dating some dude, and never spoke to me again. Leaving me thinking, ‘what the hell! Didn’t you see that I wanted to be with you, idiot.’ That thought gave me pause.
Back in the day, there was a few people on the blog sites like that too, each living in a situation that I had experienced. An abusive parent. Abandonment issues. Fear of being independent. As a person on the receiving end of advice for my trouble, you’d be amazed how often some stupid computer messages can really help. I hate to admit this, but in reality I was raised by a bunch of strangers on the internet instead of my own family. Which, is rather pathetic I know, but hell… it’s the truth. See, but if I became embittered over the experience than that would deny a basic truth, which was that in some small way what I did mattered. My words changed lives, hopefully for the better. So why should I be bitter about it? That would render my motivations relatively impure. It would implicate that the only reason I was nice to anyone, or helped anyone, was because I wanted something from them. Be it loyalty, to get into their pants, someone to feed me complements. No you help someone because it’s right and there are enough people out there trying to exploit or use people for their own gains, and I don’t want to be one of them. The world needs more of the good ones, because there’s too many of the bad.
Another thing that slowly dawned on me as I continued to cut people off after they helped me, was that I was doing the same thing to them that they have been doing to me. That makes it easier to understand, perhaps they had been burned. We were locked in a cycle without knowing it. So I’ve been trying to rebuild those connections I had with people. It’s hard but I figured I owe them a little. I want to break the cycle, so to speak. Which is no small feat. I don’t really know what I’m trying to say exactly, except, perhaps, that just from my perspective I feel that people should try to help those trapped in the dark places instead of leaving them to wallow in their own confusion and self-pity. Even the smallest act of kindness can go a long way, just don’t expect anything in return and you’ll be fine. It’s kind of like how the song goes….
“Remember, the light at the end of the tunnel… may be you.”
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This is a lovely post.