I'm a pretty shitty friend. I'm selfish to the point of being almost mercenary in my loyalties and commitments, I'm ready to succumb to suspicion at the least provocation, I'm emotionally immature — to the point where I probably more closely resemble an older adolescent when it comes to my expressions and responses, I'm irresponsible and unreliable and am not stable enough in my lifestyle to be an asset more than a burden, and my head is full of all sorts of weird hang-ups that seem to skew my perception of reality and my social posture toward the world.
Okay, I suppose I'm not a SHITTY friend, but I can certainly benefit by being a more easy-going, accepting, congenial person who isn't so prone to paranoid delusions and doesn't like arrogantly arguing mostly damnfool points — both of which doubtless are born out of insecurities. (Sometimes I wonder just how much of both rational and irrational [as in self-promoting and self-defeating] human behaviors crawl out of this dark womb.) That'll be hard work, though, and one I'll have to be careful about; I can't lose my edge, being poor and aging in a West Coast that's getting wilder by the decade, and being committed to a nihilistic dark-underbelly-of-Buddhism humanist worldview — I can't let myself turn into one of those banal inner-chakra drones that is too trusting or sacrificing to be passed over as a chump by my more blighted peers, even to become a “better” person.
Until I iron that out, I'm going to be stuck in a lame sort of limbo. People find their friends where they are, in various senses of the meaning of the word. We all know that we tend to clump together like wet feathers; we hang out with coworkers or classmates, neighbors, similarly interested or ideologically oriented, even those who simply look more similar to us than others. One thing we sometimes forget is that we tend to get along better with similar personalities; Eeyore and Pooh weren't roommates, and never would have been capable of harmonious cohabitation.
The limbo I'm referring to is one in which I'll be in between friends? Well, that didn't sound eloquent, or even explanatory, at all. I've had two sets of friends in the past: my peers on the streets, with whom I drank and got into squabbles and adventures with, and my two “normal” friends. I'm in the process of losing the latter just as I'm striving to move beyond the former in my quest to better my life. It sucks, because the former, my prior peers, are the only ones I get along with consistently; I'm just too damn needy and moody and mouthy for my “normal” friends (and I'm despairingly certain the one among them I love the most is texting her way out of my life for good). And it will remain in limbo for a while, I suspect, because I'm just not that embracing of others — I consider befriending and dating new people a dismal lottery with video poker odds.
All maudlin aside, just what exactly will my future social life look like? If I quit drinking for good and work part-time, I'll most likely not be drinking Hamm's with Captain Caveman et al by the light of a loading dock lamp anymore. Even though I'll be working part-time, I don't typically pal around with co-workers, so that will leave me with ... heh, not much. Maybe I'll be forced by circumstance to take Proust's advice, and just play Karnöffel and koikoi with casual acquaintances? Even if I become that ultimate “better” person, I'll still miss the old Canterbury Tales crowd every now and then. (Not as much as I’ll miss that one “normal” friend, though!)
