The real issue with making friends

i just realized, I'm afraid to have "friends."  Yep.  I feel unable to meet the standards required by people for friendship.  I can't afford the gifts and dinners and parking fees.  I can't keep track of the number of times I need to pony up precious funds for said things either.  I mean, christmas and their birthday is hard enough.  Once a year, sure, if they do the same, but having to remember their wedding anniversaries, special personal event memories, details and names from their family and external friends, and where they've gone to vacation or worked. Nope. It's all in one ear and out the other and I don't know why it's important enough to make it a thing.  Tell me your story, sure, and I'll tell you mine.  However, please do not require me to memorize it and bring it forth to show you how important you are.  in fact, please don't require from me that I show you that you are important.  

Nothing is more important than anything else except as we choose to make it. It's a personal choice.  Asking me to agree with your priorities that way takes away my power to care about what I wish. It's as bad as telling you it's not important. You get to prioritize it, I don't have to, and that means if I put it on my agenda, that's me showing you that I value you. Get it? Not my ability to set you on an ivory pedestal crowned in gold for a day.  Not my ability to remember every inane detail of multiple someone's lives (you thought you were unique?) 

Oh I know, I get it, tons of people do exactly that. These same kinds of people look at the things I do and exclaim that they can't do it, couldn't, and can't imagine how it's done.  Well that's about it in a nutshell.  Being asked to be me, and you, at the same time, so as to flatter you, that's effing messed up selfish. 

you want to talk about something? Well get talking.  Don't wait for me to remember to ask. I'm going to sit in the awkward silence a beat or two then fill it with chatter to be friendly. Duh.  why not you?  Why sit there getting more and more hostile instead?

Then, well it's my fault somehow?  Sheesh no.

yeah, so it would seem that being a friend is asking too much of me, and so having one is asking too much of the world.

Now that's a pretty pickle to sort through.  I mean, my complaints are legitimate and exhausting, and not to  be fixed any time soon.  So I need to figure out a way around friendship, a way to make the connections I need without it, and to picture myself in the world without the depth of knowing in my community that friends bring to the gossip channels.

But then, given how many frenemies I've suffered, that's not all bad.  I still almost wonder what sorts of things some of these people were saying but I've heard feedback just often enough to know I don't want to hear it.  It's BS that can't be washed off and I may as well move on from such communities. 

you know, when someone declares from intimate knowlege that you are a sociopathic user lying to everyone to sit around being lazy, it never leaves you. They accuse you of theft, you're a thief forever.  Please understand, that is one person making suspicious comments about you.  Not something proven, known by others, witnessed by anyone, or etc.  Just rumours from a single frenemy will never leave. Then confirmation bias sets in and more people start to "see" it too. And the subject may well become disoriented and disassociated, thinking they're delusional and that the choices and behaviours they've been doing are not what they thought. They may come up with multiple personality explanations or lack of self awareness, really it depends on the gaslighting their frenemy is doing to support the gossip. I've suffered this many times.  It's hard.  If I hadn't always been stoic minded and hard on myself to "do the right thing if you like it or not" and "ethics only matter when they're hard to stick to,"  I would be dead by psychiatry by now for certain.

That's the autism, and the bookworm in me.  I really stand on my principles often enough and am mindful enough to have a lot of internal integrity of character.  That gives me resilience.  It also makes me an instant enemy of the weak characters in the world. People shove away anything that outshines them.

Well yeah, I am going to pursue the theatre stuff, and look into submitting articles to places around town. If I  can get paid for writing this could run into a career in a while.  I'm patient.  I still have over 40 years to get through and at least 30 of those I'll have to scramble to make it.  

Oh, speaking of such, Dan is working daily making income enough to keep up with needs. The biking to work, hard work, and light eating have stripped him of every ounce of extra fat and cut him like a marine sargeant.  Dude is ripped and looks hot.  I keep wondering how it's affecting his one female employer. She was complimenting his hair enough to suggest it's affecting her.  hehehe.  It's good see his eyes clear, something other than politics on his tongue and his vast energy being used.  He is likely to last another 20 years at least if he can avoid accidents.  

oh my meds were the cause of my need for the meds.

No, the black mold started it. but the meds were the wrong solution and made it worse.

See, you don't slap a bandaid over an infection and start treating the patient for the fever, chills, and poor appetite and pain, while ignoring the sepsis in the wound. That's what leaving the mold in place and medicating me was. No funding for the renovations, but $200/mth for meds?  sheesh. That was for 10 yrs. 

Well, if it's only $2500 then that wouldn't have covered union tradesmen ripping out walls and replacing them.  Would have covered a temp worker ripping them out and me doing the spraying and the worker putting up the sheets and me doing the mudding and painting, though. 

oh well.  I sometimes wonder if the house is demolished yet.  I really don't ever want to see that city again.   I think in 10 yrs I will see what google is displaying there.

Ok, disturbance on the way...