Friends

I have like 184 Facebook friends.  I used to have 200, but I deleted some of them.

Who does that?

Me.

You see, I take the word "friend" very seriously.

Why?

Because I'm the kind of kid who prays that God will send someone to be my friend.  Only I didn't pray that as a kid, maybe I didn't think about it.  Maybe I did and don't remember, but in either case, I didn't have many friends.  I still don't have many people who I call friends.

I have acquaintances.  I have people I know.

But for some reason I hesitate to use the word friend.

Kids picked on me.  I was "the dirty kid."  I was poor, my clothes were stained, we didn't have a shower and you can't take a full bath every day when there's five people in the house.  And I went to a private school, which as you know is for kids who can afford to go to a private school.  So I was the dirty kid.

The playground was on two levels, they used to think it was fun to push me down the hill and keep me from getting up to the top, you know, where the equipment was, the swings, the merry-go-round, the monkey bars.

I had a "best friend" in first grade, his name was Jonathan Fox.  He had a lisp or an accent, I don't remember which.  But second grade came along, and he moved away.  Never had a best friend since.  No one my age, or in a similar place in the world.  I know one guy with similar political leanings as me, but he's an atheist.  It's hard to connect on a spiritual level with an atheist.  Great guy though, I couldn't say enough good things about him, he's a lot of fun to hang out with, but he's like eight years younger than me, going through totally different stuff.

I'm different.  I guess.

I'm a non traditional student at school, which means I'm old or married or live off campus.  I don't get dorm life.  I don't really have any engineer friends.  I don't do my homework with anyone.  It's kinda hard to get caught cheating if you always do your homework by yourself.

I like being alone.

A lot.

I don't like "worship music," it's boring.  All the church people like to "worship," with the "music" (acoustic guitar and vocals) but it's really boring.

I'm the sound guy at church.  I like doing that because I control the volume.

It's an interesting phenomenon that I have tested on many occasions, there's a certain threshold in volume where people will stand up and/or raise their hands.  It's around 93 decibels depending on the device used to measure.  It's fun to control people without them knowing it.  Somebody will be standing next to me in the sound booth and I'll say "hey, watch this" and I'll turn the volume up and people will stand up and raise their hands.

My recent Facebook escapade was kinda related to that.  I said it was an experiment.  It was.  It was kinda like practicing controlling people, though it's hard to get them to do stuff, it's really easy to get them to stay in a conversation, you just ratchet up the rhetoric.  Throw in a few key phrases.  Appeal to ego, or ideology.

On a relational level, I hate Facebook.  It makes miles and miles of relationships, but an inch deep.  I have met new friends on Facebook which is great.  People I will probably know for years and maybe even work with.  Anybody can snipe your stuff, and I know because I'm a Facebook sniper.  Or maybe a Facebook flasher.  I just wander around waiting to say something funny like "that's what she said" or maybe someday "bow chicka bow wow!"

I want to try "radical honesty."

That's when you say everything that's on your mind, never even veil the truth.  You cuss when you want to cuss.  Burp and fart out loud and not say excuse me if  you don't want to.  Tell people their baby is ugly if  you think it is.  The whole point is to say exactly what you mean at all times and always tell the truth.

But I can't.

I can be really really really mean.  I'm afraid I would have even fewer friends than I have now.  I'm afraid I'm too harsh on the inside for most people.  I'd probably die alone.

Now, it's my thing, properly filtered, that kind of thing makes people think you are open and honest, and sometimes even say that you don't have a filter.  But I do.  You don't even know what's going on in the inside.

And I'm angry.

So angry.

I have these dreams where people keep doing every thing that makes me mad.  It's like they're trying to do it.  And I just want to rip them limb from limb and I try, but I can't.  I can't reach them or they run away or they are incorporeal.  Some times it's people from my past, people who have done mean things to me.  Sometimes not.

I do want friends.  I want to be close to people, but I'm completely accustomed to not.

I kind of have this self image that I'm annoying.  I think I annoy people.  I don't know if I really do or not.  They still keep coming around, well not most of them, but I keep going around them, and they don't leave usually.

My hobbies are things people usually do alone.  I don't care for sports.  I keep bees, I play with model trains.  I try to annoy people on Facebook.

School is hard.

I mean it's not hard like lifting a car, I mean it's hard like getting up in the morning after sleeping for only one hour.  Some times I'll sit for hours berating myself because I won't start my homework.

Do I need depression medication?  Every late winter it's really hard.  Spring is here so it's better, but I get really depressed in February, every year.

But I really do want friends.  I want people who want to come over to my house even though it's small.  Do you know how often people come to visit uninvited?  Never.

Do you know how often they come invited?  Almost never.

I'm lonely.

WiredForstereo