Before I go into this a lot (and I'm sure it'll be long as I'm feverish and crazy right now, and bored, because everything hurts and I can't be bothered to put in a video game
), let me stress that everyone seems to think that I'm a good person and a lot of people like me, and my wife- whom I'm completely honest with and vice versa- has no trouble telling me when I'm being a jerk, so if I'm the cause of the problems I have, I can't see how, but I worry about that kind of stuff and... well, here we go.
Throughout my life I've had a good amount of friends, and a lot of people seem to like me. However, all of my best friends- with the exception of my wife, of course, and some of my internet friends that I've gotten to know pretty well over the last decade, especially those in a pro wrestling efed I've ran for some 6 years now- end up betraying me or abandoning me, and I just can't understand why.
(Third time's the charm, being sick I've written these long-winded missives twice now and gotten off the track. One more time...)
Basically, I've always tried to treat people like I'd like to be treated. But my best friend from high school and after keeps dumping on me and then I end up having to re-establish contact and act like nothing's ever happened between us to get him to even send me a message, and it wouldn't be a huge deal but he was such a huge part of my life for the longest time that I just don't understand why he would treat me like this over and over and over. We've been in a band together, we did darkly humorous claymation movies for the longest time, but he always ends up siding against me with someone else- the band (criticizing me for being 'just a drummer'), his girlfriend (criticizing me for defending her to him and his uncle, of all things)- meanwhile he's manic depressive but enjoys the mania aspect so he won't get help, drinks like a fish (you never EVER see him without a beer in his hand), and keeps getting kicked out of bands and dumped by girlfriends, presumably because the majority of his life consists of sleeping all day, lumbering around the house like a bear and being depressed half the time.
I don't even know why it matters so much to me- probably because I'm at a place in my life where, because I worked from the moment I left high school trying to be responsible (as I was raised), I had no social life (thanks to 10 years at a tv station working mostly 3rd shift), and now I've moved 7 hours away for my wife's job opportunity where she makes as much as we did together back there, so I sit here and take care of our son. So basically it's me without any adult friends except my wife, who I love to death and who is my best friend in all things, and my son whom I adore, but no one else.
All of my good friends have abandoned me. One decided he was gay, and then bi (and was into some things that would curdle your brain if I mentioned them), and then decided that he liked my ex-wife and her crossdressing husband more than me. Another friend got a girl pregnant and moved away with her so she could be with her family when she had the child, and promised to stay in contact and come back occasionally, but I don't know if he's alive or dead and when I contacted his girlfriend on MySpace, she never responded.
The other one, mentioned above, seems satisfied to be my friend when it's convenient for him, but I've always been the one that's had to re-establish contact with him, and he always ends up, for lack of a better term, 'dumping' me.
And one, whom I met on the internet and have known for years, was having wife problems and I helped him get proof that she was cheating on him. They get divorced and he immediately jumps into a relationship with a woman at a comic book store that has 3 kids from a previous marriage (that isn't over at the time, as they were separated but he was loony and they WORKED TOGETHER), then he vanishes for about a year, except for about 2 messages to drop him a line- which I did- which never garnered any response.
My wife and I went on vacation with our son and actually met him and his girl, and later, we move 7 hours closer to them, so we think cool, we can hang out with them some, but then his wife posts on MySpace about how they're so poor and they've just bought this house and it's a deathtrap and her husband won't pay child support and they loan people money who never help out in return even though they're starving and their car broke down and their washer is messed up and they've been washing their clothes in the bathtub for 6 months and there's a leak in the basement, and yet they buy game consoles and games and get XBox Live, and he sends me a message all excited like we're going to be able to play games and talk together online and stuff, and then just never does, no matter what I do, even though we could talk with the flick of a **** button. (Sorry, just very frustrated.)
And they're pirate fanatics and go to all of these pirate conventions and comic conventions and junk, yet they complain that they don't have any money, and it just makes me uncomfortable to even talk with either of them anymore because if people sit there and say they don't know how they and their kids are going to eat, and in the next post the same day go on about how they're getting together with their pirate friends to party and going to PyrateCon and whatever else, it just makes me very uncomfortable- I dunno.
I guess I just pick bad friends, but I'm in a place and time in my life where I really don't have any close friends and I know that I've sort of clammed up- even when I had the opportunities to make some new friends, I've been pleasant but I just can't seem to let anyone really get to know me. And now that I'm in this situation where it's hard to meet people anyway, that doesn't help, and then the friends I do have buy games instead of food for their kids...
I've always tried my hardest to treat others the same way I'd want to be treated, but that never seems to be reciprocated. And now that my high school chum has gotten divorced from his now-ex (right after they got married), I sent him a message saying that I was sorry to hear about it, and he says we should get together and do something- he can't even be bothered to check out the plainly-visible fact that we've moved 7 hours away.
(I know, at this point I'm rambling, I promise I'm coming up on the end.)
What really bothers me- well, aside from all of it- is that I've started having dreams. 2 of the last 3 nights I've dreamt of being back in high school, and finding someone who just enjoyed being around me, and each time I've begged them to promise that we'll be friends forever- which sounds silly, but when you're a 33-year old guy with friend abandonment issues, it's just like a kick in the gut.
Anyway, I'll leave it at this- I don't even know what I expect this to accomplish. Right now I'm hoping that somehow, at some point, I can manage to find a band to try out for/play with, and maybe meet some people like that, but some of the people you meet like that- well, most of them aren't the greatest friends. And I just feel like I'm constantly on guard around people, and even when they're nice and friendly I can't help but block myself off from them.
Thanks in advance to anyone who puts themselves through reading this, much less replying- I feel so messed up right now that I'm not even sure any of this makes sense.
Long-time friends problem
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