There’s a lot of times that I’d rather be alone in this world as it tends to let you decide your own fate and at the very least eat your favorite foods without having to compromise or ask permission. Nevertheless, ingesting copious amounts of cheesy flavored popcorn aside, there are just as many times when I surround myself with friends twenty four hours a day so as not to be lonely. But ya know? Friends are a weird commodity to have as they come in all dimensions and perspectives and with some it’s pretty obvious why we kick it, because if you were to take a photo and show it around people’d think that we were all cut from the same cloth. However I’ve got to admit that there’s more than a few that I’d consider questionable and some I’d be hard pressed to find a reason why they are my friends in the first place. Though it’d be great if I still had a few boyhood chums that I’d be able to say I’ve known forever, however it’s just not possible as I moved all over the globe and lost touch with more than half the people that I knew.
Yet even without that familiarity that comes from knowing people forever and ever, there are still some that I tend to dote over and take under my wing, and then there’s the ones that it’s all I can do not to worry about as they flail about dating psychopaths that they’ve known for about ten minutes of text messaging on the internet. Of course let’s not forget those that I see when they’re in dire need of money and then naturally never again until their next monetary crisis. Or my personal favorite—friends that hardly ever phone and then say things like “you’re such a stranger, you never come round!”
And not to sound too weaselly but there are women from all over that I either went out with or lived with that email or call me on the regular wanting something of the likes of which I really don’t know what. Like maybe we can find that place we were at before, but of course we won’t be having anything intimate to do with one another, but, er, ah, be my friend, could ya, would ya? And with my convoluted murky past, do I even remember being present and truly a friend when we were together? And did we have a true friendship or was I just the selfish self serving beast that I seem to remember being and in truth were they themselves no better?
However you do have-ta wonder what the motive behind it all is too. Are people really that infatuated with me that they’re left wanting to be my friend? Or is the prospect of being friendless so unappealing that there are those that’d even stoop to the level of hanging around me to make themselves feel better? And in an altogether other direction just what’s my part in all this and what do I expect in a friendship? And just where do we draw the line at who we label “Friends”? Co-workers? Neighbors? Old cellmates? The woman that hisses out a great latte every morning as I make small talk and try to focus pre-caffeine brained and on my way to work? Or are these acquaintances soon to be forgotten? I mean really, do I have any friends? Do I trust people? Do I trust my friends? That is if I have any.
Ok, so go ahead and remind me again why I want to have friends!
Yet it’s hard to look at why I trust some people, or why I don’t and why I can all but have total trust in something that I shouldn’t, especially in my past. Like why I trusted a disreputable dope dealer with my life by buying heroin that I inevitably ended up shooting into my veins—with total disregard as to what was exactly in that substance de noir that filled the needle? Or the people that were around me at that time, armed to the teeth with menace and vengeance on their minds and me somehow thinking that this was a good crowd to hang with. Except that I did tend to think that it was my place in life to be with that lot, or at least I was comfortable with it, and if you’d have tried to tell me otherwise I’d a never even so much as given your warnings a minute of consideration nor looked at the company I kept in a different light because of it.
Maybe it was my conditioning that led me to seek companionship in the lower depths, my self conditioning, the kind you improvise out of fear and misunderstanding. From too many nights out of my mind, leading to a subterfuge of one’s morals into a morass, into myopia. Misguided, mismanaged, misaligned in a malady of malcontent and there I go wandering off the subject like a lost sheep on shearing day!
So getting back to the topic at hand and even more so as to why I’m even on this path of thought, lemme tell you about what’s going on and you decide if this is a trust issue or I’m just too lost to be able to make the distinction between common sense and bad judgment.
It’s the car. The one that I destroyed and so now need to revitalize with a new motor in order for me to get back on the road and, well, drive fast again I suppose. And in all reality I’ve tried with the help of my mechanic friend Trevor to make this all right yet it wasn’t the work that’s holding it all up – it’s finding a replacement engine. And not to be totally derailed I went on an internet service board and looked around until I found a mechanic who was selling a motor and got in touch with him and he said that he would also install it except before even a nut was loosened he tried to raise the price and then asked for half of the money up front and in cash! Of course his price was considerably less than what every other shop in the Bay Area was asking for so I was faced with that age old dilemma: Greed vs. Reality. On the one hand he’s going to do it for a lot less than anyone else, that is if he does it at all and on the other he just might be setting me up to rip me off! The other thing that struck me as odd was that when I met him he tried so hard to be my friend, like he was doing me this favor because we’d known each other before or something and like I said earlier I’ve never even met the man before—only got his name and number off of the internet!
So the real question is: do I just give this person that I don’t even know a good sum of money and still expect to see the job done or even a new motor out of the deal? Or go with my first instinct that’s telling me, Don’t Fucking Do It!
Of course there’s a lot more to it and I won’t even bore you with the details but suffice it to say that my old feelings of mistrust and preconceived ideas about this mechanic dude as a person are involved and I cannot tell you how that’s playing in all of this too! And is it these old feelings from my past that I’m fighting, like when do you stop seeing the world as people getting over on one another and start trusting people?
However, is this really the time to do all that?
Meanwhile, my friends, the ones who I actually consider my friends, the ones with no invested interest in this dilemma of mine other than to have it over and done with so that they won’t have to hear me bitching and moaning about it any more? Well, they say, Don’t do it—and I trust them!
Yet why do I still feel so off?