People say friends don't destroy one another..

I know there's at least three people that will read this, and think it's aimed at them, so I'd like to point out now something that should become even clearer as we move on. This is not aimed at any one person. If anything, like all my blogs on here, it is really aimed at me.

I've reached one of those stages in life, where a question hangs on your mind so heavily, and of such great importance to you, that the only way you can move forward is to answer it. Not because the answer is important, but because hopefully, in your quest for the truth, you will have developed as a human in some way. Ideally we would change so that the actual outcome of the question proposed becomes irrelevant, but that sort of thing only happens in books.

The question weighing on my mind now, is: 'Is it me?'. Is the reason I feel so neglected (for actual want of a better word) by so many of my friends due to my fallibilities, or is it simply that I've chosen to surround myself with people that just don't care? Now, I understand that I have already placed myself on shaky ground, anyway, simply by questioning the motives and morals of my friends. I'm a twat, you won't like me by the end of this post, let's move past that.

I am deeply insecure. Terribly, disgustingly paranoid, of so many things. My talent (across the board), how I look, how I sound, and how others perceive me. You can blame this on a mental illness if you wish (I do), or you can just call me self-aware. Unfortunately, one of the more shocking aspects of this paranoia is that I find it nearly impossible to believe anyone really likes me. This, it seems, is a self-fulfilling fear, as my insecurities tend to lead to a self-depreciative attitude, that pisses most people right off. Therefore, they don't actually like me. So maybe it is me, and I'm slowly turning all of my circle of friends against me.

But then there is also those niggling little facts, that tend to water the seeds of doubt. The times that I reach out for some reassurance and my hand is slapped away. The times I'm feeling happy and jocular and I'm sarcastically put down. The times I tell my secrets and I hear about them the next day at school.

There are some who would argue that all of these are just parts of friendship. That friends cannot always be there for you, and that taking the piss is just a part of companionship we all must learn to love. I agree, but not at the point of relationship stability. If the laughed-off abuse, or the 'he can fend for himself's are getting too much for the friendship to bear, then something needs to change. Either the jokes need to slow down, or the friendship needs to stop.

Now, I'm not saying I'm black and white the wronged party here. I am, as many, many people will attest to, a cunt. That's not self-deprecation, that's eighteen years of arrogance, ego, stupidity, and a rotten streak that comes with the family name. I don't think there's one person I'm close to that I haven't hurt or angered in some way. In fact, I don't think I'd go so far as to say I'm even a wronged party at all, if you look at everything in context. I probably have it pretty good.

So really, we're back where we started. 'Is it me?'. If it is me, then I can't help but feel that I'm fucked. If it is me, I will never have a close friendship without this thinly veiled layer of pretence, and where I feel that straying even one vowel away from the set path will result in sleepless nights with heavy souls. If it's not me, then I have every right to say if you really are my friend, treat me like one, or fuck off and let me mourn what could have been. And if, as is most likely, it's both of our faults, then maybe I can try harder to believe in myself, in you and us, and you can try and remember that I need a bit more of a structure of happy friendship to lean on before the jokes begin again.

xo
gb