Sometimes, my friends are real assholes.
Not in what they do, just how they act sometimes.
I tend to wear my emotions of my shirt sleeve. As such, I tend to be pretty respectful of others. There's a line beyond which I don't really joke with people, and when they are clearly not happy with it, I stop.
And yet I seem to acquire friends who, like older brothers, love pushing people's buttons. These are people I've known for years, since I was a kid, and somehow as adults the behavior has never left.
It's getting to the point I'm about ready to punch someone to get my point across, that I don't like being fucked with. I make it obvious when i'm not having any "fun" anymore, and sometimes some of my friends just use those cues to dial it up even further to the point I don't even want to talk to them for the rest of the day. If I wanted to be singled out and have someone call me faggot, in whatever context, I'd go hang out on 4-chan and talk about my feelings.
I mean, I pride myself on having not grown up in a lot of ways. How I handle other people's feelings though is one place I matured a lot faster than others. Apparently still to this day.
There's one person in particular that, though I love him like a brother, I feel the weight of creation on my fist as the desire to make him realize how much of an inconsiderate, self-serving fucktard he can be.
Imagine someone who, half jokingly and half not, never shuts up about how awesome they are. In real life, in video games, whatever, they always act like alpha dog and won't shut up about it. It's their running joke, how amazing they are. And lots of times they're right. They're talented, skilled and do lots of things well. I'm not the kind of person, who even in jest, blathers about how good I am at something. I hate boasting, arrogance and self-aggrandizement. Their general mien is aloof and contemptuous, unless it's something they initiate. It's meant as a joke but over the years it's evolved into an actual personality. It's pretty much the epitome of the smug nerd.
And so when that's the "joke" of the hour, I just want to walk away from this person and anyone who taking part in their brand of stupid humor. And just by being that way, I get singled out. So my choices become: stand there in silence until they run out of energy (what I ended up doing a lot with my brother when he'd act this way) or leave, at which point everyone's like "Oh, come on, don't be like that."
Fuck you. You know what I don't like. It's not a lot to ask that you don't beat a joke to death until I'm ready to ram your skull through a piece of drywall. Most people I interact with don't act this way, respect when a joke is obnoxious and respect when my feelings are getting hurt. I didn't go through life to end up again as someone's punching bag or the butt of their jokes in another circle of friends. It's getting to the point where I just can't talk to these guys when they're like this, because the potential for violence is getting too strong. I went through this exact same thing in high school. And you know what? The only way I got the respect I felt I deserved was by getting angry and kicking someone's ass.
But I'm an adult now and I've come to learn that, regardless of your goals, anger is generally toxic and destructive to relationships. And this guy has been my friend since we were kids. So I don't really know what to do now. Being sincere just gets me mocked. Saying nothing gets me mocked. Leaving makes everyone try to place the blame for the situation on how I'm reacting rather than how they're acting. Reacting angrily just makes me feel bad.
It's the classic cycle of the tormentor and the victim and I'm fucking sick of it. I was sick of it as a kid and I'm sick of it as an adult. Why the fuck does anyone have to have fun at someone else's expense, or build themselves up by pointing out how much weaker everyone else is?
Christ I just want to punch this message through to this guy, because I know he's never really had the life experience where the world has forcibly and painfully shown him how wrong he is. I've had several of those life experiences now, which have made me who I am. I thought physical bullies were bad, but intellectual bullies are honestly worse.
It's possible I am just being too hyper-sensitive in all this. But after a couple years now of seeing this pattern of behavior, and my own reactions to it, I know i don't like it, am never going to appreciate it and am never going to play along. If hanging out with people makes me angry, miserable or feel like shit, why would I fucking do it?
Here's my adult-man-child example:
We've been playing Diablo 3 for weeks again as a group. This one guy, who always manages to find the most broken combo in every game, has basically proven that his Wizard and his particular build is generally superior to every thing else. Wizards in Diablo 3 are basically broken, get more advantages than any other class, have better abilities that do more damage for less work, have no trade offs. His entire build uses 1 attack and he just stands there and spams it. He's also the most stupidly luckily person I've ever met in life.
So whenever we play, all I get to listen to is. "Wizards are so cool. Every other class are retards. Gods, my Wizard is such a bad ass. Look at how much of a bad ass I am. Hey, nice Crusader. He looks like a faggot. Nice faggoty shield and faggoty armor. You should play your Wizard instead of that crap ass class. Oh, that piece of gear? It's alright. Everything I have is superior. But then again, I'm superior, so that's no surprise."
Now basically take that kind of mentality, and apply it to every day life. "I'm so awesome-straight-pimp-ballah." When we play hackey-sack on break, he's the kind of person that will kick into your area just to snake it from you, just because he knows he can. It got so fucking bad yesterday I practically shoved him off his feet because he wouldn't quit fucking doing it. Does he do it to his other friends as often? No. Only to the people he feels he can fuck with, one of which is me, despite the fact I've fucking known him longer than any goddamn friend or co-worker he has.
It's honestly really sad. He used to be the nicest, sweetest person you'd ever meet as a kid. And he can still sometimes be insanely thoughtful. But then he's always got to cut it with a dose of the complete and total asshole he became sometime in his teenage years. Sometimes I swear to god he's biploar, but not like manic/depressive. His bipolar disorder is closer to Jekyll and Hyde. Where one side is the brilliant, witty, caring friend I've known for years, and the other is a fucking internet troll of the worst caliber, the kind who likes to pull lets off insects so he feels superior. I don't know what to do with this guy but I feel like the tension is building to the point I'm going to do or say something with permanent consequences.
But there's one thing I will stand on. I'm nobodies fucking punching bag. And if he doesn't get that point by me telling him soon, he's going to feel that point on the edge of my goddamn knuckles breaking his nose like he's deserved for the last 18 fucking years, you smug fucking jackass.
Author
Topic: Things that made you RRRRRRAAAAGGGGEEEE today: Trust-o-nomics Edition (Read 3422863 times)