Fake Friends

I’ve gone out of my way to help several people in my life, friends of mine who’ve I have known for years. I’ve always been a giving person, if it’s time or money I was willing to do what I can to do what I thought was helping them. I look back though and see I was just helping them with temporary pleasure, and there’s nothing wrong with that. People should take the time to get together and enjoy themselves.

 

I had a friend who every time I saw him, he’d demand money from me. He convinced me it was like a payment for his friendship, it wasn’t worded quite like that, but it was his friendship tax. And our friendship ended when I didn’t want to pay it anymore. This guy was the most hilarious person I ever hanged out with. I really appreciate that this guy introduced me to George Carlin, Bill Maher, Bill Hicks, Final Fantasy, Doom, the Civilization series, and so many things that I can’t list it all. We did have fun together, but it shouldn’t have come at such a financial cost to me. That wasn’t a friendship, it’s like I had to pay someone to deal with me for a while, like a hooker or something.

 

A few years ago, I was reading several self-help books and one of them advised I should be careful who I hang out with, that I should surround myself with people who want to do something with their lives. The idea is that if I’m around people who are negative and do nothing with their lives that I’d be inclined to do and be the same way. And I do fully believe that, but I just felt obligated to help someone though friendship. And you know what, I’ve fulfilled that obligation.

 

The question became with the second friend is with all their problems what were they doing to improve their life? Unfortunately, the answer was nothing, rather they decided to instead chase the pleasure principle. Let’s not kid ourselves, life is hard, but there’s things worth working hard for. Sure, you can be drunk or stone all day, every day, but what are you going to accomplish?

 

I don’t know how to say this kindly, the man lives in a pig pen. He has turned his home into absolute mess, to the point where for three years (not in a row) I’d help him take trash out of his home and transport it to our bailor building. We did it again this spring, and I told him get some bags ready and I can help take them away. He wouldn’t do any short of cleaning without me being there making him do it. This guy keeps telling me he’s waiting for this or that before he works on getting his life together. Well, just like his home it’s not going to happen unless he does something about it. I on the other hand plan on being more around people who are capable of cleaning up after themselves.

 

I felt bad for the last person I’m going to talk about. This person is homeless, and I offered to let him stay at my home while he worked on finding a place to stay. It never happened. He was there for months and by the time he had to leave he didn’t have any place to stay. Much like the last person I guess he expected other people to do the work for him.

 

The thing that has me upset though is while I’ve gone out of my way to help these people in their time of need, now that I’ve gone through some terrible events in my life these guys are nowhere to be seen. I’ve had to quit two jobs, my brother has died, I had some financial problems, and all I could use was some friends. It’s said that people love to be around when things are going your way, but you’ll find out who your true friends are when you’re going through rough waters. Well, these guys decided to go AWOL on me, and honestly, it’s probably better that they’re not part of my life anymore.