my god, dramarama.
the over-dramatic sadness junkie; i can't seem to escape this character in my life. even worse, this one is also the difficult-to-admire perpetuator of an unimpressive stereotype. i assume there's at least one of each in every crowd, but it seems i have a keen ability to find them every time.
she first appeared in my life in December of 2004, just before i started my chef's apprenticeship.
i think my first mention of her here is in blogs from February 2005, about the time i had officially grown sick of her.
to sum up from the beginning to now, i didn't really know her, but intrigue led me to invite her over for coffee one night. i didn't know it at the time, but she was essentially a homeless, jobless single mother whose child was elsewhere. she was driving a friend's car and when she got pulled over 100 yards from my house we found out that the tags were illegal. i told her she could stay at my place for the night.
at my wits end, i kicked her out three months later. it was Valentine's day and it was rather ugly. the sex had been the best ever, but it wasn't enough to make her parasitic lifestyle tolerable to me.
not long after, she showed up pregnant and introduced me to Ray, her fiance. that's the only time i've ever seen this guy, but to this day he hates me.
there was quite a long period where i didn't hear from her, and then i moved 100 miles away and now she calls two or three times a week.
she says i'm her best friend.
apparently she doesn't have many friends with which to talk; she's already three sentences in by the time i pull the phone off the wall and put it up to my ear. it's always the same shit. she talks about her job and the people at her job and i listen courteously but can't relate to her workplace and don't know the people. it's a fucking soap opera and it's sickening knowing how much i know about a world to which i can't relate, about the lives of so many people for whom i feel nothing.
alright. the story focuses on a woman in her late 20s. she was adopted and grew up in a tiny Midwestern town with a slightly older sister and has two boys, one being the obligatory red-head-from-Kenny-the-ex.
as seems common with eternally-unhappy-pity-vampires with a white trash heritage, she's wracked with ailments. a legacy of sob stories involving accidents at work, illness and surgery have left her with scars, somewhat debilitating nerve damage and a knee brace made of ultramodern space-age material. after the heartbreak of having been rendered unable to paint, she's been diagnosed as developing glaucoma. nice, huh?
the plot sickens:
she now lives in a double-wide mobile home in a trailer park in Belton(yeah, i know...i swear i'm not making this up) with her husband and two kids...everything but the pink flamingos in the front yard. she is no longer in love with him. he is verbally and emotionally abusive and controlling and said he'd kill her if she was ever unfaithful, an event to which she refers as "the time Ray threatened me with the shotgun." it makes for a nice, comforting blanket of fear in which she can wrap herself. while he's at work cleaning carpets, she's at home with the unruly boys. this is when she calls to update me and to vent about the latest incident.
it's like a redneck soap opera. why does she stay with him? ever seen a moment of Maury, Montel, Springer or Dr. Phil? the abused woman who defies logic, rationality and the jeers of the righteous studio audience by staying with her violent partner invariably does it "for the kids and becuz ah luuuv him."
she's been in love with a guy from work for quite a while. they slept together once. there has been the tension of stifled passion and romantic longing between them for months, and in a recent episode he revealed that he loves her too. unfortunately, it's a tragic romance...he's young and she says it could never be--it's not fair to him because she's unable to have more children. in search of someone who will hand her the key to happiness, she reads a lot of self-help books and has been seeing a therapist. she finally convinced her reluctant husband to also see a therapist and he showed marked improvement for the first two weekly sessions, but since he quit going, he's back to his scary self.
she effectively disrupted the flow of the studio and killed my buzz when she called this morning at 2. she was driving around aimlessly, acting like she was running away from home. "I told him I wasn't in love with him and hadn't been in a long time...I can't go on imagining that he's someone else...I just want to be happy" she whined. several of her friends have told her that she has a place to go, a place to stay if she ever leaves, but she always goes back home to sleep on the couch or in one of the boys' beds. she said she'd been at her friend's house. "She's in the exact same situation I'm in."
...of course she is.
i don't mean to sound like a heartless bastard, but the discovery that made me finally stop trying to save the world and hang up the cape long ago is that some people really don't want to be happy--their worlds would fall apart if they ever found themselves without a source of drama or pain, the currency of pity. i understand that these people exist, but i can't relate to them...i find it hard to empathize because i just don't get wrapped up in insignificant bullshit, i hate the taste of self-pity and i don't like to dwell on anything.
she's my friend and i truly do care about her and hope the best for her, but i'm sick of the ever-saddening story, the bad news, the overanalyzation of every little thing, the negativity and the explosion of the insubstantial into seemingly important drama. i know that i can neither save her nor convince her that happiness is a choice, that wishes have to be met halfway and that she's free to go and help herself at any time, and as with most things, what better time than now("now" having been the last several months)? after exhausting all the advice that works for me, all i'm left with to throw at her are cliches. along with everyone else, i tell her to get out, but she wants a handout; for someone to fix everything for her...it's like asking someone to take a shit for you.
this will go on and on forever, repeating a hundred times over. i doubt it, but maybe she'll finally leave her husband and find someone else who can fuel her unhappiness. then, at least, the names of the characters will change for a little while.
the over-dramatic sadness junkie; i can't seem to escape this character in my life. even worse, this one is also the difficult-to-admire perpetuator of an unimpressive stereotype. i assume there's at least one of each in every crowd, but it seems i have a keen ability to find them every time.
she first appeared in my life in December of 2004, just before i started my chef's apprenticeship.
i think my first mention of her here is in blogs from February 2005, about the time i had officially grown sick of her.
to sum up from the beginning to now, i didn't really know her, but intrigue led me to invite her over for coffee one night. i didn't know it at the time, but she was essentially a homeless, jobless single mother whose child was elsewhere. she was driving a friend's car and when she got pulled over 100 yards from my house we found out that the tags were illegal. i told her she could stay at my place for the night.
at my wits end, i kicked her out three months later. it was Valentine's day and it was rather ugly. the sex had been the best ever, but it wasn't enough to make her parasitic lifestyle tolerable to me.
not long after, she showed up pregnant and introduced me to Ray, her fiance. that's the only time i've ever seen this guy, but to this day he hates me.
there was quite a long period where i didn't hear from her, and then i moved 100 miles away and now she calls two or three times a week.
she says i'm her best friend.
apparently she doesn't have many friends with which to talk; she's already three sentences in by the time i pull the phone off the wall and put it up to my ear. it's always the same shit. she talks about her job and the people at her job and i listen courteously but can't relate to her workplace and don't know the people. it's a fucking soap opera and it's sickening knowing how much i know about a world to which i can't relate, about the lives of so many people for whom i feel nothing.
alright. the story focuses on a woman in her late 20s. she was adopted and grew up in a tiny Midwestern town with a slightly older sister and has two boys, one being the obligatory red-head-from-Kenny-the-ex.
as seems common with eternally-unhappy-pity-vampires with a white trash heritage, she's wracked with ailments. a legacy of sob stories involving accidents at work, illness and surgery have left her with scars, somewhat debilitating nerve damage and a knee brace made of ultramodern space-age material. after the heartbreak of having been rendered unable to paint, she's been diagnosed as developing glaucoma. nice, huh?
the plot sickens:
she now lives in a double-wide mobile home in a trailer park in Belton(yeah, i know...i swear i'm not making this up) with her husband and two kids...everything but the pink flamingos in the front yard. she is no longer in love with him. he is verbally and emotionally abusive and controlling and said he'd kill her if she was ever unfaithful, an event to which she refers as "the time Ray threatened me with the shotgun." it makes for a nice, comforting blanket of fear in which she can wrap herself. while he's at work cleaning carpets, she's at home with the unruly boys. this is when she calls to update me and to vent about the latest incident.
it's like a redneck soap opera. why does she stay with him? ever seen a moment of Maury, Montel, Springer or Dr. Phil? the abused woman who defies logic, rationality and the jeers of the righteous studio audience by staying with her violent partner invariably does it "for the kids and becuz ah luuuv him."
she's been in love with a guy from work for quite a while. they slept together once. there has been the tension of stifled passion and romantic longing between them for months, and in a recent episode he revealed that he loves her too. unfortunately, it's a tragic romance...he's young and she says it could never be--it's not fair to him because she's unable to have more children. in search of someone who will hand her the key to happiness, she reads a lot of self-help books and has been seeing a therapist. she finally convinced her reluctant husband to also see a therapist and he showed marked improvement for the first two weekly sessions, but since he quit going, he's back to his scary self.
she effectively disrupted the flow of the studio and killed my buzz when she called this morning at 2. she was driving around aimlessly, acting like she was running away from home. "I told him I wasn't in love with him and hadn't been in a long time...I can't go on imagining that he's someone else...I just want to be happy" she whined. several of her friends have told her that she has a place to go, a place to stay if she ever leaves, but she always goes back home to sleep on the couch or in one of the boys' beds. she said she'd been at her friend's house. "She's in the exact same situation I'm in."
...of course she is.
i don't mean to sound like a heartless bastard, but the discovery that made me finally stop trying to save the world and hang up the cape long ago is that some people really don't want to be happy--their worlds would fall apart if they ever found themselves without a source of drama or pain, the currency of pity. i understand that these people exist, but i can't relate to them...i find it hard to empathize because i just don't get wrapped up in insignificant bullshit, i hate the taste of self-pity and i don't like to dwell on anything.
she's my friend and i truly do care about her and hope the best for her, but i'm sick of the ever-saddening story, the bad news, the overanalyzation of every little thing, the negativity and the explosion of the insubstantial into seemingly important drama. i know that i can neither save her nor convince her that happiness is a choice, that wishes have to be met halfway and that she's free to go and help herself at any time, and as with most things, what better time than now("now" having been the last several months)? after exhausting all the advice that works for me, all i'm left with to throw at her are cliches. along with everyone else, i tell her to get out, but she wants a handout; for someone to fix everything for her...it's like asking someone to take a shit for you.
this will go on and on forever, repeating a hundred times over. i doubt it, but maybe she'll finally leave her husband and find someone else who can fuel her unhappiness. then, at least, the names of the characters will change for a little while.