You always hear people say that in order to have a true friendship you have to completely accept someone for who they are.  You have to accept their flaws and overlook all the bad stuff and la-dee-da, skip in meadows and hold hands and drink milkshakes while yellow canaries fly above your heads.  Love makes the world go round.  Friends are always there for each other.  Etc, etc, etc.

The reason why I have had so many shitty friends in my life is because I stuck with this philosophy for so long.

Yes, it is important to respect everyone and to have tolerance for others, but you also have to have some standards.  And I am not talking about standards that result in discriminating against other people or depriving them of their entitlement to living a fulfilled life.  “Oh, I believe only a man and a woman should marry, that’s my standard” - that deprives homosexuals the right to marry.  That’s not a standard.  That’s just plain hatred.  I am talking about standards that recognize harmful behaviors and you refusing to enable or pacify said behaviors. 

Just because you are a nice person does not mean you have to open your life up to everyone.  Not everyone deserves your efforts.  Not everyone deserves total acceptance because sometimes certain behaviors are not acceptable. 

And then people pull the whole, “Well, if you really loved me..” or “If you were a real friend”, etc, etc, etc…  Okay, okay, I have a friend that smokes crack.  I mean, this person is killing him or herself snorting or shooting or smoking or whatever the fuck people do with crack.  Their body is just deteriorating and they’re mad addicted to it and destroying their family.  Oh, but I love you and accept you for who you are and it doesn’t bother me at all that you’re addicted to crack and killing yourself because that’s true love, baby.

What. The.  Fuck?

No, seriously.  What the fuck?  I walk into someone’s house and I see cat shit all over the place and grimy stuff in the toilet and the dishes full of crap that’s been sitting there for weeks and half empty pizza boxes sitting on the couch you bet your ass I will damn sure open my mouth and bitch.  Why?  Because I have standards.  It’s not me saying I hate you and that you should die of shame for having such a filthy place, it’s me saying, look, let’s clean this place up and improve your hygiene because I cannot handle this.  It is hazardous to your health and mine, and is just plain disgusting.  That is called having standards.

And what about friends that are always in jail and dragging you into their problems?  What about friends with eating disorders?  What about friends that are addicted to drugs, depressed, suicidal, cheating on their loves ones, etc, etc, etc.  Still think we should stick by the philosophy of “Don’t change!  I love you for who you are!”  No.  Yes, we should accept each other to an extent.  Dangerous behaviors do not count.  Like I said, it doesn’t mean I’ll hate you and that you should kill yourself, but it does mean that I will express concern because I actually give two fucks about you.  All my life I’ve attracted druggies, jailbait, deadbeats, etc, and why?  Because I accepted them for who they are and always stuck by their side when I should have been smacking them upside the head and helping them get their lives on track.

Standards.  Can’t go wrong with them.  Fuck all that hippie shit.

That is all.

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV

Let me interrupt you and say, no, you do not understand.  At all.  This is not one of those things that you relate to just because you are able to imagine it.  The key word here is: imagine.  Look at it this way, I can totally imagine being abused by an alcoholic father, but I can never understand what it’s like because I have never actually been abused, nor is my father an alcoholic.  I can imagine what it is like being addicted to cigarettes by using my addiction to goldfish crackers and obsessive need to fantasize about sex and romance whenever I get stressed out, but at the end of the day, I cannot “totally understand” what it is like to feel that unending desperation to light up a cigarette and feel nicotine coursing through my veins.  I cannot “totally understand” what it is like to feel many things, to be in situations that require extreme financial responsibility, to be terrified of losing something very precious.  When people talk to you about their problems and their lives, you should heed it as an opportunity to learn something about them, not utter monosyllabic responses like “Yeah” or say you can “totally understand”.

Look, fuckers, this is something that has been bugging the shit out of me the majority of my life.  This blog has nothing to do with drug addiction.  It has nothing to do with food, being pressured by parents, financial burdens, fighting someone else’s war, or even love and relationships.  It has to do with isolation.  And I am not talking about the kind of isolation where one has been exiled for committing an unspeakable sin in some seventeenth century town.  I am not talking about the blissful isolation on some small island surrounded by all of your favorite items.  I am not talking about solitary confinement achieved through criminal means, but solitary confinement of the soul - the bare and ultimate confinement of one’s own mind and heart because he or she does not possess the genetic material to blend in with the masses.  He or she cannot, and often times, will not, lower his or her standards or submit to the general selfishness and ignorance reinforced by members of society. 

Before you even nod your head in agreement at this, let me assure you, you do not “totally understand” this.  I refuse to believe the majority of you can comprehend the things I am about to say, because these words are coming from a twenty-two year old kid who has spent the majority of his life ahead of his peers, always more emotionally mature, always more empathetic, always willing to suffer so that others do not.  Always willing to feel - and feeling has become a latent human trait nowadays.  Feeling is something the majority of you do not “totally understand”.  This social isolation involves knowing that you do not think like others.  It involves countless nights staring at the ceiling, sometimes on the verge of tears (or beyond), asking yourself, “Why?” over and over again.  It involves being torn between continually socializing at some friend’s apartment or downtown and coming home feeling empty, or just staying home avoiding all social situations and feeling even more empty.  Either way, you’re empty.  Either way you’re asking yourself why you are so different, almost wishing you were not, but then feeling guilty because who you are is someone to be admired, someone better and smarter and worthier. 

So what the hell do you do?

You sit there with people you call friends.  They laugh.  Their laughter sounds awful.  They joke.  The jokes are redundant and offensive.  They forget about you.  You’re used to it.  They need you around to talk to for two hours about their problems.  You listen.  They don’t bother asking about your life.  You try talking in vain.  You go home and sigh, because that’s all you can do, sigh, because you have been through it many times before so why should now be any different?  How can it?  There have been times in the past where you’ve cried, gotten angry, screamed, did things you regret all for the sake of companionship, all for the need to remove yourself from isolation. But now, now you have just grown so numb and empty and just….so past the point where it almost feels like apathy.

You still do not “totally understand”. 

It takes years to get to this point.  I’m not talking about pretty girls that feel oh-so-pressured by society and stuff and have it so hard because “I feel like I have to impress all my girl friends and be a whore so boys will like me.”  I’m not talking about sexually curious boys that want to feel up their frat brothers but repress that part of themselves by acting like a douchebag and screwing every girl in close proximity.  No.  That’s called being fake.  That’s called not being yourself.  I’m talking about actually being yourself, and when that somehow is not enough.  Scratch that, it’s enough for everyone in the whole goddamn world to take advantage of you, to love you, to admire you, to want you, to need you in their lives, but when are you looking for it all in return what do you get?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And that is what kills, absolutely kills.  That is what leads to years of disappointment, cynicism, and this unbearable isolation you hate yet have grown accustomed to. 

It hurts.  It sucks.  And anyone who is a shitty friend that claims to “totally understand” this can go to hell.

Look, fucker, I don’t know what it is about our generation that forces us to believe that waking up before three in the afternoon and making plans in advance is utterly blasphemous, but texting or calling me at midnight and implying that I am lame for not going out is just - how do I put this?- stupid.  No, not even stupid, because stupid implies a lack of intelligence.  It is fucked up in grand proportions on a multitude of massive scales.  I get it, twenty-something year old people are “supposed” to wake up at four in the afternoon, chow down Mountain Dew and Little Debbie’s, take a shower around six, play video games until eleven, and then enthusiastically make your way to your friends’ apartments or downtown to chill and “hang out” until five in the morning.  Being nocturnal is like, so hip, man!  But unlike you, I actually am a full-time student, have a job, oh, and something I like to call priorities - priorities that don’t involve me crawling out of bed at vampire hours and wasting my life away with Call of Duty and pancakes at some low rent diner halfway across town.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to hang out and have actual engaging conversations that just happens to go until the wee hours of the morning (when they do happen), but to purposely structure a life absent of vitamin D from the sun and one that involves a huge percentage of boredom and nothing to do but sit around and smoke pot and laugh like mentally challenged hyenas on crack because nothing is open at two in the morning is just…idiotic.

Babies, I get up between six to eight o’clock in the morning.  I have four classes in a day.  I check groceries for pea-brained customers.  As an English major I am writing and reading constantly.  I surf Craigslist during my spare time to look for a car.  I do Taebo and run whenever I can to keep fit.  Not to mention, I have to deal with my fair share of drama from my peers.  By eleven o’clock at night, I’m tired.  All I want is my bed.  I’m not chugging down a 5-hour energy drink just so I can waste my time with you sitting at some douche’s apartment pretending to text on my phone because there’s nothing better to do.  Really?  No, let me ask you again: REALLY? 

Get the fuck out of my face with that bullshit.

I don’t care if I am twenty-two years old.  I’m going to bed.  Peace.

Last night I had a great time hanging out with a few of my close friends.  We met up downtown, went out to eat at an Indian restaurant (where I practically burned my tongue off and set my stomach on fire), got some frozen yogurt (where I basically fattened myself up with Reese’s and Cake batter yogurt topped off with brownies and cookie dough and chocolates and all that jazz), went to my friend’s dorm and hung out there for a while and ate animal crackers, went to Wal-Mart to get frosting for the animal crackers, came back to the dorm, and then concluded our night at another friend’s apartment.  Despite our movements from place to place, what I truly enjoyed were the conversations with these people our whole night (and morning).  I stayed with the same friends the whole time.  We did not need to go looking for extra members.  We did not need to fill our nights at some noisy bar downtown.  Although there were moments they kept asking, “What do you want to do?” I contented myself by responding, “Believe it or not, I am actually having a lot of fun just sitting here talking with you guys.  I don’t get to do this often.” 

This is what is important to me: close friends, conversation, and comfort.  The three C’s.  I’ll be honest, most of the time I hate the general human population.  I find myself extremely frustrated with my peers with this whole friendship thing because I have incredibly high standards and most people fail to satisfy my need for companionship and intellectual, as well as emotional, growth and stability.  Although nobody is perfect, my time last night was very surprisingly satisfying.

But this is not the point of this blog. 

I often wonder why people feel like they have to move around a lot.  I wonder why people always have to say, “Lets see a movie!”  “Lets go somewhere!”  “Lets go to so-and-so’s apartment!”  “Lets go to the bars!”  “Lets go to a concert or someplace really loud!”  I wonder if a lot of my peers have an issue with staying in a single place with the same people for longer than an hour, and I wonder if this has any connection to this cultural fear of being alone.  I mean, how many of you check your phones religiously or witness your friends doing the same during your time together?  I personally love being alone.  I value my alone time.  If I were around my friends or people 24/7 I would kill myself.  I couldn’t do it.  I need to be alone to process my thoughts.  I value my mind, and yes, I can have a full on conversation with myself and I do not feel embarrassed in admitting that.  It is gratifying.  I write.  I read.  I go for runs.  I cook.  I don’t feel the need to call anyone to fill the void of loneliness.  But surprisingly, when conversing with my friends, it turns out that none of them can tolerate being alone.  They need to be around people, which makes me wonder if that is why some people always feel like they have to keep moving.  Some people seem like they have to keep traveling somewhere else, migrating to larger groups, visiting areas full of noise and chatter and succumbing to the impersonality of the entire experience.  These are what I call ‘social nomads’.  There is nothing wrong with that, although it can get annoying at times.  I remember this past summer where I was hanging out with a guy who came home for the summer and the entire night he kept saying, “I need to be around people.  I want to go somewhere where there are people.”  We had barely gotten into my car and started driving before he started whining like some little bitch and I wanted to smack him and say, “Why can’t you just relax and enjoy the company?  Am I not good enough?  Jesus Christ, you’re needy.”  But looking back on that, I suppose I cannot blame him.  I guess our generation has really gotten to the point where we are more content with noise, occupied space, chatter, and animated bodies.  Our brains are working like computers - I mean I know they say the brain is a computer, but I am saying that we are currently in this transformational phrase to becoming full on multi-tasking machines that cannot fathom quiet, isolation, peace, and emptiness.  Where is this taking us?

That is all.

Written by Arthur C.  McWilliams IV

Person A and Person B are friends.  Person A and Person B have been friends for a while.  Something happens to cause a rift between Person A and Person B.  Person A and Person B are not speaking to each other at the moment.  Person C and Person D see that Person A and Person B are not speaking to each other.  Person C harasses Person A about Person B, expressing a ridiculously nosy desire to know what happened.  Person A tells Person C not to worry about it.  Person D claims to not want to get in the middle of it, though Person D spends a lot of time with Person B.  Person A and Person B are still not speaking to each other.  Person C runs into Person D, both saying that they do not want to get in the middle of whatever is going on between Person A and Person B.  Person C and Person D start talking about Person A and Person B, exchanging stories, gossip, rumors, and their personal opinions over the matter, therefore, starting a spiraling chain of rumors and talk amongst Person E, F, and G.  Person E tells Person A to suck it up and deal with it.  Person F is shocked at what has been revealed about Person B.  Person G is utterly confused and tries to offer advice on the matter.  Person A tells Person E and Person G to fuck off because they know nothing of the matter and are making assumptions.  Person F is reconsidering the friendship with Person B.  Person C and Person D are nowhere to be found because they are probably reeling in shame at their stupidity, or perhaps looking for Person H, I, and J to discuss the matter with.

Person A and Person B are upset because everyone who claims to not want to be in the middle of it, ARE PUTTING THEMSELVES IN THE MIDDLE OF IT BY NOT KEEPING THEIR GODDAMN MOUTHS SHUT.

Person C and D (and the rest of the alphabet) are idiots. 

That is all.

So there it is, you have come to the inevitable realization that you are different than everyone else.  Your standards are much higher, your expectations stable, and your loyalty and devotion knowing no limitations.  You are capable of absorbing whatever hurt and disappointment your peers cannot, and as a consequence, feel much more than they do.  You see things that they cannot.  Your emotions are stronger, rendering you more sensitive, intense, moody, and seemingly forever searching for the right companion to fill the void that longs, no, screams, for a cure for the cutting loneliness that stakes itself deep into your core.  You feel it, the knife, the stuck, the chunks rising to your throat, tears behind the eyes and ready to fall against your will, body burning, temperature rising, the world shaded in fragments of red and blue and the nerves tingling inside of you, rising, breaking, threatening to expose every nook and vulnerability that resides within you.  It almost feels like, no, it is insanity.  You lie awake at night asking yourself why, running a random yet fitting multitude of questions through your head: why me?  Why do I have to put up with this?  Why am I always one step ahead of everyone else?  When will they catch up to me?  How is it that I am capable of loving and putting myself out there, yet no one seems to be able to return this?  Why do they hurt me?  Why do I allow myself to be hurt?  Why is it that I know what I want out of love, relationships, friendship, and people in general, but no one seems capable of giving?  I can give, I know I can, I have, and yet, no one else seems to be able to.  Am I just supposed to be some lightning rod that absorbs the electric shocks of hate and selfishness and ignorance? 

And you could kill asking yourself these things. 

You could murder yourself mentally, stripping your soul out of all hope and goodness that once resided there, turned cold and bitter through years and years (and years) of this seemingly unbreakable thing - this unnameable dissatisfaction rendering you full of rage, demanding that someone, anyone, prove that they are not like everyone else, that you are someone, that you are in fact more human than they could ever be.  That YOU are not in the wrong.

It sucks to walk alone.  It sucks to feel lonely.  It sucks to live and be broken by others, and despite whatever method you develop internally to protect yourself from the hurt, whether you become outspoken, defensive, shy, angry, or convince others and yourself that you are this confident and free person…you know that deep down inside, you’re not.  And perhaps you feel shame.  Perhaps you are lying to yourself.  Or perhaps the truth could not be more clear.  Whatever the case, you are not in the wrong.  No fault lies within you.  You are not a wrongly programmed machine cursed with emotions cast into a monotonous oblivion where everyone runs grey and tired and cold and selfish. 

Feel it.  Get angry.  Lash out.  Write about it.  Cry about it.  Scream about it.  I challenge you.  Hide.  Create your own little fantasies where you imagine the ones who hurt you as terrorist robots and kill them with your sword of sorrow and gun of rage.  Run.  Get outside and run until your legs give and your lungs demand an air that oxygen cannot fulfill.  Stop, and know, that if you are reading this blog, you are not alone.  Yes, a lot of people are going to say, “I totally feel the same way,” and you are going to ask yourself, “Really?  How could you possibly know the kind of pain that runs so deep you begin to welcome it on a daily basis, growing accustomed to it and hating it all the same?  How could you know, when you are the one doing this to me?”  Let it go.  Let the hurt go.  Let go of the ones doing this to you, they are not worth it - no man or woman is ever worth this kind of hurt.  Stand up.  Stop complaining.  Move forward.  Keep your intentions pure, keep your mind clear, and never abandon what you want, because your high standards, your expectations, your ability to love is what makes you you.  It gets better, I promise.

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV

We are all unfortunate to meet someone who we come to believe is destined to be a major part of our lives.  We fall hard for him/her.  We talk to him/her every chance we get, trying to build a deeper friendship.  We wake up thinking about him/her, and go to bed fantasizing about having hot, lusty, passionate sex with him/her.  We convince ourselves in our hearts that we would do anything for this person, and maybe we really would.  Maybe it is possible that you are the type of person who can love unconditionally, who can sacrifice everything for the sake of love, no matter how crazy it may seem to those who have lost hope in love or cannot fathom the hopeless romantic you are.  And the thing is, it’s not that you’re just some idiot crushing on someone who does not know who you are; you’re an adult who knows what you want out of life.  You know what you want out of a relationship because this person you have fallen for has totally redefined your standards and preconceived notions about love.  You never thought you could fall for him/her, but it happened, and despite everything you once believed, somehow it works.  Somehow the heart made a connection you were not consciously aware of until you were already trapped and under a spell so deep, it brought a strange mixture of sheer frustration and infinite pleasure.  It felt like…like you can really fly, you know?  Like an endless well of….

Okay, lets cut the crap.  This person is a user.  An abuser.  A no-good flake.  S/he doesn’t appreciate you for who you really are.  S/he leads you on, allowing you to believe you’re the special someone who gets to see into his/her heart.  Not to mention the fact that when you look at it objectively, s/he is just a really shitty friend.  Boundaries are crossed, and feelings get hurt.  No, not hurt, damaged.  Damaged to the point where it seems like you have to carry around duct tape and a screwdriver just to keep your heart from falling apart and bleeding all over the ground.  Damaged to the point where you literally want to kill whoever s/he is flirting with, because how can someone let you in like that only to hurt you even more?  How can someone say they love you and that they care deeply about you and want to be a part of your life, when they hurt you, ignore you, lie to you, and make no effort to be a part of your life?

Is there a light bulb flashing above your head yet?

Two words, darling: FUCK YOU.  Once you realize the above, you can gradually begin to allow yourself to move on.  You can delete this person off of your Facebook.  You can delete his/her digits.  You can avoid social gathering where it is likely the two of you would get drunk and cross more boundaries.  You can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “You know what?  I deserve better, and I know this because I have all this love to give.  I have the ability to love.  I have seen it.  I have felt it.  The problem is not me, it’s you.  You are sad and pathetic.  You are so lonely.  You are so…tired.” 

And then something amazing happens.  You start a new semester at school.  You get a new haircut.  You eat at a restaurant you have never been to.  You chat with new people.  You get excited about things that are taking you somewhere in life.  And when the person you once loved flashes through your mind, you don’t feel that twinge of pain you’ve grown accustomed to feeling.  You feel nothing, because the image is in black and white, and nothing but a distant past.

What is it with certain people and their need to smoke a blunt and play Left for Dead, Call of Duty, Zombie Island, or whatever the hell self-proclaimed heterosexual men are playing nowadays?  Look, getting high and playing video games is alright and everything (your life, don’t care), but inviting me over to hang out so I can watch you get high and play video games is not.  It’s the most boring thing in the world…seriously.  When a person cannot participate in a social event, they’re forced to sit in a corner and pretend to text or count all the dirty dishes in the sink until someone grows a brain cell and realizes, “Holy crap, this is kind of lame.  Why don’t we go out and do something productive?”

I’m not trying to dog on anyone here.  I’m just saying that no one wants to sit around and feel left out.  Not all of us smoke.  No one wants to be invited to someone’s house and then completely forgotten about.  It’s just plain rude.  And not only that, it only further tarnishes the reputations of the “Weed is Good, Legalize Marijuana” people.  You want to prove to people you’re not the typical stoner that’s unable to function or give a shit about anyone?  You want to prove that smoking weed isn’t all about laying around ending every other sentence with the word “dude”?  Then don’t be an inconsiderate ass.

Oh, and video games.  I love them.  You won’t walk into my room and find me with bags under my eyes and Cheetos in my hair sitting in the same pair of underwear for the past six days because I’m that obsessed with Skyrim or Halo.  Here’s a tip.  Give up the controller once in a while and let someone else play.  Got a cute girl (or guy) over that doesn’t really play?  Call them over, have them sit next to you, and show them that ‘x’ is jump and ‘a’ is shoot someone’s bloody brains out.  It’ll make them feel included, and you’ll score major points in the friendship/romance department.  That is all.

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV

You know who they are: clingy, desperate, overly emotional, and PSYCHOTIC.  I’m talking about people that stalk you and blow your phone up with text messages starting at eight freakin’ a.m. in the morning and lasting until ten p.m.  I’m talking about people who somehow know exactly which bar you’re going to be at on a Saturday night, and everything you talk about in your Facebook statuses although they are blocked from your profile.  I’m talking about people that show up at your job and come through your checkout lane and start telling you about how they found their old Super Nintendo and hooked it up and you should totally come to their apartment sometime and check it out.  I’m talking about people that beg you to hang out, send you random song lyrics, and make a million offers to pick you up and buy you dinner - okay so that last one sounds kind of tempting, but the awkwardness of the entire situation makes it easier to want to duck under the covers with a flashlight and look out your bedroom window to make sure no one’s standing in your front yard in the rain staring into your window whispering, “Why won’t you love me?” over and over.  And over.

I’m talking about people that stalk and obsess over you because they cannot through any reasonable means come to the conclusion that you have simply moved on and do not want them in your life anymore.  The word ‘done’ is not a part of their mental vocabulary.  D-O-N-E.  Done?  What’s that?  Is that a band?  Yes, that’s a band, and their #1 hit is “Bitch, Stop Calling me and Leave Me the Fuck Alone!”

But who can blame them?  For those of us nice guys (and gals), we tend to be forgiving.  We tend to give our friends second (or fifty) chances when they screw up, because that’s the kind of people we are.  We grew up finding it hard to say “no” and got our feelings hurt easily.  We had a hard time being social, so we accepted whoever was willing to see past our awkwardness and befriend us.  But make no mistake, even us nice people can attract some seriously screwed up people.  They come into our lives because they are drawn to our niceness.  They walk all over us.  They know we’ll forgive them and lend them clothes and buy them cigarettes when they’re broke because we’re alone and will do anything for their company, failing to realize that it’s not us nice people that cannot live without our psychotic friends, it’s our psychotic friends that cannot live without us.  We nice people can see past flaws and the seriously fucked up decisions our friends make, because we convince ourselves that being a good friend means accepting people for everything they are.

Well, guess what?  That’s total bullshit.  We are under no obligation to accept everything about the people we love, especially if they insist on dragging us through their personal hells, fill our lives with unwanted drama, and beg for money and company at the worst possible times - and then get mad if we are flat broke from paying our tuition bills or have plans with other people.  And so our psychotic friends guilt trip us.  They convince us that nobody could ever care about us the way they do, and for some dumb reason, we actually believe them.  We allow ourselves to get sucked into the murky web of psychosis and end up hating ourselves at the end of the night.

But not anymore.  I am proud to say that I have realized (after ten years) that a certain person in my life was just no good for me.  I probably realized it a lot sooner than that, but like a nice guy, I kept turning the other cheek.  But how many cheeks can a guy turn?  I finally put my foot down and said, “Look, you know what?  No more.  I am done.  Fuck you.  Fuck your drama.  Fuck the fact that you call me a shitty friend when I have bent over backwards for you and put up with your shit for ten mother fucking years.  Fuck the fact that you apologize a million times and try to convince me that you’ve abandoned your ways, only to end up lashing out on me because I cannot spend 24/7 with you and actually give a damn about my other friends and my education.  Fuck your drugs.  Fuck your psychotic behavior.  And fuck your manipulative, guilt-tripping ways.  You do not deserve me.”

So, I am now accepting applications for the next psycho to fill the void.  Step on up!  Don’t be shy!  That is all.

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV