Perhaps what some of my loved ones say is true.  Maybe I am guarded.  Maybe I do refuse to open up to people about my personal life.  I am indifferent to a lot of things, and that comes from years of frustration and resentment.  That does not take away the fact that I am a good person with a good heart.  It does not change the fact that I have more compassion than people realize, even if all the cynicism and bitterness covers it up.  Those that truly know me, know that despite how angry and agitated I get with the world, I still care.  I still have this huge well of empathy that often gets me in trouble with a broken heart. 

But to those of you asking why I never talk about myself or share anything personal, I’ll go out on a limb and say it is not my fault you don’t get to see the true side of me.  I firmly believe people have to earn your true self.  They have to prove that they are trustworthy and capable of handling the real you, and if they cannot simply be there for you or remember anything you tell them, that’s a sign that they won’t understand you or care when you’re hurting.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I’m on to something here.  Stick with me.

If I tell you who I am in love with, and you run your mouth to everyone, you lose your privilege of knowing who I like.  If I tell you something sensitive about a limitation I may have, or a condition that makes me different than most people, and you continually dismiss it or say inconsiderate things, you lose your right to my compassion.  If I ask you to please do something for me, to please do me a simple favor after all I have done for you, and you continually blow me off, ditch me, or prove yourself a shitty friend, you lose the opportunity to spend time with me.  If I open up to you about something important and it goes in one ear and out the other, meanwhile I’m sitting here listening to you go on for two hours about your problems - problems I still remember the next day, next week, the next month, and so on - you don’t deserve my sympathy.  You don’t deserve any part of me.  You don’t deserve to see who I truly am.  You don’t deserve to be a part of my life.  If you have known me for years, or possibly, my whole life, and you still don’t know who I am, why should I continue to treat you like you matter when it is obvious I don’t matter to you?

Listening to people is not hard.  Showing someone that you give a crap is not the most complicated thing in the world.  Remembering what someone tells you is possible if you can remember to log on Facebook and update your statuses or tell your friends about something that happened to you last week.  Compassion is not nonexistent, but so few people are willing to keep it as one of the basic human traits.  If you cannot simply step outside of your own universe to give me two seconds of your time, despite all that I have done for you, you don’t deserve me…at all.  That is why you don’t know me.

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV

It was not until I started generating ideas for a novel series that I realized what kind of relationship I wanted to have.  It’s funny how when you really let yourself go and write, you can understand yourself better.  You realize who you are based on what you’re writing about and what kind of characters you create.  It was not until a few years later that I realized I was creating a relationship in my head that was nearly identical to the one I wanted to have in real life.  

I don’t want any unrealistic, phenomenal, sacrifice everything for that one person kind of romance.  I will not belong to anyone, and no one will belong to me.  I don’t want a relationship where it’s essential to post every progress and conflict on Facebook.  I don’t need to announce my feelings for someone to the world, nor does anyone need to be involved.  I’m not looking for months and years of complications before we can fall in love, because it shouldn’t be difficult for two people to simply connect.

You know what I want?  I want to meet someone when I least expect it.  I want us to introduce ourselves to each other.  Maybe we’ll meet in a classroom.  Maybe we’ll run into each other in public.  Maybe I’ve already met this person.  We’ll get to know each other, tease each other, and become friends that genuinely like each other.  We’ll hang out, not “date”, but hang out.  What do I like to do?  Everything.  We can go hang out at the park and run around with our shoes off and get dirty.  We can go eat at some greasy, fast food joint and steal fries from each other.  We can go watch some movie and I’ll complain about how crappy the storyline was.  We’ll do homework together at some coffee shop where we’ll swap music interests and talk about things that are not really important, except they will be important to me, because anyone that is truly my friend is someone I genuinely care about.  We’ll play video games, drive around at night for no particular reason, go out downtown and get drunk - or not, if you’re not into that kind of thing.  It doesn’t matter.

And then we’ll get closer.  We’ll become comfortable with each other, and hopefully open up to one another about the personal things in our lives.  I’ll talk about what it’s like to be an individual with hearing loss, my frustrating relationship with my father, and the difficulties I have with self-esteem and dealing with people in public.  You’ll tell me what you think your flaws are and I’ll simply deny there is anything wrong with you at all, because we’re all struggling.  And I truly hope you’re not the kind of person who forgets what I say or dismisses my feelings.  I hope you’ll care, I hope you’ll be there and shock me that another human being is actually capable of the level of compassion I exhibit that often gets taken for granted.

And though I probably already knew it, I’ll realize that I’m falling for you, and hope that you feel the same.  And it will just happen, gradually and inevitably.  A bond has formed between the two of us without us even realizing it, and hopefully we’ll come to the conclusion that we’re made for each other, that we just click and it works.  You challenge me.  You push me to be a better person.  You’re different from me, which makes things interesting.  You know things I have no clue about, and I can show you how to paint and cook and dance and write like a pro.  And happiness will no longer seem like something a person only reads about in books or sees in movies.  It will be real.  And all of my years of resentment and cynicism will seem so utterly strange.  I won’t recognize the person that I am today, and I’ll gladly close that door and walk through the new one with you by my side.  And nothing has to change between us.  We’re still friends.  We argue, laugh, tease each other, and play like children.  We’re not in any hurry to rush to an altar and get hitched.

That’s the kind of relationship I want.  I want to fall in love with my best friend.

Arthur C. McWilliams IV

I have always had difficulty connecting with the same sex. Truth is, I have spent my whole life trying to reach out to guys my age, and time and time again I find it easier to be around women because women are much more emotionally connected, sensitive to others, and generally have a higher capacity for wisdom and conversation. I realize not all people are this way, and generalizing is not up for debate here. I guess I just do not understand why most men are so impossible sometimes and seemingly incapable of communicating or just being friendly. There’s too much fear of intimacy or possibly being labeled “gay”, too much pressure to behave like an obnoxious dick with only sex, booze, and sports on the brain. I know not all men are alike, and my heart goes out to any guy who can understand this and does not act like a type. But sometimes I feel like the only way I’d ever relate to other men is if I got into a car accident and ended up brain damaged.

I suppose it is only natural as you grow up to experience attractions for others and to have emotional developments you’ve never quite understood.  Can you remember the first person you had a crush on?  Crush, not love. Crush.  As in “I like you like you like you like you like you like you”.  Not that young adult angst that the lot of you are suffering through and religiously reblogging pictures about.  I can remember my first crush.  It was in the fourth grade.  This person was in the fifth grade.  We sat on the railing on the playground during recess.  When I was a kid I had no problem telling people I liked them.  As I got older it got harder for reasons I’m not comfortable talking about on here.  But I suppose part of it is as you get older you lose your innocence.  You become more insecure.  Social norms and expected behaviors are hammered into your brain.  You learn what is acceptable and what is not, and probably ninety percent of your desires are not acceptable, so you repress them.  In sixth grade I had my first big crush on someone and told my best friend.  He told the best friend of my crush and then everyone knew who I was crushing on.  Wasn’t a big deal.  At the time it was like, “Oh my god, everyone knows!” but you’re not really sure why you’re making such a big deal.  When I was growing up twelve year olds didn’t have sex - we passed notes asking “Do you like me?  Check Yes or No” and chewed gum and pretended we were cool because we had a neat sweater or new shoes.  Anyone born in the late nineties and later can just stop reading this right now. 

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.

I don’t hate you, not anymore.  I mean, I did at first but that was because I had to get over you, and I am, for the most part, over that bulk, but there is still some residual emotion and that’s fine.  It’s natural and I accept that.  As far as being angry, yes, I am angry.  I’m angry at myself because initially I had planned to suffer in silence and keep my feelings to myself, but you were the one who brought it all up - and I feel like you have done nothing to own up to the choices you have made.  You were the one who opened the door and pointed out my feelings for you, and I walked through it, vulnerable, trying to see how far I could go.  I am angry at myself for being vulnerable, for allowing you in to become a vital part of my life.  I am angry that despite all the occasions I told myself not to cross a particular boundary, I did, and I am angry that you let me cross those boundaries.  You let me go there with you, admitting no discomfort or shame, just us, and that was enough to fool me into thinking I was special to you - that I was seeing a part of you no one else was.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe you’re the same way with everyone.  But what I am really angry about is the fact that when our friendship reached an impasse, you brushed it off like it was nothing - like I was nothing.  You cannot imagine the hurt I feel over that - to realize that I mean absolutely nothing to you when at one time you meant everything to me.  The scale is tipped in no one’s favor; it’s unfair.  You made absolutely no effort to care or inquire to know what was going on, and the way things seem, you probably never even realized I had left.  And that is what kills me.  Your apathy, your negligence, your ego, your pride, your flakiness - should be enough to force me to move on.  It should all be flashing a light bulb above my head as I come to the brutal realization that you are the worst thing for me, you are nothing, you are nothing’s nothing - low, dull, intangible nothingness - empty and void and cruel.  And yet, despite the day to day changings of how I feel, there is still something, and I hate myself for it.  I hate that when I compare myself to you: I remember, I feel, I love, I am intense.  You forget, you are inhuman, indifferent, you are simple.  You can throw me away and not feel a single thing, and if you felt anything, you would find some reason to justify it away.  I suffer.  I feel.  Why do you not?  Anyways, right now I just feel indifferent to you.  Aside from residual emotions lingering beneath the surface, you mean nothing to me.  I laugh at the feelings I’ve had for you.  I honestly do not care if I never see you again, and for my own sake, I hope I never do.  Maybe that’s cruel, and it’s usually at this point people feel the need to point out that I am being harsh or mean, that hate is not the answer.  This is not hate; this is indifference.  Tomorrow I will probably feel otherwise.  Whatever.  I wish I never met you.  I wish you did not exist.  I am writing this to you, more for myself, because I know you’ll never care to read anything about someone other than yourself. 

Written by Arthur C. McWilliams IV

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