MY LIFE - MARCH

Social Experiment #308 - Tuesday, March 4, 2003

I was getting gas on my way home tonight and walked in just in time to hear this really pretty girl tell the woman cashier that she didn't understand why so many guys were so sensitive. Then she realized I, a guy, was standing behind her, but I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders. Being a pretty sensitive soul, I wasn't really going to try and argue what she said.

I just wanted to get the hell out of there and get home.

It was so busy at work. I knew it was going to happen though. Yesterday was relatively calm for a Monday. Anytime that happens, we get slammed Tuesday. It was the same last weekend. Easy Monday, Tuesday from hell. I cannot figure out what's going on in this place.

I really don't feel like talking about work though. I could get into how much I can't stand the man-hating Michelle or the obnoxious Nichole, but there's way too much of a chance that someone will read this and it'll get back to them. I don't want to have to explain anything to either of them anyway. I'm actually trying to reduce the amount of interaction I have with them as it is.

I really don't feel like writing at all tonight, to be honest. It's just not in me. I wrote so much last night (both the Come Again entry and yesterday's entry) that I really have nothing to write about of particularly significance. Of course, there really isn't much I ever write about that's overly significant, but that's my inferiority complex talking again.

There is one thing that I haven't talked about much over the last few months and that's the subject of my real true friends.

In the past, I've made mention of the few people that have really touched me, the people that I really care about and would share just about anything with. There are two people in particular that have been the closest to me. I've known both of them the same amount of time (roughly), but one I see every week and the other, well, I've never met her in my life.

I have other friends, such as Shelby, who I talk to occasionally, but for the most part, Mike and Jen know more about me than anyone else. Mike knows me from our days at CVS in Strongsville, where we used to go at it all the time. Jen and I met online in a chat room and somehow it blossomed into a friendship that I couldn't have begun to imagine possible.

I met Mike the first day I worked, which was September 1, 1997. He was, and still is, a dork and really didn't do much to try and make you think otherwise. He was basically the kind of person that most popular people would've probably laughed at in high school, but also would've found him likeable anyway just because of the way he is.

I actually made fun of him the first time I met him and from that point on, we were friends. He used to occasionally take me home from work when my mom couldn't get there to get me a ride (before I finally got my license). He eventually realized that I had a love for video games, so one day he invited me over to play them together. Ever since, it's been almost a weekly ritual for me to go over to his house and play the latest Nintendo game (since the puss won't spring for a playstation 2). Actually, the games we used to play the most were the Driver games for the first playstation. Nothing like taking turns trying to pass these really hard-ass missions, throwing the controller in frustration, then moving onto the next game.

Perfect Dark was our favorite. Playing the co-op mode, gunning the enemies down together, eventually beating the game, such accomplishments should be shared with a good friend. Mike is just that though. A good friend. I could always bitch to him about something that was bothering me and know that he would just shut up and listen. Not always because he cared, but because I rarely gave him a choice. Really. I held a gun to his head once. He won't try and ignore me again. Heh, now you know I'm not serious about that one.

Jen, well, Jen is just an awesome girl. Jen is pretty much the kind of girl that I would love to date. She's nice, she's attractive (unless she's not telling me something I should know; I still have that ONE picture of you on my old hard drive *wink wink*), she's funny, and she's just someone you can talk to about anything and know she's listening to you.

Jen and I first met in 1997 while chatting in a chat room on the very site that hosts this web site. We got kicked out of the room we were in due to server problems, but somehow managed to show up in the same room again. Evidently, fate was playing its part in bringing us together. We both found it kind of weird that we found each other again and decided to talk some more.

The rest has been well-documented in the pages of this site. We became pretty good friends and then tried to take things a step further. In all honesty, I did love the girl as more than just a friend. I really felt that she was the perfect girl for me to be with. Nothing made me happier than reading an e-mail from her or seeing her online. It was bliss.

We were going to meet at one point, but things continued to conspire against that happening. She hurt herself once and other times just didn't materialize due to really freaking busy schedules. Eventually we decided to just be friends and no longer try online dating. She's since been pretty successful in having boyfriends (and finding her share of jerks along the way) while I've had pretty much no luck outside of Tabitha, and we all know how that ended up.

Throughout it all, we've pretty much kept in contact with each other. For now, she's made it clear that she's not comfortable meeting with me, but I can live with that knowing that I still have her an e-mail or instant message away to say hi to and vent about something that's bothering me. While Mike has been my video game buddy, she's been my confidant at times. There are things that I've told her before mentioning to anyone else. She probably knows me better than anyone else either.

She's seen me from all angles as I've evolved over the years. She's seen my changes both in the way I talk to her and the way I write in this site. She's even written an entry in the past (and she's welcome to write more if she ever wanted to) and contributed to this site in other ways.

Nothing would make me happier than to have a chance at dating this girl at some point. Hell, I'd even settle for just us hanging out in the future. But at the same time, I'm very much respectful of the things that she feels and if that means just being online friends, then I'm happy with that. There's no one that could replace her in my small circle of friends and I really wouldn't want to try to replace her either.

I'm happy with her as a good friend. There's nothing that tickles me more than sending her a nice e-mail, then finding out later that it made her smile. It makes me feel good to know that she views me as an equally good friend to her, that she could tell me anything. It's something I'm proud of because a lot of people don't get the chance to have that someone who they can trust so much.

In both of them, I'm very lucky to have such good friends. In Jen, I feel even luckier because it is an internet friendship and those are harder to maintain.

It's been five years so far. Hopefully, the end is nowhere near.

---

I suffer from selective memory. I always seem to remember the right thing at the wrong time and the wrong thing at the right time. It never works the way it should and it happens all the time.

It can get quite irritating, like when I keep meaning to ask Darlene if she'd work extra next week, but I always forget until right after she leaves for the day. Or when I mention to Keith that the schedule's thin because we won't hire people. What's wrong with that you ask? Uh, Keith is the one responsible for the hiring.

Open mouth, insert foot.

I've always been like that. For the last two days, I've forgotten until I'm halfway home that I have tupperware sitting in the breakroom that I need to bring home with me. I also remember before I leave as well. It's the moment that I'm in the breakroom where I forget. I did it tonight. I looked at the tupperwear right before I put my coat on, then proceeded to walk out of the store without my containers.

It gets very annoying after a while though. I know when I'm finally done with the two training discs that I have with me, I'll forget to take them to work for about two weeks just because I'll suffer some massive brain cramp. It's almost like my mind conspires against me to remember these sort of things.

A mind conspiracy...Whoa...It's like something out of a really, really bad B movie from the 1950's, only not as good.

The other weird thing that's been going on is I've been much more wired lately at work. I mean, I'm still a zombie for the first couple of hours, but then it's like a switch is turned on and I just go completely bonkers for a while. I'm moving around, I'm being a smartass, the comments are flying, and I'm generally getting into everything.

It's incredibly weird and I'm sure it's driving the people I work with up a wall. Then again, if it's certain people, I really don't care cause they pissed me off at some point and deserved it.

---

I'm still trying to get that girl I helped out of my mind. As each day passes and I don't hear from her, it becomes more and more likely that I won't hear from her. This disturbs me, but there's really nothing that I can do about it. I can only assume that she's okay and that she's gotten on with her life and I should follow suit.

I told Regina about it tonight though just to get her opinion on what happened and what she thought about what I did. As soon as I told her the part about a girl walking into the laundromat at 2:30 in the morning, she said that these kind of things just seem bound to happen to me.

After finishing up with the entire story, she basically told me that I just looked like a guy that would help, whether it be listening or in other ways as well. She also told me that girls in trouble (and hinted at troubled girls) just seem to find me somehow.

It does seem true though. Maybe it's because of who I am though. I just feel all kinds of sympathy for a girl going through a hard time. I know a lot of it is because of my past, going through all the bullshit I went through and not having anyone who seemed like they even remotely gave a shit about me.

The worst part is that there are just some situations that I should just stay out of. Sometimes the best thing for me is to just not get involved and stay out of whatever the problem might be. I never do though and this last one is no different.

I just can't possibly imagine that I could've just let that girl try to walk home though. I just can't. I can't even begin to imagine that someone would let this girl try to walk home, regardless of where she was from. It's just not right.

This is a girl that wasn't very big, who lives on the west side of Cleveland, who was going to try and walk home from North Olmsted while it was 30 outside and snowing. Not only was she going to be freezing to death, she'd also be a prime target for anyone with a less than civil mind. If I had let her walk home, I can almost guarantee she would've been in the paper as another victim of a rape, a murder, whatever it might have been.

I just couldn't let that happen.

And yet, all the effort I did could've been for naught since I don't know if she's okay.

I tell you what, this good samaritan shit is for the dogs sometimes. *sigh* But I guess it's how it goes when you have a heart.