I had a very fun conversation earlier today at work. We touched on many subjects ranging from religion, racial discrimination and its tendency to overcompensate itself, religious tolerance, and so forth. I do so miss the presence of "depth-ridden" intelligent conversations along those lines in my life. Back in Utah, I had many friends to debate such thought provoking topics with whenever I felt up for a debate. Here, it just isn't the same. Not to say at all that I think my friends are unintelligent; merely that they either don't have any specifically-aligned views on the matter (i.e. they just don't really care) or they agree too quickly and it's all over just like that. As strange as it may sound, I miss having an opposition in my debates; in my opinions. As I stated earlier, which I found to be a rather deep quote in itself: "Difference of opinion is necessary for the development of opinion." Throughout my growing up, it has been both my experience and thus my acclimated nature to engage in both serious and mocking debates, neither of which were intended to target personal feelings. Basically, I would get in heated arguments on something one moment, or stumble into a friendly insult-war, and then the next moment after said moment's conclusion all was well. No harm, no foul. Such is the way of the adult world. Recently, however, I was reminded very unobtrusively of the part of my personality that tends to be a little overbearing and argumentative. I had a friend, with whom I had not realized there was a problem, who exploded at me from pent-up bitterness at the way I treat people in general. He called me an insulting person that brought out the worst in him, and essentially accused me of being a bad friend. Now, anybody who knows me knows that I make fun of everything. Things, circumstances, people, etc. But alas, anybody who knows me also knows that none of it is with the intent to harm. It is merely in jest. I joke for the sake of lightening the atmosphere and creating a fun time for those involved; and, admittedly, for my own amusement. However, this friend (whose name will be withheld) literally spent an entire dinner effectively explaining to me how I am an offensive person and a poor friend. All of this was done in front of many other people, which left me humiliated. I made many attempts to apologize for my actions. I tried to explain that I hadn't realized he was taking anything personally on account of the fact that he always joked right back at me. I tried also to explain, as I have before, that I don't mean to hurt anybody when I make my jokes in the first place. Rather than sympathize or listen, I was shot down or ignored as he continued to raise his voice more and more until others in the restaurant were looking at us strangely. This added to the embarrassment of the situation. I was, and am, furious. On the one hand, I do truly understand and sympathize. I know that I can be a little overbearing at times and some people take my words personally. If ever anybody mentions to me that something I said was too mean or rude or offensive, I immediately apologize and promise to more carefully watch how I treat them in the future. I'm not a bad person. On the other hand, it was VERY inappropriate of this friend to choose that moment: in front of my other friends, in a restaurant filled with other people, to go off on me for an hour about how many grievances he has against me for being a poor friend. Not to mention his lack of even an attempt to listen to my own thoughts or explanations or apologies on the matter. All in all, the dinner went quite miserably. I made good use of my very good ability to withhold my temper rather than returning the shouting. I simply held my peace and allowed him to talk until he was out of things to talk about.
I apologize, I ranted. I was stressing and needed to vent, so I did so into my blog. Oops. Christmas is in 3 days now, and this morning I hadn't done any Christmas shopping. I got all of it done today, leaving me relieved and happy. I'm excited for Christmas, and I'm excited for my birthday on the 31st, and I'm excited because January 2nd-6th my family, along with my girlfriend, are going to Disneyland! Joyous joyous joyous. The only shortfalling I see in the coming few weeks are my lamentable lack of money. Not so joyous, I should say. My birthday, unfortunately, I actually am not all that excited for. The more I think about it, the more sad I become. This will be the first birthday in seven years that I didn't have my party at Rock Creek Pizza with a bunch of friends, playing games until midnight and then banging pans and pots together outside. That was tradition. That was my life. That was more than satisfactory: that was sentimental. This year, I have no idea what to do. I probably will just request a delicious dinner somewhere and spend the remainder of the day at home as I would any other day. In fact I might even have to work on my birthday, which would be the coupe de grace I'm sure. It's sad, but yes, I am not looking forward to my birthday very much this year. On the upside, I'll be 20 years old. And that in itself is VERY exciting. I'll no longer be a teenager, and that is a really weird thought.
I had no particular direction with this post; I merely had a lot on my mind and chose to talk about it. There are other things I could elaborate on. These include my unending excitement for the new Thousand Foot Krutch album coming out soon, my embarrassing obsession with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, my ongoing hunt for an additional job to go along with the one I have now, etc. I'll simply leave it at this today, because I have a feeling this post alone will stir up some interesting conversations later on.
J R Williams
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