I ain't gettin' mad, Joker...

I been mad all my nat'rul life.

I’m in the midst of a battle. A battle for friends I shouldn’t have to fight for, battle I’m tired of waging. It’s wearing thin, threatening to unravel the blanket of cool confidence I have so carefully stitched. A battle against all the juvenile mind games in which I have always refused to participate. Are battles this tough, this petty and cruel, really worth it, in the end?

I guess it’s no one’s fault but my own that I’m in this position. These feelings are all my own. I could have kissed more ass, could have been less opinionated, could have forgiven more easily for the bad decisions people seem bent on making. Or could I have? Was I the excuse everyone was looking for? Did I allow people to get out of friendships they didn’t want, to get out of jobs they didn’t want, to express a maniacal and irrational anger at their lives that they couldn’t express without some kind of external irritant. Let’s just blame it on the new girl, no one will ever know any better. Well, I know better. Only, as the new girl, my say is limited to where to meet for a beer once a month and pretend we all actually like each other. Only, as the new girl, I see it so clearly.

Only, I did like them. It was genuine. Their dislike of each other is also genuine, deep, manipulative and hidden. And I offered an alternative reality. Perhaps a reality they didn’t want to face… what do you do when someone actually WANTS to be your friend and isn’t just pretending in order to get something from you? I guess if you spend years acting out this little drama, its hard to think anything else. They are all so used to be used that they are instinctively suspicious of the one person who isn’t using them. It's sick and twisted, and I've tried my best to be friendly and supportive and forgiving; I'm not doing it anymore.

I have several people telling me to cut my losses and book it. And maybe I should. Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like and exactly how they feel. A bunch of lonely, miserable people trying to drag me down with them because I am a chance they had at being happy, and that goes against the status quo. Nothing to read into it, nothing to say, nothing to do. It is what it is, and it is something I don’t want—or need—to be a part of. Any of it. Scrub it clean and start again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.

I heard a quote on an episode of NCIS yesterday, something akin to “The worst people are often the most liked.” I wonder if Donald Bellisario knows just how true that is.