I’ve been breathing for 24 years and still find making new friends almost the scariest thing! I am so comfortable just sticking with people I’ve known from high school and below. After 12th grade people just became more and more odd.
In a communication class I took freshman year in college, I learned we attract people. Some people attract psychos, some attract abusive people and so on. I attract needy people who think they own me. It’s one thing to attract needy people, shoot, I’m needy, but to attract needy people you try to lock you down with a ball and chain, just isn’t my thing.
I have found myself almost becoming anti-social. I am so traumatized that there’s going to be a new member to the “I hate Mackleen” club. See, I don’t do being captured nor being anyone’s slave, punching bag, or pet of any sort. So what happens when the writer / poet finds her lovely self in this situation? I shut down. After anyone drains me to the point of no return, it’s a wrap! I find a hole called the ignore button on my phone, come down with the no return calls syndrome, and I take no medication for the ‘if I see you I will go the other way’ fever. In other words, I get real shady until I figure out what to do.
I sat in a church group once talking about my problem, a sweet woman (I thought would be a perfect friend but her issues were worse than mine!) said, “people are just not going to always like you. Whether you help them everyday or not.” Now I knew this, but I didn’t know that this was my life. She doesn’t know this but she saved me a George-Bush era $35 co-pay to see a doctor. I hate for anyone not to like me. I would say, “yes” even if it was an inconvenience. It never failed, as soon as I couldn’t do something, the membership went up at that club I mentioned earlier. Just like that, I would get a withdrawal from them and the relationship was over.
So…I came up with how to solve this problem, beat them to the punch! Shoot, I’m nice but not that nice! Had I figured this out sooner, I would have had a little more money in my pockets, less trips to the pharmacy and less alcohol assumption. The pastor said that same night, “People will send you to the grave.” This entire time I thought, isn’t this what God wants us to do? Treat people, as we would want to be treated. He looked at me and said, “You letting people control you has nothing to do with God, it’s you.” Me huh?
I don’t like being drained but I don’t like being disliked. If at the end of the day, what is more important is someone who isn’t going to take advantage of me then I am better off cutting ties those “haters”. When asked at their stupid club meeting why do you hate Mackleen so much? It’s going to be a constant repetition of, “she said I was draining her.”
*Wink*
