Back at the Beginning: Part II

So after a blazing California summer of books, T.V. shows, and rushing to finish summer homework (I think I managed to schedule my last two weeks in a way that had me do everything in five days before classes started, and I still managed to totally forget about AP Lit) school started back up in August.

Here is where I make a confession that for those of you who know me, is staggeringly non-news:  I'm an ass.  To be honest, it is my humble opinion that all men are, but some of them are just really good of hiding it.  Towards the end of the previous year, actually not too long after I began writing this blog, I got it in my head—from what in retrospect seems to me to have been a combination of miscommunication, misinterpretation, and stupidity on my part—that several of my friends, mostly female, had a very low opinion of me.  Now, I know I'm not necessarily the most likable person—I can be mean, argumentative, crude and a host of other atrocities—but one thing I certainly do not want to be is that one annoying guy everyone knows, but doesn't want to be mean to, so they just suffer him in silence.  Honestly, I would rather someone tell me I'm an ass and that they'd rather I never speak to them or bother them again (get in line) than have them try to avoid me, and, when forced to interact with me, silently spend the time hoping desperately that I'll leave.  I really would.  I hate ambiguity like that.  I want in or out: either I'm your friend (or at least, we're friendly), or I'm (we're) not. 

But anyway, I felt as though I was that guy.  I may elaborate on this further down the road, but essentially, I got the feeling that several of my friends were only really my friends in the sense that while they didn't really want to have much to do with me and had no interest in ever initializing interaction, they politely put up with me.  At least a month before school had let out, I began to make a conscious effort to avoid initializing interaction with one of my friends to see what her response would be, or if she'd even notice; (in my mind at least) she didn't.  After school let out, I did the same for several other friends.  I don't think one of them contacted me during the summer.  Also, while I was in Southern California, a number of things came up concerning another friend, on who I had been in pretty much constant contact with all summer long, previously mentioned as a coauthor of A Correspondence.  I'll once again consider covering this in greater detail at another time, but suffice to say I was mad at her:  I felt betrayed, angry, marginalized, and a host of other, similar things.  At that point, I cut off contact with her as well.

So when school started in the fall (it's really more like late summer nowadays), I pretty much openly and pointedly ignored a group of people I had formerly (and I should say, now wholeheartedly do so now) considered my friends.  Now in order to make good on my promise to have a new post up today, I will end here, and continue from this point in the next part of this ever-growing... confession.