Over the last week or so I've come to terms with the fact that most of my friends are actually really shallow and short-sighted. It might sound really mean, but basically that is how the cookie-crumbles.
This is especially bad for one of my friends who is quite knowledgeable, but due to his stature and nerdy looks has little luck with women. It's compounded because he's quite quick to come to unfounded conclusions, particularly about women (an emotional defense mechanism?), yet wouldn't mind being stalked or similar. The guy's quite intelligent, but doesn't have either the interpersonal or intrapersonal intelligence to see that he'll end up isolating himself from the opposite sex forever if he doesn't drop the barriers.
The sad thing is, it's not really his fault. He never chose to be a socially-retarded bookworm with too much time for fantasy novels and miniature wargames. During his early school years, he was pretty much teased and picked on the most, making him somewhat subservient and vulnerable to further abuse. He kinda crawled into the safe shell of the alternate realities of fiction and video games. I did the same for similar reasons, but I was always more sociable and, when I came to high school, considered a quiet bookish guy (hah, how things change in a few short years) rather than a geek in hardcore denial about reality. Apparently, people find me funny. I guess that helps?
In any case, this guy never really pulled out. His family drives him hard when it comes to study, and his younger brother is possessive, highly judgmental and always has something to prove. The poor dude is basically under a barrage of emotional damage due to a combination of criticism, isolation, misunderstanding and culture bias, not to mention his own tendency to create a personality based on what he sees in anime and books rather than his own experience and values. At least I can be confident in his capacity to do well at school and earn a good living. The guy is honestly really cool sometimes, but his shortcomings are more obvious than his qualities which drives people that don't know him away really quickly.
Note that I'm not saying I hate the guy or that he'll never do blah blah blah. I just think it's really sad how a dude with so much potential is still as socially pigeon-holed as he is at almost 18 years of age. i.e. he turns to the worlds of fantasy because he constantly faces total rejection by almost everything that is reality through no fault of his own.
I guess this post is a statement of discontent at the judgments people make and the true nature of counterculture? "Counterculture" is a good word here. This individual has taught me, over my years of friendship with him, that counterculture isn't really very cool or very sexy. It's actually very isolated and cruel. But the cool thing is, even if this guy's values are derived from unreality, they're his goddamned values, everyone else be damned. THAT is individualism, I suppose.
/raises glass
So here is to my friend, who is the coolest uncool person I've ever known. May he progress socially and make much money. Despite his shortcomings, he's a good friend and even if his tendencies piss me off sometimes, we've had good times and he's passively taught me some valuable lessons.