Blah thread,
So there's a Why? show coming up, and as usual I have bought tickets for my best friend. Problem is, she's come back at me asking for another 7 tickets, for her friends. She says she'll have me paid back, and I believe her, but... The thing is, she's in medical school up here, 80 hours a week studying, 4 hours of sleep a night. I don't get to ask for her time very often. Shit, I probably shouldn't be asking for it at all. I know from my parents that in medical school you have to press your nose so hard against the grindstone that entire years will pass you by and you'll have nothing to say about them.
I buy her tickets to these shows gratis for a reason. I am very much oriented towards one-on-one relationships, it's how I've always operated. The only friends I had before I met Rae, they were introverts like myself, we were a very insular group. But Rae knows everyone in this town, and it's difficult to adjust to that. Most of the time, when I'd like to have dinner or a drink with Rae or watch a movie with her, we'll plan on it and in the course of doing so she'll see three or four or five people she knows, and she'll socialize, and all of a sudden I'm on the outside of whatever's happening and I have to wait for Rae to finish with whatever it is she's doing, and all the while I'm sitting there silent. I take Rae to shows because they are social situations that I can plan on turning out a certain way. I can plan on eating, and post-show festivities, and the chances are they'll go the way I hope they will. I can't control them, necessarily, but I'm comfortable enough in them that I can enjoy myself without getting caught up in the preoccupations I have otherwise. Moreover, taking Rae to another city allows me to have her all to myself, and I can feel like her friend rather than a sad, quiet little man amongst a legion of vigorous, bright-eyed artists and scenesters, which all of Rae's friends other than me are. Hanging out with Rae and her other friends, I don't feel like I belong, I feel ashamed. I don't think Rae realizes how much I value the time we spend together at shows. When she asks me to enable 7 of her other friends to come along with us, I honestly feel like a whore, like she's asking me to please her at the cost of my feeling worthless and despondent. The whole reason I ask her to come with me to these things is so I can avoid that sort of situation, now more than ever.
But, I also do it because I adore her and she enjoys it. I can't pretend like I'm the only person who suffers from having a deficit of time spent with her. She's a ghost to everyone. So I have to consider the possibility that it would be selfish of me to not buy these extras, both in that I'm denying Rae of a night with all the people she barely sees, and denying those people the chance to see her. It's possible that I could enjoy going to this show with a crowd of people more than I would otherwise, but it's also possible (and in my mind, probable) that I'll end up dissatisfied and dejected, and in that case I could end up ruining the night for other people, which would be a shame.
So come this Friday (when I get money enough to purchase the tickets) I need to have made a decision. Should I just tell Rae all of this, since she already knows just what an epic worrier I am? Should I bite the bullet and buy the tickets? Tell her that I can't afford them (which honestly, if I don't get repaid fairly quickly, I can't)? She says I know these 7 other people, but I'm pretty sure I know and like at most 4 of Rae's friends. There are a few people I can think of that I would really hate to go to this show with. Still, Rae knows the way that I think and feel, and I've never known her to be careless. She's pushed pretty hard to get me out of my comfort zone, this might be part of that.
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Topic: Whatever, Let's Have A Goddamn Blog Thread, But Try And Keep It Reasonable (Read 768099 times)