People. People Who Need People . . .

Sunday 22 – Monday 23 January 2012

. . . are the luckiest people in the world. Or so sang Barbra Streisand. But I don’t get it. Why are people who need people, lucky? Doesn’t that make them clingy? And, well, needy? And to me, clingy, needy people are not the sorta people I want hangin’ around me . . . because they’re clingy and needy, and need attention all the time, but either never reciprocate when I’m having a rubbish day and need to vent, simply because it’s no longer about them, or over-reciprocate because they’re so flippin’ clingy and needy. And I have other friends who need, nay deserve my time because they are the ones who have put up with me when I’m being ridiculous, or self-pitying, or just plain stupid.

Space, people. Give me space. And loyalty. Honesty. Reliability. That’s what I want in people. Okay, so it sounds like I would do better with a dog. Point in fact, I have a dog, and she is all of those things (one of you reading this is laughing and/or cringing, and shaking her head at the moment ). So, why the hell can’t some of you people be more like my pooch?

My pooch. Why can't you be more like my pooch?

No, I don’t want you to be hairy, expect me to play with your squeaky toys, jump on my bed in the morning and eyeball me and slap me with your paw because you want breakfast, or put your hairy lil chin on my knee at 5:15pm and politely request dinner by dribbling on me. I want you to be reliable, honest, loyal, genuine, and most of all I want you to not tick me off.

Okay, so if you haven’t figured out by now, I’m on a rant, and it was all set off by the fact that I disappointed someone today. I ticked myself off today. Feel free to stop reading . . . but if you do, you shall be removed from my Christmas card list . . . fine, you probably weren’t on it in the first place, but it’s the thought that counts. I know, I know . . . I frequently say that I don’t care what people think of me, and for the most part that’s true. Unless you happen to be an important person to me, and then I really do care what you think of me, and how you view me. And I screwed up. I’m not going to say what I did, because the important thing is not what I did, but rather that I did it. And worse still, aside from the fact that I screwed up, am over using ‘. . .’, and ‘and’ at the beginning of my sentences, I’m disappointed in me for disappointing this person. But the stupid thing is, I don’t think this person actually thinks I’ve disappointed them.

Yep, it’s all in my head because I’m disappointed with myself. Catastrophising (yes, it is a real word – seriously, the psychologist I was seeing a number of years ago introduced me to it. And no, not ‘seeing’ as in dating, ‘seeing’ as in therapy. You lot really can’t keep your mind outta the gutter, can you? And no, not crazy, just depressed and unable at the time to deal a stressor event that set off my depression), a skill that I thoroughly excel at, is in full swing here. In actuality, I have no idea whether this person is disappointed in me. I’m simply assuming it, and you know what they say about assuming things. It makes an ASS out of U and ME.

No, of course I didn’t ask the person if I’d done the wrong thing. I don’t want to know the answer to that. I’d be devastated to find that I’d actually, really disappointed them . . . I’d rather just assume the worse case scenario, stew about it for a while, get a migraine because I’ve stewed about it so much, and then just be really ecstatic when I discover that they’re still talking to me. Yeah, I like to take the road less travelled, go it the hard way, make my own life a misery, all that sorta stuff. Old habits are sometimes hard to shake off, and I usually find them the hardest to kick at the beginning of a year, around my birthday, because I get all nostalgic and sentimental. My birthday does that to me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my birthday, and I don’t have an issue with getting older, I just start thinking a lot about stuff . . . like how close I am to say, a “big” birthday that might end in 0. That’s right . . . 20!!! If you know the truth about my age, now is the time for you to shut the hell up! I’m twenty . . . ish . . . with a few extra numbers added on to it. Stop distracting me!! It’s a post about people . . .

As a result, I’m seriously considering becoming a hermit, or a hermitess, I’m not sure what the female version of a hermit is. My Smurfy good cheer has disappeared, and I’m feeling more like Gargamel than me at the moment. And no, I don’t want your words of advice, nor do I want platitudes, or ‘it’ll get better, wait and see’, or any of those other niceties that you’re conjuring up. What I want is to wallow a lil bit, and to listen to someone other than Barbra Streisand sing so I can get that damn song outta my head. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do just that . . . once I find my damn iPod.

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