Let’s begin with the obvious: I don’t like vulnerability.
I don’t like it in others and I don’t like it in myself. Some people are wired differently. Some people have experiences that turn them off to certain things. That’s fine. I don’t like feeling vulnerable. And I don’t like being around people who like seeing me be vulnerable.*

Emotional connections have to yield something. They can’t simply just be. There has to be a point to the connection. If I’m going to expose myself in any way that counts past the persona everyone thinks they know then there has to be some sort of guarantee, and insurance.

I don’t trust people who wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Honestly, darling, you can’t possibly bleed that much. All I see on the other side of that endless pouring is a bottomless well of validation that’s never satisfied. I might be a cynic. Except I don’t think I am. Perhaps, I’m just a person who’s obsessed with Truth. And I don’t mean truth as in “How come you didn’t tell me you were going to New Jersey when I asked what you were doing last weekend?” Because the truth to someone’s prying is always “It’s none of your business.”

No, I’m only interested in the real truths. Why do we exist? Why do people repeat patterns? What am I looking for? Where does magic come from? I mean REAL TRUTHS. These are the only things I want to busy myself with. On my way to understanding I’ll happily engage here and there, but I’m not interested in getting lost in the game. You know, the game playing.

This winter I had to cut a drama queen from my life when I asked her not to move into my house. She took it pretty well considering the high level of potentially diagnosed delusion she suffers from. At one point there I was a bit scared for my own safety. Because I’m crazy, but girls who grow up being catered to and coddled, who have psychological breaks when circumstances aren’t in their favor, those girls terrify me.

Speaking with a delusional person is always an amazing experience that can go one of two ways. Either you’re blown away and impressed by their commitment to their ideals, and the way their mental process actually works for them, in a successful way. Like optimists. Like extreme, yogi, spiritualist, wheat grass, granola, tree-hugging, crystals-in-their-pockets optimists. They’re crazy, but also amazing because it works for them right.

Or you talk to the bitter, angry, entitled, self-absorbed, over-extended woman with a chip on her shoulder. This bitch. She hates every guy that doesn’t want to seriously date her. She abuses or ditches every friend who disagrees with her. And she has a rage episode (unrelated to the mensus) on schedule at least twice a month. And you’re brow is literally pushed back by the venomous waterfall of crazy gushing forth from her tightly constricted cells.

How, you wonder, can anything wound that tightly in insanity possibly even  function on a basic human level? How do they even breathe? How do they even walk?

I mention these examples of crazy to highlight the need to know when. We are all playing mind games. I’m not above ANYTHING (except lying to friends). Still, I like to fold a lot more than I like to win. Winning a mind game for me is walking away from the table, walking away from someone else’s crazy with mine still in semi-spiritual-idealist tact.

I need my good energy to get me through the dark hard nights into which my own excursion into the truth sends me.

I’m getting a lot better at dropping manipulative people and I’m okay with that. And I’m getting a lot better at telling them what’s what too. Because what have I got to worry about?

People are quick to point out that I’m harsh, or mean. People literally say “be nice, Ruth” before I have a talk with someone. The nerve! a) Aint nobody gonna tell me how to live! b) When did honesty become a bad thing?

I would much, MUCH, MUCH rather go to bed each night, and have my body laid in its final resting place in the knowledge, and with the legacy, of truthfulness. People are all full of shit and talk about one another. I’d rather if and when anyone talks about me they say “she always spoke her mind” or “at least you knew where you stood with her.”

What have I got to gain from protecting your fragile feelings that YOU CHOSE to weaken by playing mind games? Remember, my ideas on emotional connection require some sort of equality. If I’m going to risk my emotional equilibrium in any sort of capacity I need the assurance that it will be minded well. And you know what? Frankly, it wont.

People are irresponsible and reckless.
We do not think about one another. We think about ourselves first and most. That aside, I’m not terribly convinced that people are very intelligent. Neither am I convinced that I have any duty to teach, lead, mentor, instruct, guide, or counsel anyone on anything. People only appear to want to be led. People are independent yet lazy. People are beyond easy to manipulate. I’m not interested in doing that either.

I’d simply rather walk away.

A girl I know recently told me that I’m really a big softy on the inside and this persona I put out of not giving any fucks is just my ego talking. I know it. Except I’ll admit I’m a softy. I get offended by my friends very often and much easier than any single one of them is ever aware.

I’m not going to waste time discussing every real or imagined insult. I have other things to do with my time, and my world is full of other people. As easily as I met one person who may or may not be having a bad day – or may or may not suddenly hate me – is as fast and easily as I’ll meet another person. And the notion of assigning importance and value to one relationship over the other holds no weight with me – because if any of us really believed our friendships or loves were so important and so precious, if we really understood how much we mean to one another we wouldn’t play the games we do with the people we say we love. Period.

If someone is short and dismissive with me what do I care? I dismiss their dismissiveness. If someone snaps at me I keep my distance till they seem to cool down. I allow everyone their moods, their quirks, their personality. But every pattern has an expiration.

Maybe if I knew how to be vulnerable without feeling like the sky was falling and the universe was collapsing in on itself then I could endure this behavior in others.  Still, aside from the weakness I assign to acting, or being vulnerable I find something exhaustively selfish about it too.

For instance, the delusional being I refused to let move into my house: every few weeks there was a new boy, who she’d just met and sexed, who’d decided he wasn’t really looking for anything serious, who’d made her cut herself. I’m not insensitive to cutting. (And thats for another post). But it’s like my mother always told us “no one can make you do anything.”

This girl keeps a blog as well, and she talks about her episodes, and she’s sharing and being vulnerable. But I also think she’s being selfish. She’s being self-centered, and inconsiderate of the effect her self-harming is having on the people who love her  most. To be clear I am not one of those people. But, there’s a difference between hurting yourself as part of this confused coping mechanism thing, and then hurting yourself and telling everyone you’re doing it and then doing it all the time and telling everyone like “oh yeah its fine, I’m working through it.”

No, honey, you’re not working through it. You’re working it. You’re milking it. You’re hungry and deprived and starved for attention in a bottomless pit of an ego that will never be filled. You’re working through thin fucking air.

I mean, look, at the end of the day we’re all kind of messes. I know it comes off like I’ve got it figured out and together but I haven’t. At all. I hope I never do because then life will be boring and I’ll have nothing left to learn. All I’m saying is I’m over people with their patterns and their need for validation and security and attention. I’m almost positive that my fear of vulnerability is actually my karmic lesson – or at least the one for this current cycle. And it’ll last as long as it takes for me to get it. I just refuse to play with irresponsible people.

Go figure your shit out and leave me the fuck out of it. Selfish? Maybe. But at least I’m honest!

(Nope, this whole post was a game. Thanks for playing!)