March 2003

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The entry is here.

March 11

This one can't be called tough love, because in no sense of the word do I love the man of whom I'm going to write. I call him friend, but there have been times when he was ever so much more an albatross. And I don't really feel good about what I'm going to tell you, but I do feel that what I did had to be done.

This man, who will remain nameless here, is someone I've known a long time---back to college times. And there has always been in him the ability to go look for the clouds around any possible silver lining. I mean he was never satisfied that whatever was good was indeed good; he always looked for the flaws or for the booby trap that would ensnare him.

Nothing ever was right for this man. No job really suited him, no relationships (of his or of any of his friends or relatives, now that I think about it) were quite good enough, and on and on.

Okay, to be fair, he does have a fairly well-developed sense of humor. It isn't always in keeping with mine, but that's okay. And it isn't that he wasn't willing to work hard; he just kept finding the obstacles and flaws (and the jobs that were filled with said obstacles and flaws).

Over the past several years, it's been obvious that he was truly, no-question-about-it depressed. I think he tried medication for a while; I'm not sure if he's still on it, because he hasn't mentioned it recently, and I hadn't really had reason to ask. But along with (and probably part of) the depression, something else was becoming glaringly obvious even to me, who didn't want to see it.

The man has no clue that anything wrong with his situation in life might even possibly be his fault, or that he has it within himself to make anything right. No, he'd rather write once a month, to a group of people who may or may not give much of a damn, and whine. "I got laid off." "I got a part-time job." I got rehired at place-of-layoff, but laid off again." "I think I'll go investigate schooling for x-career." "I don't like the requirements for x-career." And on and on.

Eventually, nearly everyone else we used to know in common backed away from him. It took me a while to realize that. I stayed a friend, in part because I felt sorry for him (how I hate writing that, but it's true). This means I have put up with a lot of whining.

And finally, over the weekend, when I got his latest piece of whine, I snapped. Part of his whine was that not all the recipients had answered his February whinefest. Part of it was that he had been offered a job that he turned down. Part was that everyone was depressed because of the government. And part of this was all caps inappropriately used, guaranteed to drive me batshit crazy on a good day --- which this wasn't.

So I blasted back a note, telling him to quit sending out bits and pieces and to tell me why he had refused the job. I also suggested it was time he talked with someone who could be objective about his situation.

And I don't feel good about it because I'm pretty sure he'll interpret this as my way of saying, "go away already," which it isn't. It is my way of saying, "it is doing neither of us any good for you to write to me once a month and whine; I think that you need to talk with someone who can make you go beyond the superficial crap you're mailing out."

I was telling him I was at the end of my ability to deal with him, because he's making utterly no effort to help himself --- I'll go to extraordinary lengths to help those who are trying to help themselves, as another friend recently found out.

But this whining has to take a break.

My sanity said so.