Apparently, I’m the punchline.

ALTERNATIVE TITLE:  The Joke’s On Me.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m stressed out.  I’m not sure if it’s because I wrecked my car on Monday.  I’m not sure if it’s near finals and I’m just freaking out, but I’m simmering, about a half a degree from boiling over.

I’ve got some friends that feel like they can critique every thing I do and the way I choose to do, and I’ve just about reached the place where I’m not going to take it anymore.  I can take criticism.  I can take jokes.  But jokes that point at something in my life that people disagree with that is something I take seriously is neither a joke nor a criticism.  And I’m not going to put up with it for much longer.

Let me explain what I mean.  I’m a fairly loyal human being. I believe in helping my friends and let them live their lives.  If I have a problem with something they’re doing and it’s my business, I will tell my friends flat what I think.  If my friends ask me what I think,  I try to be as direct as I can while sparing them as much as I can.  I know people who have a different way of doing it.  They will make jokes about it, berating you for your priorities, guilt tripping you because your priority is not them and their way.

I’ve been mocked about ten times in the last two weeks for the choices I make for me.  I don’t have a lot of money right now, and even less now that my car is wrecked.  (Rental cars are not cheap)   Because of the money shortage, I make choices about what I can and cannot do.  These choices dictate my social agenda, not the other way around.  As such, I’ve spent much of the last couple of months around the house, amusing myself with what I can, mostly a video game that I play.  I paid for the game in January, so effectively, its free.  And then my friends come along and want me to go and do every little thing with them.  And I choose not to, to make some feeble attempt to watch my money.  I confess freely I’m not good at it, but I’m trying.  And then I get mocked for it.  For being the cold blanket, for wussing out, for whatever you want to call being responsible with my money.  And I’m sick of it.

My friends choose their priorities.  I choose mine.  I don’t make any attempt to control their priorities by guilt tripping them.  I don’t make jokes about my friends priorities.  I don’t expect them to make jokes about mine.  Those priorities aren’t external things.  They are things I have considered carefully and resolved to do.  In that way, they are a part of me.  I don’t expect them to be the butt of a joke.  If they are, I am the butt of a joke.

I dont think the people in question read this diary, but if you do, beware, because one of these days, I’m going to snap on you, and you’ll deserve it.  Part of being a friend is to make an attempt to understand your friends’ position without making fun of them, even if you disagree.  I do not exist and live just for the 6 hours a week you have time for me.  I will not be a slave to your perception of my social status or what I ‘have to do.’  I don’t believe for an instant when it is said that you only make fun because ‘you care,’ that you care for me more than you do for yourself.  Consider yourself warned.  I’m about a half step from losing it.

I’m looking forward to moving back to Wisconsin, and it’s not only for the reasons people think.  It’s because there, my friends respect me enough to let me choose how I will live my life without trying to make me guilty for living it that way.  Three and a half weeks to go, and I can get some rest.  Come quickly.