There’s an expression: “to throw good money after bad.” It means to continue to invest — either financially or in a less tangible sense — in something that was an unwise idea in the first place.
Every so often, about once a year on average lately, I’ve had to come face-to-face with the concept of throwing good money after bad, on a personal level. It happened to me a few days ago.
I accepted about myself, when I was in my early 20s, that there are certain people in this world that I’ll just never be friends with. Oh, we can be acquaintances. But actual friends, with trust and honesty and stuff? No. There are certain people with whom I just can’t ever have that, no matter what qualities they might possess that would tempt me into trying.
Okay, that’s a little bit of an understatement. The truth is, the overwhelming majority of people I can never be friends with. People I can actually enter into, achieve and sustain a true friendship with are exceedingly rare. One in a thousand, maybe? Less? If you add up all the people I’ve ever known in my life and divide by the number of people I’m actually friends with now — two — that makes the average pretty damn small.
But here’s the thing: I can’t really tell who I can and who I can’t be friends with just by looking. Sometimes I’ll get an inkling, maybe, but that inkling is almost always wrong.
So I’m left with two choices. Either I can give up on having friends period, end of paragraph. Or I can keep trying, failing most of the time, and hoping to get lucky.
The rational part of me says — screams — to give up. Just stop trying. Ironically, it’s probably all the damn trying that turns most of my friendships into disasters anyway. So screw it. Just give up on the idea of making new friends, and learn to live life as it is, not as I wish it could be.
But for many of the same reasons that I can’t be friends with just anybody, I also can’t seem to let go of wanting to have friends. It’s a damnation fit for one of the Greek gods. One of the vengeful ones, one of the ones with absolutely no sense of proportion. Who was it who fucked with Cassandra? Wasn’t it Apollo? Apollo had the hots for her, so he gave her the power to see the future. But when she cold-shouldered him, he cursed her never to be believed. That’s the kind of sick, twisted idea of justice we’re talking about here. Oh, you want desperately to have friends, and to give of yourself totally and without reservation. But because you annoyed me briefly, I’m going to curse you so that none of your attempts at friendship will ever succeed. That’s the Olympian way, baby.
So anyway, this is all back-story. Me want friends, but me no make friends good. Me screw up, me end up disliked. Sob sob. Whatever.
The point of my little act of authorial self-indulgence tonight is this: If I can’t have friends, and I can’t just give up on friendship, then can’t I at least — please — learn better to recognize the point at which I should stop throwing good money after bad?
It happens to me every time, man. Things go very well for a while. But then they turn sour, and then they suck. And eventually I reach a point where I just have to say “This isn’t going to work, give up on this, try to forget this and move on.” But I always seem to do it about a month after I should have done it in the first place.
It’s not like I pick bad people to try to be friends with. I’m really kind of a snob when it comes to this sort of thing; I think I pick great people to try to be friends with. I just can’t, for reasons that are totally beyond my control but that I take complete responsibility for, be friends. Period. It’s my fault, you know? And I try and I try, but eventually there comes a point beyond which trying just makes it worse, and it’s time to stop. All efforts have failed, all alternatives have been exhausted, pull the plug, throw in the towel, just fucking give up already.
And then I realize I should have done it weeks ago. Then I realize that the point-of-no-return is way, way off in the rear-view, and I’ve been speeding along ever since I passed it with the windows down and the radio on, singing like an idiot at the top of my lungs like I’m actually going somewhere.
But I’m not. I’m just wasting gas. And the longer I drive, the farther I’ll be from home, and the longer, and lonelier, my trip back will be.
So fine. I can’t have friends. And I can’t stop wanting to have friends. Why can’t I at least get better — even just a little better — at realizing when it’s time to give up?
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Friends have always been hard for me to make as well.
I think what it is is that I think too much about it and therefore try too hard, but can’t follow up on it and I am left standing there awkwardly as they talk privately to their friends until I finally just leave, too embarrassed to try and interject a “see ya” between their words.
I think there are just people who will never have that many friends, some of us because we are too critical of them, and some of us are just too socially awkward (amazingly I am both :P).
the_5th_of_4
Monday, April 21st, 2008, 7:38 pm
I’ve got the reverse sort of problems. There are few people I can’t be friends with. Even though I should have ended said friendships weeks or months ago.
But maybe I could be friends with you? ^^;;
Sammi
Monday, April 21st, 2008, 10:24 pm
The rational part of me says — screams — to give up.
Uh, Jeff? That’s the irrational part.
My grandpa Rippel, a man who dropped out of school after 8th grade and with a couple of his friends worked across country from PA to CA, to go on to work in the film industry, then learning a trade (mortician) … he was the most optimistic, gregarious guy you’d ever meet. 5’4” he filled any room he was in and there was no such thing as a stranger…just friends he hadn’t met yet.
He was (and remains) my hero. Life is too friggin short to shove good people away from your life.
Life is made to be enjoyed in big hearty bites!
Darleen
Monday, April 21st, 2008, 11:35 pm
Darleen is right, again. (Scary).
My advice is to stop overthinking things and try and recognize the possibilities. Examine your parameters, too. A friend is not someone who always parrots your POV. You’ve got to be able to weather the hard times. Weathering the good times is easy.
Bruce
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008, 5:01 pm
I think it’s human nature to want friends, even when you know you aren’t good at keeping them.
And saying you shouldn’t shove people away, and you’ve got to weather the hard times, when you have BPD is like telling a child with ADHD that they just need to sit still once in awhile. It’s different.
That said, I don’t think you can give up, or get out earlier, or any of that. And yeah, that must be frustrating and disheartening at times, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting, and trying. And a couple of friends is plenty, really. Especially if they’re good friends.
Karen
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008, 9:51 pm
4/28/2008 5:45 PM
My head is still spinning (no, not like the girl in Omen) from struffing (surfing + tripping) your fairly massive blog, fiction writing and other items to be read. It is probably a combination of my ever-present attention deficit disorder working in harmony with the touch of dyslexia I am the proud owner…can’t use that preposition.
Jeff, the point here is that I cannot read as much as you write. That’s not comforting because I’m supposed to become a writer; a second career after the failed first attempt due to BPD among other numbers from the DSMIV-r. That’s a former home of mine. I was the proud part-owner of a significant portion of Cluster B. This is not a reference to any current or past galaxies of which I am aware.
Don’t you just hate the term, ‘disorder?’ It fits into the same grouping as ‘realistic.’
BTW, I just switched on some guitar music by John Petrucci cuz my 21 y/o son steered me to YouTube just now. Grreaat Guitar!!
Anyway, I may regret it but I just subscribed to your blog feed but I think it may be the only way I’ll be able to get a handle on this crazy genius you possess. Convoluted (and I definitely know about that) but brilliant. So what’s with the “Unsuccessful Writer” moniker? I should be so unsuccessful.
My apologies for all the [(’s and “‘s] because I know they make for a sloppy page. But you will edit them anyway so I am not concerned.
Keep up the good work.
Frank H. Maurer
Guiding Survivors to Achievement (c)
Proper training is the only way.
p.s. Respond to this
Glendale, Arizona
I think we hosted the Super Bowl
about 6 miles from my house but
I couldn’t afford a ticket.
Bummer
Frank Maurer
Monday, April 28th, 2008, 7:50 pm
I’m going to throw in my selfish comment - whether you decide to write off your losses or not, you should be writing stories! I miss them!
Sebatinsky
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008, 4:26 am
This is now somewhat topical if you apply this to what Obama did yesterday.
Derek Giromini
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008, 11:34 am
I think comparing your problem with the fallacies of the Greek gods is an excellent way to look at things… the religion or mythology (whatever you want to call it) based the gods upon human beings, with positives and negatives, adding a frailty to deities who could blind someone or change a blood-soaked field into delicate, beautiful flowers.
I understand your problem on a very personal level. It is easy to have acquaintances, be charming and witty and warm in a detached manner that does not allow for painful seperation or disappointment or, the worst of all, a sense failure or rejection.
In dealing with people, there is what you bring to the table, good and bad, and what they bring. Trust is earned slowly for me, and it takes very little conflict to eliminate a person as “not worthy” in my eyes. I trust very few and regard others with caution, though my personality masks that emotional distance.
Saying that you want to give up on finding friends is a method of defending what is probably a very fragile sense of self-worth or a fear of rejection. Continuing to try is the hardest thing sometimes, especially when people continue to burn you.
Keep trying. One of the most meaningful aspects of being alive is to connect deeply with others. Giving up on that would be far too limiting, especially for someone as talented and worthy of friendship as you are.
As for knowing when to cut your losses, a fair amount of experience (which you sound like you have) and reflecting upon patterns in those experiences should hopefully offer you some insight into people and forming friendships.
Sorry this was so long. Miss you on Twitter!
<3
Erika J.
Friday, May 2nd, 2008, 12:17 pm