it truly baffles me how sheltered some people are. i have already seen two verbatim examples of the utter incomprehensibility of today's society, especially the youth. i am the kind of person who does not very much care for social status. i have tried to work my way up the ladder, i've succeeded, i've failed, and ultimately i learned that if you try to be someone, you're never going to be someone. the popular people that we see in today's social structures, think of schools or even workplaces, 99% of the time did not try to be popular. they just made friends, lived their life, and accidentally landed at the top. and we think it's so fascinating or such a lucky existence to be them, but it's not, because i've been that, and it's miserable.
first of all, you have to talk shit about everyone. you have to be willing to dump your relationship with anyone if you want to be at the top. it does not matter if the person is the kindest individual you've ever met and has literally done nothing wrong to you ever; if someone else is talking bad about them and you so much as stay silent, you will be talked bad about. you will be thrown down the ladder. and it's miserable. you have to join in if you're not already starting it, you have to agree with whatever anyone else says most of the time, you have to sacrifice time alone and time with your family/other friends to go spend time with them, it's brutal.
since experiencing and observing this sort of lifestyle i have realized that it is not for me. i cannot speak badly of a gentle and well meaning person simply because other people are doing so. i cannot force myself to engage in conversation that is constantly about somebody else, and if it's not, it's about what you think they think about somebody else. in short, it's awful. so i have given it up. i am not at the top of the ladder, i am living my life far above it, and i am well liked and well spoken of simply because i speak well of others and do not discriminate my friendships based off of social status. the only times i am spoken badly of is by those exact people who cannot speak of anything but others. so, i am now friends with just about anyone. if put in the situation, i can easily adapt and banter with other people, and i do so often. if i am seated at a table with people who are not necessarily popular, i will chat and get to know them, and decide for myself if i appreciate their company or not. it is ultimately my decision who i spend my breathing hours with and i refuse to have that chosen for me !
the other day i was walking in the hallway with a friend of mine that i've known for a while, someone who has been loyal to me and an overall good person. she is not necessarily popular. and as we are bantering, an "ex-friend" of mine who is roughly around the top of the ladder (we stopped being friends due to her leaving me for the ladder) literally stopped whatever she was doing and whoever she was talking to to stare at me as i walked by with a jaw-dropped sort of countenance. i mean literally. mouth wide open. and i sort of questioned this as i reached my class. why are you so implicitly surprised that i am friends with someone who i enjoy talking to? if you don't enjoy her company, don't be friends with her, but don't stare at me like i have four heads because i have a matured enough social palette to be able to talk to someone that's not a clone of me. goodness.
and another time in a class of mine, we were free to do as we wish since because of a school trip only half the class was present, and so i sort of hovered in the middle of conversation between people. i noticed that now that i do not care so much about status, i actually have conversation revolve around me - having to ask one person to pause so i can answer another person, having multiple people ask me questions all at once - instead of before when i would mindlessly sit and listen to people drone on about somebody's virginity loss or somebody's new lashes. anyway, the people in the conversation were sweet people, i liked speaking to them, they were funny and interesting, we could talk about how one girl in the group was arrested in 5th grade or how one guy went to a carnival with friends and got too drunk to find their car. but a few days later, i was speaking to a girl i am relatively friends with, also on the ladder, and she said to me "how were you sitting with such weird people? i almost wanted to come over and save you" but i noticed her that day in class sitting silently on her phone alone since her friends weren't in class, while i was the one in a real vibrant conversation. i didn't need saving. i was truly happy and entertained and she was choosing to be alone rather than try to speak to someone new. it's one thing if she was shy, but i know she's not, she's just stern on who she associates with. i understand her. it's just painful.
but yeah that's my rant, i needed to express what i was pondering in the shower now that my hair needs to dry. i just find the concept funny.