It's so difficult to be more mature than your peers. And that's because everyone you know is less mature than you are.
All of my friends take everything for granted and that just friggin makes me mad because those things never came easily to me.
Take my friend Joshua for example. One day, he was ranting about how he didn't get to spend his Bar Mitzvah money. He said,
And it just pisses me off that he would complain about that because I don't even have a college fund! There he is, just sitting there, complaining about not having ten thousand dollars in spending money when in reality he's strongly insured in case he doesn't get a scholarship and has several hundred dollars, several times more than I'd ever had in my life, to use.Joshua wrote:Man, this sucks! I only get to spend a few hundred bucks, and the rest goes to my college fund!
And then there was my other friend, Cleverstar. Cleverstar quit the school musical, Aladdin, because his part involved doing embarrassing things such as flexing muscles and/or pretending to be a rock star. (It was especially embarrassing for him because he's a midget and considered by many to be a geek.) I knew perfectly well why he quit. So, I politely tried to comfort him by telling him about the terrible results of an audition for an orchestra, where I had gotten 27th chair when in the previous year I had gotten 6th. And then, Cleverstar said the most selfish thing I have ever heard.
He said that like a teacher who lost a parent would when lecturing a child who complains about his parents, in a sort of "Do you know what life is like without parents?" tone, as if social life and self-esteem were more important than anything.Cleverstar wrote:Did it affect your social life?! Did it lower your self-esteem?!
But back to the audition… Heck, yeah, that affected my social life. Heck yeah, that ruined my self-esteem. In fact, people accused me of things and made fun of me every day. So many people thought I was a nerd. So many people had reasons to make fun of me. So many people, including teachers, used me as a scapegoat. But for Cleverstar, it was totally different. Cleverstar had been embarrassed maybe once or twice in his entire life. Nobody ever made fun of him because he was always protected by his friends, including me. Every time someone made fun of him, I would throw a clever insult back at the offender. He never had to defend himself in the world of flames. He rarely ever had to feel guilt or embarrassment. And of course, because of that, I don't really blame him that much for making social life and self-esteem.
But like I said in that last incredibly long paragraph, Troy's been protected his entire life. During our conversation, he said something that pushed me across the line. I told him that I was embarrassed every day. This is what he said:
Cleverstar actually expected me to take the brunt of embarrassment for him while he hid behind me, watching me break into a spaz every day. That and the fact that Cleverstar performed public displays of affection with the girl I liked told me one thing: Cleverstar thought he was more important than me. He thought it was my responsibility to watch out for him while he avoids any bad feelings. He's not adapted to life's cruelties. And he's not willing to learn. Instead, he chooses to hide and let others fight his battles for him.Cleverstar wrote:Well, you can deal with it! I can't!
Today, he called me. I said I was going to write an angry letter. It was going to be about the incident I just described. He said that he hoped it would not be a reference to real life because it would make him feel bad. In a burst of anger, I yelled one complaint:
I wrote:I'm always feeling bad. It's about time you experienced life.
