The Waiting Room

So I quit Ruth's play and it is, almost certainly, not now going on. Ruth hates my guts.

Not that I was given a chance to explain. I was intending to tell her today which would give me time to sound out some possible replacements, except Lucy told Ruth I wanted to speak to her last night. So phone call at 11pm, her in Fats or wherever, can't really hear each other. She insists on knowing, hangs up on me. Now she won't speak to me.

Sod her.

When Aron dropped out of Hamlet, all but destroying it, I didn't fall out with him. I listened to his reasons, accepted them. When Debbie put the final nail in the coffin I was the same, even though my heart was being torn to pieces, I didn't blame them. Refused to. Every bloody day of my life I spend trying to understand other people, absorbing all the shit that they need to push onto someone else. Even this decision was tipped by the balance that in the long run it would be better for Ruth.

Yet she thinks I dropped her in the shit for my own selfish reasons. We've been good friends for a year at least, all she has ever seen me do is look out for other people, yet one decision which unfortunately at the moment affects her badly and I become a selfish bastard.

Sod her. If she knew me at all, she'd know that if anything, I need to be more selfish.

Her housemate Dee rang me up after Ruth hung up. She said we'd met before but I don't think we have. At the beginning of our conversation she was on the warpath. When I'd actually done some explaining she really didn't know what to do. I ended up being "in her bad books" and that it looked like I was being a selfish bastard. Which I wholeheartedly admit it does, but she was surprised to discover that it was not as black and white as it seemed. At the end of our conversation I felt she was supporting Ruth only because she knew her and not me. Which is perfectly acceptable, stand by your friends.

But sod her anyway, for even thinking that not just me, but anyone, would take such a decision based purely on selfishness.

Has anyone ever stood by me?

If it came to it I know Mike, Martin, Mark and Bob would, without question. Scott and Carl maybe. Even if they knew I was wrong they are people who would back me up as a friend.

This isn't about right and wrong, I know perfectly well when I am in the wrong, but I don't think I have any other friends in Carlisle who would just back me to the hilt. I used to think there were others, but their aren't, Hayley, Georgia, Deb, Sabs, Elle would question me or my motives. I don't really know about anyone else, I barely see anyone anymore.

About four months ago I was said to be the most trustworthy person on the course. I think that reputation went for a burton a long time ago.

And so we come back down to me, just me. No one can help me because I don't ask people for help. No one can understand me because the instant they see something they don't like they turn and run. They want me for what I can give to them, I don't expect anything in return for that, yet the instant that the relationship begins to flow the other way they cannot give anything.

Somehow it's ten times as bad that a good person suddenly seems to have a human failing, whether real or imagined. That one mistake of a good person, even if they have to choose between two equally bad mistakes, can permanently destroy everything that has gone before. And yet people who's failings are all too evident, who constantly let others down and do it remorselessly can somehow continue to endear themselves, that we forgive their each and every misdeed.

And so I become bitter and so the tide changes.

And the lines become blurred so that I don't even understand myself why I did what I did. I only know it was the right choice, for both of us, even if she doesn't realise it.

Did I do it for the right reasons? I feel I did. I remember I did. But now I am not so sure. I am capable of selfishness, of jealousy, of hatred, of depression, of all the terrible things that make up a man. But I am capable also of those that make a man worthy, love, honour, faith, incisiveness, confidence.

I am right. I was right. Does this mean I am right or that I am conceited?

Every feeling, every situation, every minute; is seen in a thousand different ways. There is no such thing as fact. There is only what we believe to have occured. We must make assumptions, put ourselves in other people's shoes, view everything from every angle, and even then, we can only create odds. We can only believe in what we see. What we hear and touch.

Because I know this above all things, I know more than others. I know that I retrace every angle, while others simply follow their eyes. I know too that this is a conceit. But I can see out of every pair of eyes, they cannot. This is why I am right. Why above others, I am right. Why, despite being conceited, I am not neccesarily wrong. Why, even if my decisions may hurt some, hurt myself, they are never illogical, they never fail to take others into account even if they cannot see it.

I feel that educated people in general think like this. People with the capacity and the ability to think beyond their own sphere. Is this elitist? Of course. This does not mean that it is not neccesarily true.

I feel like I do not know very many educated people.