Fear and Loathing in my Anus

Here, read this first

(http://offourchests.com/heres-the-thing/#comment-1968) It's kind of long, but it's funny and it sort of creates the set up for what I'm talking about.

All fears essentially amount to a fear of death. No one actually has a fear of heights. We have a fear of falling. It's just that fallophobia sounds like a fear of penises. Claustrophobia is a fear of being crushed... or something to that effect. (What the fuck, am I Freud? Gimme a break.) Fear of spiders? They have venom sometimes, which can kill you. Also, they have 8 legs, which is just pure fucking evil. I mean, EIGHT LEGS? WHAT IS THAT?

Plus they're just icky.

And then there's fear of public speaking, which would seem to disprove my otherwise completely infallible and totally scientific theory. With the exception of late night talk show hosts, no one dies on stage holding a microphone. So maybe I'm wrong. Well, not totally. But I'll have to come back to that.

Fear and I have a funny relationship.

I can remember as a child being afraid of everything. Afraid of the dark. Afraid of heights. Afraid of Mr Ted, the neighbor who would sing What Is Love by Haddaway to me every time he saw me. Afraid of getting beaten up, which wasn't irrational, because it happened enough. As I got older, those fears expanded into a whole new universe of psychotic post-pubescent terror. I learned to be afraid of talking to and reaching out to others. And I was afraid of being alone. Those two things seem to conflict, but ... well, no they conflict. Yet here we are.

I'm no longer scared of the dark. That went away about the time I discovered the joy of chronic masturbation, as I discovered keeping the lights on made it that much more awkward when Mom walked in on me molesting myself to What's Happening re-runs. (See what I did there??) The fear of heights remains, though it's no longer crippling, so I can stand on a foot stool without pissing myself. As for getting beat up, I'm still not looking forward to getting punched in the fucking face, but in my experience when people see a 300 lb redneck with a scowl on his face, they tend not to chase you around with a bat yelling "Faggot."

Most of my fears are manageable now. Except for a few. I'm scared shitless of talking to people. Particularly women. Dudes are a little easier, because honestly if some pencil neck asswipe who watches Family Guy doesn't think you're worth being friends with, who gives a shit? Women though... they give you that look. That look that says "I know you have ass hair and the answer is no."

And it really shouldn't matter. Rationally, one judgmental chick acting like a cunt just because I don't drive a Porche doesn't invalidate me as a person. Nor should it emasculate me in the slightest. But I have to force myself to go up to bat every time, and when I do... I'm 13 again.

Understand. I've done things. I've exposed my bare fat ass to an entire beach full of people with not even a semi-erection. I've climbed a 50 foot wall of solid lava rock and cliff dived into the Pacific Ocean. I once sat through Oprah Winfrey's production of Beloved without killing myself. And on occasion I've asked complete strangers to dance because she was looking cute and I get +8 confidence points when I'm wearing a tie.

So why is it so hard to do the normal things, when the extraordinary isn't all that impossible? It's simple. Because whether you're afraid to stand in front of 20 people and give a speech about a parrot, or just scared to ask that girl with the cute freckles to share a hot dog with you in a crowded movie theater, it all amounts to the same thing. We're all just well and truly frightened of being vulnerable. Deep down inside we know that we're just human and fragile. And if people look at us with our guard down, they might just see us as flawed and breakable as we are. The cracks could show, and maybe we'll fall apart right then and there.

So what was my point? ...I don't really have one. Are you still reading this? I was just kidding earlier-- on that nude beach? I had a magnificent erection. People applauded. Women took pictures next to it making silly faces. Japanese tourists ran in terror speaking slightly out of sync with their lip movements.

He Ain't Heavy...

I have a friend whom I love like a brother.

That's a weird thing for a dude to say. It's not just the threat of implied homo-eroticism. Men don't talk about their feelings with each other. And you never use the L-word... no, the other one.

For men, I think in all of our relationships, we assume love is implied. You're supposed to know we love you. (Ladies, feel free to realize why so many of your past relationships were fucked up based on this premise.) I have no trouble telling my Mom or Dad, little brother, Aunts, Uncles, cousins or my server at Outback Steakhouse that I love them. But another man? No matter how close? Can't do it.

But that's not really what this is about.

I have a brother, who is not my brother. And we have known each other a very long time and been through a lot. In retrospect, probably more on his end than mine, but I've been through shit too. But things are different lately.

We had a pretty big fight last year, the second biggest we've ever had. And that might not normally be a big deal... I mean, families fight. God knows mine does.

He'd been picking fights with me for weeks at that point. He was looking for things to fight about. Whether that had something to do with me or not, I can't say. Maybe he was looking to take out his frustrations on me. Maybe I did something. The problem is that most of this fight was him saying terrible things to me. He said a few things that I don't excuse or forgive of others. But what disturbed me most was that the person he was describing didn't sound like someone he liked. If I knew someone like the person he claimed I am, I wouldn't be friends with them. Which led me to wonder, does he even like me? Why are you even talking to me if this is who you think I am?

We didn't talk for many months. He called and left a message. No apology or anything; just kind of a "hey, maybe we should forget about all that" message. I didn't call him back. I was still pretty hurt. Then I noticed he'd deleted me from his facebook. NOW WAIT, don't get the wrong idea. I could give a shit about facebook. People delete me from time to time for whatever reason, and I usually just shrug when I notice. Whatever. But there's only two reasons why someone deletes you from Facebook. Either they have things to hide from you, or they don't want you in their life or in their business. (or also if they just don't give a shit about you, so 3, I guess.) So after a while I went ahead and called him back. We didn't talk about anything that happened. We just went on with life. And for a while, things were okay.

He came in town early this year (he lives in another state) and asked to hang out at literally the last minute. I thought that was kind of fucked up, but whatever. People have lives and obligations, I get that. Really I do. But there's a feeling you get from someone when they do something like that, like they're only forcing you into their schedule because they have to. I dunno, maybe that says more about me than him.

While we were hanging out, he told me I should go up and visit him. The thing is, he says this all the time, and I always say no, because I have a job and no money. But about a week or so later, I realized I finally had time and money to go for a visit. And so I told him, I'd come up. And I immediately got a vibe off of him, like he didn't want me there. I made plans, and took vacation time. After a couple of weeks, he told me that probably wouldn't be a good week to come up, so I asked work if I could move it back a few weeks further. So I told him I'd move it back to a better week. And he said okay.

My plan was to drive up to a nearby city I wanted to visit on that Wednesday. Thursday, I would drive to the city he's in and do some sight seeing while he was in school. Then I'd just hang out at his place Thursday night & do some more sight seeing while he was in school Friday. Then we would actually go out Friday and Saturday night. We're both old though, so it wouldn't be late nights. Sunday I would drive home. So really, we would only be hanging out Friday night and Saturday. Barely a weekend.

I could tell he didn't want me up there though, and about a week and a half before the trip he said it wasn't a good time for me to be there. He was having a really hectic semester in school, and needed every minute to study.

Sounds logical. But then a week later he told me he spent that Friday night out on a date and went drinking all night with his friends from school. And he's been dating that girl all semester. They even went off for a weekend together once or twice. So what happened to studying every minute? Time for all those other people, but not a single measly weekend for an old friend? The same old friend who he asked to be the godfather of his daughter?

And since then we barely talk. When we do, everything is fine. But he almost always has some reason to get off the phone quickly. Even when I ask about his kids--- and I love the 2 of them dearly--- something isn't right. And you can tell that there are things not being said.

And I can't help but wonder if this is the end.

For most people, I'd be okay with that. Sometimes people just leave. But I'm not alright with this. It hurts in the one place I'm vulnerable. You lose family for all sorts of reasons. But to have one of them just up and decide they don't give a fuck about you anymore?

That just sucks.