A Snakewall on Feelings and Values and Friendship that you probably shouldn't read

[Solid Snake]

...So, I have this friend.

...Actually, I had eight friends.

It's complicated.

So back in 2008 I was struggling to find happiness in my life while studying for the LSATs and working on law school applications. I was stuck in my parent's home because I was virtually unemployable until I procured my advanced degree. I thought law school was the appropriate direction to take, but damn, pursuing it was tough. The first time I took the LSAT I had to cancel my score before it was released, as an illness prevented me from performing at my best. I wasted months of my life on my own, without much support or affirmation from a community of friends, and with barely any positive acknowledgment from my parents, who were always armed with cynical quips targeting my personality, hobbies, and generally just resenting my lack of earthly, materialistic success.

And then they showed up. Those eight acquaintances.

I don't want to wax lyrical and become excessively melodramatic about 'friends' like these -- they aren't really tangible, and it's a gross exaggeration at best and an outright sign of mental instability at worst to brazenly compare them to friends who actually live and breathe -- but, as something of an amateur storyteller and a classic introvert, it's just the aspiring author's tendency to find people in characters, to blur fiction and reality.

And at the height of my depression then -- when I was in that period of utter self-loathing and felt apathy regarding everything around me that we all slip into sometimes -- I was introduced to these folks, and I enjoyed spending hundreds of hours with them. They were bright and cheery and eminently entertaining, and they took my mind off the pain of uncertainty as to my future. I lived vicariously through their adventures as they solved a ludicrous mystery and bonded over mundane academic feats. It was escapism, yes -- but I was at a point in my life where I'm willing to concede I needed that escapism, not as a permanent solution but at least as a temporary fix, something to get me from point A to point B.

Better yet, those eight friends weren't just fun to waste time with. They're actually among a select few personalities who can claim to have had a profound impact on my political views. While folks like Kim and Fifthfiend and Krylo and other various NPFers (and other various liberals I've interacted with in daily life) are largely responsible for my gradual ascent into enlightened progressivism, these eight friends also played a prominent role in shaping who I am today. I saw them struggle with issues relating to gender roles and sexuality, and through their struggles my old conservative / libertarian self was forced to confront my own demons. Those friends made me acutely aware of my white male heterosexual privilege, and as I realized that the gay and transgendered friends in that group deserved happiness as much as I did, I had to swallow my pride and concede that I was an asshole and that I desperately needed to change.

So I did change. And while I'm far from perfect now, just looking back at who I was in 2007 and comparing that Snake to who I am now, I definitely feel it's been a positive difference.

Sometime in 2009, I felt it was time to move on from that group of old friends. They had encouraged me through one of the lowest points in my life, but I had reached the end of the road with them; there wasn't much left for us to accomplish. I did well on my second run through the LSATs and I was accepted into the school of my choice. With my confidence back, I began the gradual trek back to more fulfilling social outlets.

Most importantly, though, I was able to attend a law school that conveniently was located in the same area as my undergrad -- meaning, I could reconnect with friends and coworkers I knew from way back when. I had a real life again. There were moments of nervousness and stupidity and unnecessary melodrama, yes -- life wasn't any less stressful and NPF was often my conduit to express pitiable emotions around finals -- but I wasn't alone.

...But now, in 2012, I'm beginning to experience feelings akin to a severe case of deja vu. Like in 2008, I took a crucial test that was vital to my future career interests. And like in 2008, the first time I took it, I fucked up. Like in 2008, I'm unemployed, can't see much hope for future employment (that'd pay sufficiently enough to tackle my debt obligations, at least) and I'm living with my parents. Like in 2008, my parents are every bit as irritated with my presence, and their cynicism and lack of faith in me is crushing. It's my faith in myself that's taken the biggest hit, though.

Like then, I've retreated socially -- hell, the more astute among you will (accurately) note I've even been less active at Sexay and NPF lately, because I've even been retreating here, to some extent.

It's a habit when I'm depressed and I feel like I've failed. When I'm low on self-confidence, I don't want to be around other people. Their successes and moments of happiness feel like further affirmation of my sub-ordinance and my insignificance; by contrast, their own struggles -- which are often more serious than mine by virtue of their lack of status as beneficiaries of institutional privilege -- or their struggles with actual physical illness or financial insolvency -- just make me despise myself all the more for being so weak. Why can't I handle my my comparatively trite burdens?
And, when some of you are dealing with grueling work schedules and diseases and surgeries and systemic discrimination and insufficient legal rights, how annoying is it to witness me making a big deal out of merely feeling sad without similar contextual justification?

But, just like then -- as if by divine mandate -- my eight friends are back. And, according to some, they're better than ever. Even seeing them in images brings back all the warm, fuzzy fond memories. I want to warmly embrace them and jump right back in, dive back to where I feel I belong again, and escape the confines of my dreary existence.

...But then I realize...

...I'm not the only one who's changed.

In the past four years, they've changed too. And not for the better.

They've befriended a psychopathic villain who indulges in thoughts of rape and murder.
They've turned against their homosexual and transgendered friends and become brazenly homophobic and transphobic.
They've forced the women in their group to degrade themselves in demeaning outfits to cater to the basest of misogynists.
They've betrayed the very values they once appeared to stand against and sold themselves out as they've become more popular with the masses.

They were never perfect themselves, as it turns out, though it's been easier to account for their questionable moral judgment in retrospect. Maybe they haven't changed at all, and the only person who's changed is me. But, like a drug addict slipping deeper and deeper into bad habits, they seem to have fallen apart in recent years.

...Despite all of this, though, it is my own abject pathetic state, my loneliness -- the very loneliness that tempts me to write a rather pathetic wall of text at 3:30 in the morning like this --that tempts me to think that maybe it's only too appropriate for me to see them again under these circumstances. Three years ago, I ventured out in hopes of achieving happiness and personal fulfillment and finding purpose in life...and I failed. Every new friend I made in law school from the past three years has turned their backs on me. All the progress I thought I made in becoming a more progressive person has only resulted in me losing friendships in the conservative evangelical communities I had once called home.

Do I really have the right to proclaim myself a 'better person' if a selfish part of myself wishes I had the security and stability and community I once had, even though I had to believe terrible things to belong there?

Can I really call myself a committed progressive and an ally to the oppressed if I'm so eager to seek out those eight friends again, despite the fact that they cater to the worst facets of an irredeemably bigoted and closed-minded society?

Can I really justify the decision to see them again as one validated by the eerie sense of deja vu? A desperate need for history to repeat itself? I see them again, they cheer me up, they help me deal with the necessity to remain anti-social during Bar prep, I pass the second time, I move on -- that's the script I want to believe in. History can repeat itself. It'll be 2008 to 2009 all over again.

But isn't it all just a delusional fantasy that I'm indulging only because I don't want to confront the truth? The truth that I've failed -- as a person, as a human being. The fact that I'm alone. All alone. The fact that I've made choices -- justifiable choices, maybe, logically and morally correct choices, feasibly, but my own choices -- that have led me down this path, right back into the pit of despair.

...It's sad when you reach rock bottom and you think about just ending it all, shutting it all down, refusing to retake the Bar, refusing to do anything, and the one thing that snaps you out of that funk and puts a smile back on your face is an image of those eight friends on a videogaming website.

...And then you remember they're homophobic, sexist, bigoted assholes these days.
And then your despair is reinforced by the notion that becoming more progressive, more empathetic, more aware of hatred and oppression and bigotry has just turned you into a cynical, frothing, kneejerkingly sensitive emotional basket-case of a person.

There was that other friend from college who angrily cursed you out when you stood on principle and defended gay marriage. Sure, he was, and still is, a Republican with some fucking awful beliefs. But he was also a friend. He was one of the few living, breathing people you confided with. You haven't spoken to him since.
...What about your ex-pastor, the one who you deliberately lost touch with after he privately suggested he didn't believe climate change existed? Sure, he wasn't much of scientist, and his ignorance aggravated you. But he was a kind, caring individual who appreciated you and who stood with you in the past. And you left the moment he said something disagreeable.

And of course, there are other stories that are even less clear-cut, less black-and-white with ascertainable lines of right and wrong. There've been friends you've lost due to your own selfishness, your own obsessive working schedule, your own perfectionism, your own laziness. Sometimes you've excused a disinterest to reconnect with them with an assumption of their moral decrepitude -- "He calls himself a libertarian on Facebook, therefore I shouldn't hang out with him anymore because he might have terrible values." Sometimes it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a spiral of despair that reinforces itself as things inevitably go awry as predicted.

...The problem was always more than just those eight friends, but those eight happen to embody it well, and in a manner that allows a degree of separation from the living, breathing people who are even more painful to reflect upon. No one's perfect. Everyone's hopelessly flawed.

Maybe I just need to acknowledge that and try to pick up the pieces, concentrate less on being right and more on finding contentment, take whatever moments of happiness -- however elusive, however built upon lies and facades -- this world's unforgiving deities can spare.

...Or maybe this is all just a punishment I deserve, recompense for sins. Maybe this time I refuse all pretext of escapism, all imaginary ideal of utopia, and confront the fact that life sucks, society sucks, humanity sucks, I hate it all, I hate myself, I hate the system, I hate the oppressors, but I am an oppressor, but if I find a way to just stop caring, I can become an automaton and march through it all.

I didn't write this to beg for advice. I don't imagine there's much advice to give me when I'm just writing a borderline-incoherent depressing rant at this early hour.

I'll concede, as I should, that I did write this, at least in part, for your sympathies. There's no sense in being dishonest. You all know me as a dramatist, the type who's ordinarily excessively eager to throw a pity party. It's a foul reputation that's eminently deserved.
Sometimes you just want to hear someone tell you it'll be okay, and that you're not a terrible person, and that you're redeemable and worth something. Sometimes you actually want, in a silly sense, someone to mock you and belittle your fears and apprehensions. Such incredulity can reinforce a desired negative narrative -- look at this nasty thing he said, he's right, I really am as pathetic as he's implying, just like I thought.

Or, it can force petty confrontation. Sometimes a petty engineered conflict can help bury the real underlying issues.
Maybe that's why I wrote this. Maybe I want one of you to come out swinging, so instead of spending the next week wallowing in despair all alone, we can both mobilize our supporters on NPF and engage in some worthless NPF battle of egos over whether certain words and sentences were phrased properly. That's the real reason why flamewars exist on the internet, I'd imagine. Just a bunch of escape artists seeking something to be offended over that's less damning than their own personal shortcomings. Just the chance to have a reason to thank a friend who defends me, or at least engage in some meaningful social contact with anyone who rebuts me.

...It's strange to be in a place where you're so sad that you'd genuinely be excited if Smarty showed up and insulted you in the snarky way he always does. It's a perverse sort of affirmation. "You see, I exist! Smarty knows I exist!! I know that because he's engaging me in the way he always engages Snake!!! Snake is a person that is real, who some people like, and who others dislike, but who everyone knows, dammit"


...Despite all this, I keep coming back to one thought.
I had dozens upon dozens of friends, once. Far more than eight, really. Chie and Kanji and Naoto were just voices and pixels, after all. Others had real faces, real identities, and I knew them, and they supported me, and I cherished them. They're the ones that hurt. Rise and Teddie and Yukiko are just easier to mention.

...Now I have nothing.
I guess I'm just wondering what it all means.