Hail Mary

I am not a completely heartless monster. I tend to hold grudges and be a jerk for a lot longer than most people. While most of my friends can be cool with people who do stupid, sometimes mean and heartless things to them, I tend to hold something against those people for long, long periods of time. Sometimes, it even creates fights between me and the hurt party of those situations because they eventually feel I'm creating another problem or being mean to someone who no longer deserves it.

I admit that I can be a lot worse with this than... Well, most anyone you know.

And you know what?

I am damn proud of it.

I realize people screw up, people make mistakes and people sometimes do things that even they regret, especially when they're angry. God knows I've said and done things in the midst of my own anger that I later regretted and had to be forgiven by my friends for. But in the end, I just don't get people. "Friends" or family can be so cruel to these people and some of them will turn over the next day with forgiveness, telling me that they can understand the other person's point of view or that they just don't care anymore.

I guess that's a good quality to have, not having to always care or get worked up over people doing you wrong. It probably makes for a much more relaxed life, but I wouldn't know. I'm big on a few things and respect is one of them. Most of the things that my friends get into fights with other people about have to deal with being blatantly disrespected and I don't understand how people don't care about that. I do a lot at work, for my friends and for my family. I have sacrificed or changed or striven to do better. I have improved when I even felt that personally, I had no real reason or personal benefit from trying to do so.

And I will be DAMNED if I do not get the respect that comes with. Don't get me wrong. I'm not doing the things I do for respect. A lot of the time I do it for [famous words coming up here] I simply felt like it.

Why do I pay for my friend's food when we go out?
Why do I have my friends over here when I know they just really want to get away from their family?
Why do I buy people gifts just because I think they'll like something I randomly see in stores?

Because I want to. If anything, me doing things for people is selfish. I do it because I want to, whether they feel awkward accepting it, indebted, whatever. I don't really give a damn how they feel about the act, so long as they enjoy what I'm giving them in the end.

But at the end of the day, I expect some respect. And typically, I get it. Hmm.

Perhaps I don't truly care about respect until I don't have it/aren't getting it. I don't think I really think about how respected I am until I'm disrespected to a degree where I have to stop and realize that I think I deserve more. [Wow. THAT didn't sound egotistical or anything, did it?! ... Note the sarcasm oozing out of your monitor screen]

The forgiveness thing, though. I can't understand it. People need to be shown that they've really affected you, in a negative manner. If they don't understand that they've wronged you, what's to stop them from doing it again?

Think on that philosophy. If you can.