Two years ago I decided to move home from another state even though I could have been quite pleased to build a life in the other state. Home was compelling - my parents live nearby, some friends are still here, the places are familiar, the people are friendly, and now I'm a citizen of the place I grew up.
One of my closest friends lives here and was excited to see me return home. The last time we really hung on the regular, we were smoking ganja every day, struggling to hold onto a crap job, and talking about why we couldn't go to college this or that semester.
So naturally now that years have passed, we have both grown and matured some and yet we still enjoy, shall we say, the finer things in life. But as soon as I started talking about returning and the logistics of finding a place here I grew wary detecting more than a hint of jealousy on the part of my friend.
Since the last time we hung out, I have really worked hard to improve my lot in life and become a marketable person. I went from making $15 an hour and thinking that was the best thing to going back to college while working full-time and making six figures for the first time to my current position in which I enjoy a really great salary. I'm the first to admit I have caught some lucky breaks but at the same time if you ask any of my coworkers they will tell you that for all my flaws (and they'll tell you those too) the one thing they can always credit me for is that at the end of the day... and it could be the end... I will get it done. Nights, weekends, whatever, whenever, period. I sacrificed two years of my life to get there and I'm so happy that I did. It was SO WORTH IT!
My friend shared with me several times that he had also improved his lot and gone from a similar entry-level job to a better salaried position. But he did not invest the amount of time that I did in his field, and besides, his field is not as well-paid as my own (though it is related). I only recently found out the precise amount and learned he makes a sixth of my salary or less. And while I am well-paid I am not that well-paid, as in he should be making more money I think and his employer is getting a steal.
But that is beside the point. The point is that he has done well for himself given his objectives and his time commitment but he has not done well compared to me. Until recently, nobody was making that comparison. It's not that he cannot measure up to me - it's that he has not done anything to do that and moreover, this is NOT a competition of any sort!
He did get a two-year degree but never finished his four-year degree while I did finish mine (though it has had literally zero influence in my career thus far). He stayed home while I worked in three different states and complained about, looking back on it, some really obviously "first world" problems.
But when I first came back home he had no idea that I was doing so well and I felt it unnecessary to say, "yeah, I am making X." Why on EARTH would I do that? What is there to gain? He would know how much I make and it would be a lot more than he makes, and he would know I know that.
So for about a year, until last month, things have gradually gotten a bit hairier as he asks more questions, sees more material success from me, and notices I am not worried about the same things he is worried about. He really let it loose when I complained about owing the IRS $5 grand plus something substantial in penalties for doing paperwork wrong and paying late. He doesn't cry for the IRS of course but he said something to the effect of that being not much less than he pays in taxes all year, and furthermore, that he just couldn't relate.
Before you make any judgments about me or how much of a prick you think I am, let me tell you that I have gone out of my way to present the story "from his side" thus far. He isn't available to argue his case so it would be unfair to complain and leave his side out of it.
So about a month ago, after that, he starts criticizing every little thing I do as though it is so wasteful and so spoiled (my own money, mind you) and so "yuppie" (I am nothing like it) and such a sellout and such an elitist and so on.
Examples include:
- Questioning my choice of a large combo at McDonalds because "you never finish the burger anyway, why waste the dollar on food you don't eat?"
- Suddenly and frequently referring to people he deals with and doesn't like as "obvious rich kids," "spoiled," and so on.
- Talks about buying something, to which I reply I would be interested too, to which he says, "Why do you need that? Why?"
- Talks about buying something, to which I reply it is not affordable. Sneers and bickering abound.
- Tries to insult me in front of people I don't know who he would previously have introduced me to. MILD insults, I don't want to blow things out of proportion.
- Acts defensively around his girlfriend as though I am trying to buy her with money
- Asks me to drive to his place regardless of whether he drove or I drove previously, and acts like he has done some great feat when he drives here because he has a dog and because he has to drive to work while I work remotely (though only for another day!), and still asks me when I drive to bring X and Y and Z, some of which is not safe to bring, and quite expensive, and risky, on my dime
- Asks me for help with his job, which I genuinely would do even if I just met him because I love it. Refuses to take my advice though and shoots down my suggestions. Refuses to let me "drive" (operate the PC) while instead insisting on showing me what he now knows doesn't work and what I know already from much more experience is a waste of both of our times
- Although I am not the type to offer advice very often, and never unsolicited, the few times he has asked he has balked when I have suggested he may be really off-base or really wrong or really missing something.
- Refuses to consider my ideas while we converse but repackages them (the exact same idea) as his own and proposes it to me a month later, weirdly remarking that "isn't it great I figured this out? I don't know how, I just came up with this idea, etc"
Alright, so I have done a lot of damage just now to his reputation, and it is only fair to return to my own.
Some of the items on the list are undoubtedly petty, some are not so petty, some are roadblocks to friendship, and some are roadblocks to decency. But all are new. Said friend has at times exhibited a sort of self-centric thinking that makes him vulnerable to outside interference in his affairs. For instance, ignoring my warning a few years ago that he would be fired for behaving the way he was behaving (he asked me and I told him an answer he didn't want to hear). Another time, farther back, he really started throwing little disses my way when he learned I would be going out of state to some "private" college and so on, in a tone and with words I cannot recall that spelled "you are an elitist."
Compounding everything is the fact that, at the core, I do think I am smarter and more capable and more employable and more marketable and better at my job than my friend. This is not something I normally think about and enumerate but it is worth mentioning because I would be lying if I said, no, we're all equals, kumbaya.
On the other hand, my friend is out of line if he thinks he can compare his paltry efforts with my own. Sorry but its a ratio of something I'd guess is close to 1 to 20, 30, 50 even. If he spent the kind of time I spent and got his result I would be angry too but he did not spend any time really changing the habits we grew into when I left. He just found a job and a life that worked around them without working on improving himself. He thought - despite my advice - that his company would "train" him to be good at his job and more marketable, but I told him that his company was being nice to give him a chance despite not being marketable. He didn't like to hear that but he needed to because friends don't sugar coat things when friends ask them for an opinion.
Just reading this post makes me uneasy with it because I come off as someone I am not. I don't compare myself to my peers except for of course those peers who happen to be my direct competition in-house. I don't get caught up in the rat race; I do my part. I don't care about titles, salaries, who-slept-with-whom, interpersonal politics, and the like. It BORES me. It BORES the FUCK out of me to be honest. It's not that I spend my time pondering deep questions about the universe; I spend my time doing what I love, which is COMPUTERS and PROGRAMMING.
That's WHY I make more money!
That's WHY I never get down on myself!
That's WHY I always seem happy and so carefree! as he says.
That's why I do what I do and why I spend the time I spend and why I don't take well to suggestions otherwise from longstanding friends who should know better about me.
My life, the way I think of it, is about two things: minimizing the time I spend on stupid things I don't enjoy and that don't bring happiness to those I care about, and maximizing the time I spend working on things that I like, that I am good at, that people value me for, that I can use to make this world however little a little better.
I figured out a long time ago that I don't like to do the dishes and that I don't like to do the lawn and that I don't like to clean my car. I hire people to do those things on occasion and I think I will get them to do it all the time now that I have new responsibilities and greater means.
Whenever I mention these kinds of things to my friend - and I never do - but when he finds out, it becomes a little game of "gotcha" that he wages from the most immature and uncharacteristic platform of his mind. Why can't I do it? Am I really too busy? What kind of economic system makes it so that a 27 year old kid can pay a 40 year old woman to do his dirty work and think it is just? Do I think I am too good to wash my own underwear? Okay, I exaggerate, but that's where I see things headed if I don't get him to think about things in a reasonable and measured manner.
So I fear we are at a crossroads. I took a new job that is going to shatter one of his perceptions of how exactly we are where we are, namely, that I somehow became well-off without working because I work from home and don't look like I'm working. Well, I"m about to wear a suit to work every day (ugh) which means that I'll go from the "rich guy who pretends to work" to the "rich guy who pretends to be important" to him. I just want to be his friend again without this bullshit.
One more thing.
Lately he has been pitching an idea that I originally pitched to him a year ago to try to motivate him to work with me to get to a reasonable income level to stop bitching about being poor. I already mentioned this in generality but it deserves examination.
There is a small red flag in all of this. Do I care that he is very adamantly taking credit for what can only be described as my idea or nobody's? Of course not. My idea was not even my idea but an obvious one that doesn't merit being called an idea. It's like saying, we should sell refrigerators. MAYBE, but it's not a stroke of genius. You find out what the market it, you see if you have an advantage, you think about your competitors, you model good/bad scenarios, and you get in or not. If you are going to pitch your idea about selling refrigerators to, say, a venture capitalist, you should be careful not to pitch an idea about selling those fridges, for you'll be laughed out of the room.
Maybe you are selling a special kind. Maybe you have an advantage in production or distribution or sales or maintenance or whatever. Maybe you know that the market is headed towards really needing fridges. You have a plan to act on your belief. You have an operational plan for the first X days. You model things to get a sense of what is at stake. You come correct or you don't come.
Now in the past I had proposed we work on this (let's say) fridge sales project (really in technology, but whatever) part-time but really work on it because I did this modeling and found we could make a fortune if we went through with it, if he learned certain things, if he could do what I could by this date, if we could get one person to do the initial sales visits and pictures, whatever. He ignored it completely. I mean, really didn't care that I spent the time to do something right. I don't need this and maybe he doesn't either, but once again, you don't get to bitch about being poor and do nothing about it when you are an able-bodied single male who spends every night hanging out smoking weed and playing games.
Look, I do the same things too some times. Sometimes you need to kick back and unwind. But sometimes you need to work, and you cannot expect to be at the same place on the mountain as someone who climbed for two years if you spent every night at camp trying to get laid.
Now, I'm about halfway through my rant. If brevity is where you find wit, you'll know where it goes to die now.
But seriously, I have another bit to share: what I want to say, what I want out of this friendship, how I think of friendship, why I care, and how to learn to empathize with people who lack empathy, at least from my point of view.
Submitted November 01, 2015 at 04:50PM by InfiniteCantors http://ift.tt/1Sg5Ozp Advice
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