Ultimately I do have a feeling of impending dread in most of my relationships, because for me it is a simple reality of life. Most of the people I know do ultimately learn to lose all respect for me, or I get tired of dealing with their own bullshit, so I am hyperaware of little minutiae of politeness, of tension. I'm almost 40 and I've managed to learn to find a positive way to spin almost anything, and one of the things that I'm sure people grow weary of is my sense of humor. I treasure my friends that have stuck with me through the years, but as recent events have proven to me, even those relationships can proven to be transient in the very bitter end.

It's not as you say, that I would hold people in a higher regard than they hold me. In fact it's the opposite...I totally expect people to hold me in absolutely no positive regard...and I have learned, in general, to absolutely expect the worst out of my fellow human beings. That being said I don't regard the fact that I interact with the world in the exact opposite way of what I would feel would be appropriate if what I just said and do innately realize is true. I have a never-ending ideal of the world, that I know is a pipe dream yet I refuse to ultimately grow bitter. I believe the world is a fundamentally beautiful place, and that other people CAN be good people.

I love getting to meet and get to know people...it's absolutely a negative personality trait of mine to absolutely trust people until if and WHEN they betray me, and even as my brain starts short circuiting in disbelief of what is happening...I choose to let them complete whatever they are doing, usually without letting them on that I know. Because deep down, I want to know how far they will really go. And my sense of humor again.

For example at my last job, a couple of hours into my first shift I realized the very unsettling fact that someone had already dug through my coat pockets and stolen things from me. I was pretty outraged and I didn't know any of these people, so I pretty much tried to in a not entirely accusatory way politely ask everyone if they knew anything about my stuff being stolen. I noted that most people reacted as you would expect people to being brought aware that they may be viewed as a culprit. However one guy seemed particularly eager to be on my team. He let me know how he was particularly offended by those who steal, and let me in on some inside info about the other people I had no way to know anything about yet.

I got home that night, and as I was winding down I couldn't get what he had told me out of my head. It clicked just a little well. I decided to be like the Japanese mafia, and just wait until a time of my choosing to get my revenge....if my suspicion could be backed up by any future revelation. So I immediately became a fake ass human being and pretended to find him fascinating and as it turned out, I learned to really respect how much young, unfiltered passion this guy had. However yes, in many different ways, he made it clear that he had no problem taking what was mine, and he would deal with situations in ways that made it clear that he knew he was pulling one over on me.

So I was in a bad situation I had put myself in, where I was pretty much friends with him even though I knew him for what he was. Ultimately it was costing me too much money and finally, after he showed me the hotel key I had "lost" and told me that he had stolen it from a friends hotel room, not because he wanted to steal, but because he just liked it. And didn't realize that I was in fact intelligent enough to...remember my room # which was on the key. He probably owed me 2 cartons of cigarettes at this point, so I just told him I needed him to buy me 4 packs on payday, and I would not be pleased if he got drunk and destroyed his card in front of me in a attempt to display how passionate he was about whatever he thought it was I should care about when he was in that drunken state, and then state to me later that he didn't care he couldn't pay me back because of some blah blah higher noble cause or something.

So the next day comes, and he hands me a $10 bill. I say to him, I asked for 4 packs. And he was very irritated that I seemingly had a problem with his obviously very innocent deceitfulness and willingness to help himself to what is mine. I knew our time was almost up, and when he came down the stairs to my apartment and confronted me for what I had told another guest in my home, as he had gone out of his way to easedrop on me, I let the shoe drop.

I immediately let him know that he was not my friend and that I was not his friend, and in fact he needed to get his stuff and get out of my house immediately. I told him I knew he was a thief and I told him I didn't know why he showed me my room key he had stolen from me. He played it off like I was a complete idiot to the end, complete with absolute shock and outrage that I would say such complete untrue things about him, and that he had in fact found my key in his friends car so I was out of line.

And he made it clear he had no intention of actually leaving my house because, he was a free spirit and I couldn't tell him what to do. Yeah. I will leave what occured next a mystery but I will say I have absolutely no problem burning bridges, when I need to :)

And I totally expect to either be judged a sub-human and kicked out of people's lives, or ya I will burn yet another bridge at some point. It's one thing that is pretty much a complete paradox to me in my understanding, that I refuse to believe that people are generally evil despite my well noted experience to the contrary, and I know it can put people off if I am particularly excited about our new friendship. The knowledge of which can lead to me being unnaturally hesitant, which can be read as a little weird too.

So in general I totally expect to be read wrong, and I have to read people wrong in order to maintain my persistant belief in the universe. Which makes total sense.