Out with the Old, In with the New

Every so often in life, I appear to arrive at a kind of... social crossroads, for lack of a better way to describe it. At first, I just find I have trouble relating to my friends groups to the same extent I once did. Then I start noticing myself becoming actively irritated with individual members of those groups, usually because something they do, say, or think seems immature or unreasonable on one level or another. Then one day I just wake up in a state of active disgust with nearly everyone I know from that group and just want to be permanently rid of most of them.

That gradual process of disillusionment is what eventually caused me to realize I'd outgrown the friends I'd had throughout my teenage years, as well as most of my core family. It's what made me want to jettison myself from the online art community years ago, not to mention cut ties with almost everyone that even remembered I used to make digital art. Now it's officially happened with that group of LiveJournal people I used to be so tight with. I'm just sick to death of how petty, and gossipy, and childish they all are.

These are feelings I'd been aware of for quite some time. However, the whole David incident was what really dragged them out into the open. I'm not the sort of person that takes kindly to another person's decision to ignore my wishes and just hop right over any boundaries I might have set, but that's exactly what David eventually decided to do. Right after I removed and blocked him on every social media platform I could think of, he went out of his way to track me down and tweet me on Twitter, the one place I'd forgotten he had an account and failed to enforce a block. Then at some point yesterday, I got another message from him basically begging for another chance at friendship. I had previously responded to the tweet with a brief explanation as to why I didn't want to be friends anymore, but I didn't dignify yesterday's follow-up message with a response at all. I'm only going to tell you once.

I was later unfriended by another mutual friend of ours, I assume because David decided to complain to the rest of his friends about my lack of interest in rekindling our friendship and this chick wanted to kiss up to him the way she always does. This other person had been on my last nerve for a while as well, so it didn't really bother me, but yeah. All this implies that there's been all sorts of behind-the-scenes talk about me and my decision not to be friends with David anymore. That's just ludicrous, as David and I have never met or hung out in real life. We haven't even really interacted online all that much in recent years. I get that I was exactly the type of person David usually seeks approval from, so I'm sure this was a blow to his ego, but that's about it. He really doesn't even know me.

So I really got to thinking: Who the hell goes out of their way to contact someone they know for a fact doesn't want to hear from them instead of simply respecting that person's decision? An even better question would be: Who the hell does any of the things some of these damn people have done over the years to make me start feeling this way and what does that say about the kind of "friends" they are? Seriously, most of these people are complete fucking losers. They're chronically unemployed, unable to cultivate healthy romantic relationships, unnaturally attached to their parents in many cases, and perpetually dealing with one personal crisis after another. These are people that have tried to hit me up for jobs, for money, and certainly for my personal seal of approval on whatever dumb-ass decision they're about to make with their life next. 

All that was one thing when we were all still in our 20's or even our early 30's. Now though? We're all well into our 30's (at the youngest), in our 40's, or even older (50's in David's case). These people should be showing some measure of personal growth by now -- some improvement in their ability to control their damn impulses and certainly to respect other people's boundaries. David literally spat on mine as soon as possible and then did it again when he felt enough time had passed that I "should" be over what happened and ready to be friends again. Don't even get me started on these other tools. 

At any rate, I'm pretty worn out as far as these people go and I'm way ready to be done with them. I'm astonished at the fact that I didn't reach this point years ago. I also think it's time I start thinking about who else from that crowd I want to get rid of because they're entitled, petty, immature, or just plain annoying. It may even be time to finally delete my LiveJournal, as it's my final remaining tie to a large portion of that crowd. I just don't know how many ties I even want anymore to the people I used to know there or to the person I used to be back when I still considered them friends.

As far as happier news goes, I found out a little earlier in the month what the theme for this year's online TCM course is going to be -- musicals! In other words, it's the best theme it could possibly be as far as my getting excited goes. Seth and I both love classic musicals, but we don't know a ton about them from a film studies standpoint. There are also many important musical films one or both of us have yet to see, so we're looking forward to filling in some of the blanks. Class starts at the beginning of June and I'm eagerly looking forward to it.

I also finally bought myself an actual grown-up URL the other day (shannonhilson.com) that I currently have forwarding to this blog. I may also open up a Blogger blog for my business that may double as a sort of professional website at some point and have a second URL forward to that. My new workout habits have really made 2018 a productive year for me so far and I've been having fun embracing ways to keep that going, both personally and professionally. "Out with the old, in with the new" is definitely my motto in a big way right now.