The thing about people is

I don’t trust them.

In a way I can count the number of people I trust on one hand. But that isn’t true. Just something I’d like to believe sometimes.

Mostly, I trust everyone. Why is a cliché.

I tell myself I’m good at predicting what people do. (For the most part it’s true. Although, as
I’m aware, I just remember when I’m right.) Therefore I trust everyone to act in the way they’re capable. And to do what I expect.

Like I said, cliché.

But not more or less like you’d hear from any reasonably intelligent teenager. Which I’m not.

I’m over that anyway. Mostly. I’ve been trying to “branch out”. Which means make new friends with new people and do new things in new ways with new thoughts and new ideas and new hopes and optimism and, and.

And it’s been interesting at least. I’ve conceptually gone from being somewhat of an introvert to somewhat of an extrovert. Which is like going from being somewhat tipsy to slightly drunk. Or Gucci to Prada. (Labels is what I’m saying, sort of.)

I’m not so much sure if it was my concept or other people’s. But I’ve always had some difficulty distinguishing between the two.

The purpose. Well. Networking for starters. You meet a few people, or make a casual acquaintance with someone you hit it off with. Though they only have the same interests as you on a general level, they know other people. Who are theoretically more interesting.

And then stories. This is the most important thing. I don’t tell use this as an introduction. But
I’m always looking for stories I can use. Directly or indirectly.

Take this for indirect:

The conflict in a story I’m working on: the main character – a mild bastard – goes against his type and decides to stand up for some friends in a hospital. Their son had climbed a tree, fallen and impaled himself on a broken branch. Don’t worry. It isn’t fatal.

At the hospital, the parents are having trouble with the insurance company. A case worker stops by the room while the protagonist is visiting and tells the family that the emergency surgery isn’t going to be rated an emergency, and thus their plan will only cover 80% and only after they hit their $7,500 deductible.

My protagonist sticks out his neck. Says what he can. Gives the case worker his lawyer’s business card. Tells her to eat shit and die. She goes silent. Leaves the room and...
...everyone attacks him for overstepping his social boundaries. It wasn’t his place and he had no right to say anything. In the end, he still pays for the lawyer. But that isn’t part of the story.

Indirect.

A friend’s son accidentally slipped and fell on a broken branch. His skin somehow kept the branch from puncturing any organs. He’s fine now.

My boss had a strangulated hernia. A case worker told him his surgery wasn’t an emergency. Although after an hour without blood, a strangulated intestine is dead. The body follows soon after.

And that last part. One of the people I branched out to has a younger sister that lives in another state. The younger sister has an interesting archetypical background (I’ll say). The older sister (the one I’d already known) has this interesting personal conflict between some vague wildness and a desire to be – let’s say – a Judeo-Christian stereotypical ideal.

So I started to email the younger sister when she went home.

Why? To be nice. To try to move out another level on the social network. And, well. Stories. To learn her stories and to refine my own.

See, she was 16. (17 now.) And she fits the type for the girls I liked in High School. A Clementine. Not to sound misogynistic, but (two points to anyone who knows the French expression for that) she has issues with men.

Her Father skipped out on her family when she was old enough to notice and young enough to feel responsible. Now she seems to crave attention from men in that way. Or, more precisely, she will. She doesn’t yet have the confidence to make those demands. (She’s from a small town.)

I wanted to follow the younger sister’s story to see if I could figure out how she would evolve into my prediction. (I only would remember her were she to do so.)

One day the older sister accused me of having inappropriate... um... intentions for the younger sister. She told me not to talk to her ever again. Then offered to give me a better explanation what the hell she was talking about later.

From the older sisters point-of-view, I guess I can see where the confusion would come in.

How could I not want her aged 16 sister that has lived in a small town and been home schooled her whole life? My age, my education or my complete distrust of people from small towns? No way. A rational adult would know those things don’t matter. I must have wanted from her sister.

This was, by the way, completely unexpected. I didn’t see it coming at all. So I didn’t even try to defend myself.

I just apologized.

And I wish I hadn’t apologized. Because a day later, I realized I would resent her for that forever. Shocking me enough that I was willing to apologize for something that was outside of my character. And validate her paranoia. And her presumptuousness. And her stupidity. I feel so disgusted with myself for letting someone think they’re right when they should tattoo crazy on her pupils.

I did just want to be nice. I did just want the stories.

Instead I feel burned for trying to be social. Trying to be nice.

And trying to be a writer.

The three fundamental aspects of the identity I’ve had of myself for the last six years. Probably why this sounds bitter.

A quick follow up. The older sister never offered more explanation. Or any apology. Now she’s making shallow network invitations to me to go bowling and do other safe, Christian group activities. And she can’t make eye contact with me.

And the moral of my story: I’m labeling myself somewhat of an introvert again.

But I expect that to go away soon.