there’s something about being surrounded by well-adjusted people that makes you feel even worse about yourself, that is, of course, if you’re not well-adjusted yourself. honestly, i don’t know why i haven’t thought about this before, considering the fact that i’ve spent the last two years of my life socializing with well-adjusted people. then, of course, there was high school, which was a similar situation… well, maybe. i can’t say for sure that there’s such a thing as a well-adjusted high school student. maybe it’s all relative. what do i know.

and nearly all the women i’ve been attracted to and/or have dated were not well-adjusted. is it that the most interesting people are messed up, somehow, or is it that i have a thing for screwed up girls? i mean, i can look at a the short list of girls that i’ve actually dated (regardless of how brief the relationship might have been) and they were all messed up, at least at the time they were: tara, amy, jessica…. damn, three girlfriends in 27 years, that’s a little pathetic, isn’t it?

anyway, i don’t know that i can count tara amongst the screwed up ones. honestly, is there such a thing as a well-adjusted 7th grader? i don’t think so. i want to say that, almost by definition, preteens can’t be well-adjusted. what do they know about anything other than trying desperately to fit in with everyone else? 500 different people all trying to fit in with each other is a strange concept to say the least.

for sure, though, amy was messed up. don’t get me wrong, i thought the world of her at the time. and i still do, though i almost never talk to her anymore (it’s kinda sad, really, considering how close we once were). from what i know of her now, she’s far more well-adjusted than i am, having made leaps and bounds since we dated (if you can really call it that). then there’s jessica, who is also one of my most favorite people, still. and while she’s much better than she was just two years ago, i can’t call her well-adjusted, but i don’t mind. when we dated, i took some comfort in the fact that she wasn’t (is that wrong?). and there’s still a little part of me that likes the thought that we can still relate, even if just a bit, because of our strangeness.

then, of course, there’s katie, who i never dated. she was far from well-adjsuted, as i’ve come to learn. but we’re not really going to get into that subject here, since it’s always a good policy for me not to talk about her at all….

there is this strange question, though; how is it that i’m not surrounded by more fucked up people than i am? i mean, wouldn’t i relate better to them than i do the normal, healthy people? i would think so, yet here i am, constantly putting myself in social situations with people who are happy and mentally healthy and all around well-adjusted. you’d think by now that some of that would have rubbed off on me. it hasn’t, at least, i don’t think it has. i guess there are days where i would question the truth of that statement, but again, what the hell do i know?

do i subconsiously gravitate to these people in the hope of hiding my strange awkwardness? do i have some hope that if i spend enough time around them i’ll figure out their secret and apply it to my own life? or is it simply a matter of percentages? it would seem to me that there is a greater percentage of ‘normal’ people than there are ill-adjusted people and because of those odds, i’m statisticly more likely to be hanging out with them. of course, there’s the easy answer. my best friend is well-adjusted, his friends are well-adjusted, and his friends have become my friend, so logically my friends are well-adjusted.

still i can’t help but wonder what the point is. i mean, should i even be bothering? will there ever come a time when i feel completely comfortable with them? will there ever come a time when i don’t feel like i’m hiding some big secret, or feel that i’ve got to put on a show lest someone figure me out for a fraud? right now the answer to those questions seems like a rather bleak, ‘no.’ i almost always come home feel bad about myself, in some way, because i felt like i had been scaming those people, that i had put on a front and a show to keep from being discovered.

so i guess the question inevitably arises, ‘should i even be bothering with them?’ should i just throw in the towel, so to speak, and go live in a hole, by myself, surrounded by computers, movies, and cds? i don’t know. there’s certainly no easy answer. i guess all i’m really saying is that i’m frustrated. i’m frusted with my life and with the situations i’m presented with on a regular basis. there are days when all i want to do is crawl into a hole and escape the world of the well-adjusted individual. somehow, i feel life would be simpler for me. but what the fuck do i know?