There is an old saying.. “To know me, is to love me” but with me it is more accurate “To know me is to be annoyed.” A lot has happened the past few months, I am still dealing with the court stuff I have mentioned before. My wife isn’t working anymore and neither am I. This two bit town offers nothing in the way of gainful ( or any other type ) of employment. I would consider a work from home on the internet if I had something other than this trash lap top to use. I haven’t found any place that fits what I can do that is work from home. I did study IT in school, but as a coder I am .. Well… I am a hacker. I look at code, and attempt to figure out what is wrong with it, and fix it. I don’t code from scratch. The closest I have came is when I did the e107 theme for the Old Darkguild.org site. That’s been down for 10 years. It’s actually been at least 6 years since I last did any kind of coding work. So all this adds up to a pretty nasty financial situation.
So I have had to lean on friends a bit more than I would hope to recently. I don’t like it. I hate it. I hate asking people for things, I hate knowing that at any moment I could ask too much and lose people I consider friends forever. Don’t believe me? Even with my superhuman powers of sexual harassment, I have lost more friends due to money than to sexually explicit comments. Recently I had to ask a friend of mine from Highschool to help us out with some food for the house. Now to understand, this friend of mine is a shop foreman at a car dealership mechanic shop. His wife is a class act CPA. He works two jobs, she works. They have owned their own home for about 8 years, own their cars, and have no children, they CAN spare, and often they do. The problem is I know that I am so close to crossing the line with them, to reaching the point where I lose friends that have pretty much been the only ones to stand by me. Still, he did help with food, but I could tell he was frustrated.
I had to ask a new friend, someone that I consider a type of soulmate ( not in the romantic sense, but in the sense of kinship) if they could spare some money, and it really bothered me to do so, and I could tell it bothered them too. I can totally understand why. I put myself in that person’s place and thought to myself.. What if some guy I had never seen in person kept asking me for money? Would I be upset? Would I be worried? Would I wonder if I were being scammed? Sorry to say I have to answer yes to all those questions. So when I had to ask this dear friend of mine for money, I felt like I was going to break apart inside. I DON’T LIKE IT! See though, I allowed myself to cross that line. To do the deed, to ask the question. It’s something I shouldn’t do. It’s like my son. He knows if he gets scratched or cut we put a band-aid on it, and that has translated to him crying in agony for a band-aid whenever anything hurts. If he has a headache, he needs a band-aid, bumps a wall, band-aid, stubs a toe… you guessed it, BAND-AID!!! Once I know someone has the ability to aid, I will ultimately end up asking. I HATE IT! I do not want too, I just get to the point where I am in a dragged down rough spot, and I know that someone has the ability and so I ask. It is inappropriate, it is rude, and it is despicable.
So if you are reading this, if I ever ask you to help monetarily I need to say this:
IT IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO SAY NO!
IT IS IN THE BEST INTEREST OF OUR FRIENDSHIP TO SAY NO!
I WILL NEVER GET ANGRY, UPSET, OR HAVE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS BECAUSE SOMEONE SAID NO!
It’s a funny thing, when you go to the national parks around the states, you see signs that say “Do not feed the animals” Why? When you feed a wild animal several things happen. The first is that it learns that it can get food if it simply begs for it. Second, it will start to look for other chances to beg, and this can cause quite a commotion. Third, it is just plain dangerous to you, and a wild animal for it to be approached and given something out of it’s normal diet. This leads me to say:
PLEASE DON’T FEED (AKA SEND MONEY) TO STORM. It’s never a good idea, hell, it’s never a good idea to send money to anyone over the internet, no matter what. Plus if you do it once, I will likely ask again and if you are enough of a friend to me to send money, I certainly don’t want to jeopardize our friendship by begging. It is bad, I am a horrible person.
Now I do plan to send the last money I asked the aforementioned friend for back as soon as my check comes in (sometime between the 1st and 3rd of May) it doesn’t stop the issue of the fact I could have went to far this time, and I never should have accepted any money from ANYONE in the first place. I am taking down the donation page linked to this blog. I do not want money (or anything else) from anyone else, and if it is there it is just begging to cause problems and I don’t want problems. At this moment, I hate myself, I wish I was a better human being, or at the very least I wish I could make a living off the things I am good at. I once thought I would be a writer and make money to live on, but I have realized that writing ( at least for me) is not something that I can expect to return a profit. Blogging counts as writing so, I obviously am not going to make any money doing that.
This is more of a journal thing anyway, and let’s face it. 20 subscribers, and I don’t really offer anyone anything. I suck at being a human. I suck at life. I don’t know, sometimes I just … ugh.
I’m sorry. In future posts I will try not to post about my finances, or any problems like that. Poverty is a terminal illness in the United States, and there is no cure. I may never get rid of it, but, I will have to learn to manage the symptoms without being a burden to others. If you are reading this, and I have already asked you for money, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have. If I ever do again, say no, it’s simply better. If I asked anyone reading this for money in the past week, I WON’T do it again. I honestly would never want to lose the few friends I have left, or anyone I have met the past year. I am sorry. Truly, truly, sorry.
