Misanthropy

I was searching for a particular old email recently and stumbled across an interesting discussion between me and a friend.  To give you some insight into my friend's view of humanity, this friend had one time suggested that it was easy for me to be so happy-go-lucky about humanity because I had more "faith" in love than she did.  It is weird for me to read things like this because I don't feel this way anymore--I am not as enamored with humanity as I was even a few years ago.  Then I saw this email (again, from several years ago) to the same friend about how I had been helping out with the political cause of a mutual acquaintance--a political view that this particular friend abhorred.

I'm very impressionable it is true. And yes, I did pick a conclusion first and then come up with ways to justify it to myself. I didn't realize that I had done such a poor job that you could see through me so easily.  

Anyway, this is how I have always been. I don't really think things are morally abhorrent. I usually don't think about stuff that way. I really am pretty much a blank slate. I just like people, I don't mind adopting their values on things and fighting for those values. It's like the Naomi character in the bible saying, "where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. your people shall be my people, and your god my god." People are my beliefs and alliances, you included. If the other side had gotten to me first, maybe it would be a different story and a different set of justifications. I can understand people not respecting that or not thinking it is a legitimate way of living, but I don't know. It seems alright to me. But I am not entirely surprised that my justifications didn't make sense to you. Don't be sad, though. I'm ok. I'm not about to join a cult or anything.

It's weird for me to read something like this. It's odd to see certain very familiar things about myself (i.e. weak sense of self, impressionable, people pleasing), but I also realize that I used to like people much more than I do now. It's as if my love and interest in humanity was a passing phase--a bit of a personal fad, like the careers or other exploits that I have picked up and dropped just as suddenly over the years. I think I exhausted the potential upside with people and then it became (and still is) just maintenance. There's no longer the same thrill that I used to get in interacting with people.

My current relationships take so much more effort than my previous relationships did.  When I was younger, I would just burn through relationships.  I confessed to one that I was using him like a paper napkin, to be disposed after I was done with him.  After a while I got a little tired of the drama and upheaval that went along with these aborted relationships.

Now I have a general rule that I don't mess with my intimates, only with people to whom I do not have many ties.  It's basically a policy of not defecating where I intend to eat.  There are real benefits in living my life this way, but there are also definite costs.  Now if I am fed up with someone, I don't blow up or try to hurt them, I distance myself from them and spend some recovery time alone.  Sometimes I have to spend the equivalent of several hours alone in order to be one hour of my well-behaved, solicitous self around certain people. It's odd, but the nicer I have become to my intimates, the less goodwill I have for the rest of humanity.