I know you are having a rough time right now. It’s not my fault, so don’t yell at me for it. If I say, “I know it’s no consolation, but it happens to everyone”, don’t act like I just insulted your value system. People say shit like that because we feel helpless when bad shit happens to good people who we care about. It does happen to everyone. All humans get shit on and fucked over fairly regularly throughout the course of their lives, and we all deal with it however we can. I can’t find you a job. I can’t tell you how to enjoy it when you find one. You aren’t asking me to do either. All I can say is stuff like “it will be okay”, and “something will come along”, and I hate hearing such meaningless blather escape my lips, but what else is there?

Attacking me when I offer whatever crap I can think of will only serve to reduce the support you receive from me. I try to be understanding, but I am a realist and will never join you in your self loathing. I will hold your hand through it, I will even carry you if I can, but I will not agree with you that your life is cursed. My bouts of depression come and go, and my personality changes. I never force anyone to listen to me whine, and I don’t get pissed at them when they don’t understand how I feel. I deal with it like a big boy and move on. Focus on a fucking goal and work until you are there. That’s all I can offer in the way of advice. You haven’t been given anything you can’t handle, and if your way of dealing with it is to make me feel as though it is somehow my fault, then you need to find a new shoulder to cry on.

Here’s a reality check for you- about three years ago I was dating a girl we will call “the embodiment of all things unholy”, or Brit for short. There were all sorts of red flags throughout the relationship, but we’re not here to discuss my judgment. As with any dysfunctional one sided pairing, the less she wanted me, the more I wanted her. I was working a job as an industrial designer for a company we will call “Leggett & Platt Nazi death camp & sweat shop”, and trying to further my career by going to school to get a webmaster certificate. I was using my vacation days to go to school, and eventually the L&P folks got wind that one of the lemmings was starting to think for himself, and took steps to have me removed from the payroll. One Thursday I came in to be told that “my position had been terminated”. Friday I looked around for jobs, and Friday night I decided to go meet a friend of mine for drinks. I walk upstairs in this bar and Lo! There stands Brit (the girl who earlier that day had told me she loved me and would always be there, job or no job), making out with some guy who clearly wasn’t me. I gave the guy a crash course on the morals of the girl he was getting involved with (no, I wasn’t mad at him. He probably had no more idea that I existed than I had that he existed), and went on my way having lost my job and my girlfriend in one fabulous 24 hour period. I won’t give anyone a speech about how I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and kept trucking along, because I assure you I sat in the dark and moped. I cried, I asked God if I had perhaps raped a bunch of retarded orphans in a past life to deserve this, and I finally ended up working at a picture frame shop to pay the rent while I looked for a “real job”. Very humbling to have a fancy degree and a fat resume and make $8 an hour for a while. It was a step on the way to a goal. Now I am doing fine, and I know that more bad stuff will happen, and I can handle it. Notice that at no time during what was probably the worst period of my life did I ever go bugfuck on anyone who tried to offer advice. I did not wish to drive away the people who are trying to help by listening and muttering noncommittal clichés while I am forced to deal with something no one deserves. I heard so much “It’s her loss”, and “you’ll find something better”, that at times I thought it was all a cruel joke. Then I realized that they were right, no matter how hopeless it seemed. I came out of it humiliated, bruised, and bleeding, but not dead. You will do the same.

As morbid and doomsday as it sounds, think about how you will deal with it if you should ever have a REAL problem. Not jobs and relationships, but stuff that actually matters as much as you think this does.

You’re making me not want to be around for that one.

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