I am addicted to people

I am a chronic insomniac. It takes its toll, but I see it as glass half full, so you'll never hear me complain about not getting any or enough sleep. I generally enjoy life and relish spending 85% of it awake. I do not have OCD. I am not a hoarder. I am not manic and I don't suffer from depression. I do not have ADD or ADHD. I am pretty fucked up in other ways though, this I admit.

I collect. I collect a lot. It's not hoarding though because it's organized to a level of obsession. Take my DVD collection for example. I have at current count 11,571 DVDs. How do I know that? I keep them cataloged in spreadsheet format and cased into 31 DVD books each holding 200 or more DVDs plus stacks and stacks of spindles that have not yet found their way into a final resting place. I have more tupperware containers than I know what to do with containing t-shirts. This I have never organized so I can't begin to guess how many shirts I have. We won't even get into video games, comic books, books, music, photos, trading cards, movie scripts, posters, toys or shoes. Don't ask about the shoes. It's an addiction. Once I start collecting something, I just can't stop. I can't quit. Anything.

That gets me to my next issue. I can't quit anything. Something else has to step in and execute the execution of my involvement, for me, in order to quit. This goes hand in hand with the collecting, my sleep habits, my work habits and my friendships.

Friendships. This is where it gets difficult. I'm addicted to people. I fall head over heels in absolute love with people and all of their flaws and inconsistencies. Not run away to Cabo in love, but oh my god this is the best pizza I've ever had and I must eat it every day for the rest of my life in love with people. Couple that with my inability to quit and you end up with a group of friends that can make your day or rip your life to shreds.

Not all of my friends fall into the rip my life to shreds category. I have a handful of close acquaintances that I've been friends with for nearly 3 decades. They are my rocks. Yes, there are a few that I have had to distance myself from in order to keep my own sanity, but in a pinch, I'm there if they truly need me.

Other friends are helpless black holes of despair and self destruction. I also collect these. I befriend them. I take them in. I hire them. I help them to the best of my ability get back on their feet if I can. Unfortunately, these are the same people who often end up taking advantage of me because that's what they do. That's what I do. I let them.

Before you ask, or accuse, I'm not an enabler. I'm not patronizing and I don't interfere. I just observe and suffer silently. Adults make their own decisions. You can't make them for them. You can't even really lead them in the right direction in my opinion. They need to make their own mistakes and learn from them. That's life. A series of decisions. You revel in the good and learn from the bad. Repeat as necessary. I just enjoy watching other people go through those choices. Life is my soap opera.

Twitter has quadrupled this by exposing me to new people, all with their own fucked up lives. From what I've discovered, twitter has an entire community of raging alcoholics, sex addicts and tragically single and depressed. It's no wonder it only took a couple months for me to get sucked in like a pedophile in a daycare. I should quit. I should pay someone to take over my account and promote our sites for me like I originally wanted. I should do a lot of things. I should quit it all, move into a shit hotel and finish my epic novel before I die. But no. I'm like a recovering heroin addict hanging out at the methadone clinic because I like the water cooler conversation. Not everyone on twitter is fucked up. I've made a lot of friends, some have even made my life better. I wouldn't change meeting any of them for the world. Even the fucked up ones.

But I digress.

Watching and observing without interfering has its perks but it also has it obvious drawbacks. Sometimes, I think if I interfered, things would be easier… for me at least. But, if you're going to believe in something (ie adults make their own decisions), you need to stick with it. I do not deviate. I prefer to suffer silently.

Well, not "silently" per say… there may be some intense eye rolling and "hmphs" and groans from the peanut gallery… maybe even throw in a look of disgust or two, but mostly silent. Mostly.

Every once in a while, witnessing this spiral into the abyss becomes too much for even me to bare. I lose my jovial good humor and lust for life in a cloud of what the fuck. I wish I could just rip em off like a band-aid but that's not me. What makes it worse is the guilt of feeling like I had a part in the spiral by watching and not stepping in. But, alas, I do not deviate. I prefer to suffer silently.

Mostly.