Socially awkward, with a soupcon of apathy.

I am not that good with people. I have a very small group of friends and I am very poor at adding onto it. For example if you were to break down my lasting friendships by the decade of my life in which they were born, it would look like this: Ages 1-10: 1 (my platonic life partner) 11-20: 3 (a bumper crop that includes one of my present roommates; John, his girlfriend from our high school years who i am horrible at keeping in touch with {my fault not hers} and the ex from my first real serious relationship) 21-30: 1 (This is actually two people who only count as half each for different reasons. One is John's fiance who graciously went along with the idea of the three of us getting an apartment together last year and probably regrets it to this day. I am pretty sure she would not have anything to do with me if not for John. The other is my roommate from my late 20's who only counts as half because he went incommunicado after he moved back to the East Coast. ) My moving to the Bay Area coincided pretty closely with my 30th birthday, and since then I have made approximately 1.5 friends. (my thirties could be another bumper crop) one is my neighbor who will probably move away shortly seeing as he just got married, the other is a friend I made at the job I had up until January, and she just moved down south.

See a pattern developing?

I do. I mentioned my platonic life partner; Pat. We met when I was 8, before i even moved into the same town as him. I lived in an adjacent town, we were both Catholic so we attended the same Sunday School. His memory from this time in our lives? How we would talk about saints and I would pipe up every so often and say: "Hey, that's my uncle's name!" I come from a large Catholic family on my mother's side. She had four siblings named Judith, David, Michael and Thomas. Think those names came up occasionally? I really don't know how my teacher kept from screaming at me: "Yes fucknuts, for the last fucking time, Thomas is a saint's name. You are Catholic, Catholics name their kids after saints! Now eat shit and die motherfucker!" Before choking the life out of my tubby eight year old self.

How did I not make this terribly simple connection? I am a fairly smart guy, was even smarter back then. I always tested highly and even skipped ahead a few grades in English in elementary school. Yet I was blind to that very simple connection, Pat was not. Luckily he still chose to be my friend after this introduction to me, and other than my older brother he has probably been the witness to more of this flaw in my emotional makeup then anybody. There is actually a picture from my First Communion, I am dressed up in a white collared shirt and standing stiff and proud (god only knows why) for the camera with a dopey smile on my face, while in the background Pat is pointing and laughing at me. Which is the natural order of things. I need someone to point and laugh at me, because otherwise i will have no fucking clue how obnoxious i am being at any certain point. And my potential for being obnoxious is off the chart. I have potential coming out of my ass.

There is no rhyme nor reason to this emotion blind spot either. I am not completely insensitive. I am actually fairly perceptive on some levels. I am a fair bit adept at pattern recognition, but i see no discernible pattern to my lack of sense. If I could see it at least i could look for it. Intellectually I could pick out signs and be aware of when I am being a dunce. Mostly when it happens I don't find out until afterward, when John, or Pat, or my brother have a "What the fuck?" moment with me. That's fun.

Anyway, enough navel-gazing for one afternoon. Following up on my first post, I am far from alone on blogspot for being unemployed. My favorite fellow jobless?

http://unemploymenthaikuweekly.blogspot.com/

Haiku are hard. That's all I have to say about that.