Teenage Woes

[mediaboy]

I'm warning you now, I'm beyond slightly irritated. So the next few paragraphs and probably most of this post is going to be ranting and raging... which I don't dare do on my blog because too many people that will start wondering "Am I mentioned, what is he saying about me?" read it.

Today is my birthday. And of all things to happen, today would just have to be the day when things started to blow up in my metaphorical face.

It all started at the bus stop. Some kids were pushing each other around so, as I do, I stepped in and stopped it before they went and pushed each other into the road. It is fairly normal though, so I include it only because it starts the day off.

On the bus, there's this idiot kid called Sam. I'm sure he has a crush on a certain girl nearby, as he feels this incredible urge to show off. He didn't stop pestering me throughout the entire 40 minute bus trip (I live a long way away from school.) Eventually he decided that, despite me being about a 1/3 of his height again and significantly heavier than him, that he would try to make a idiot out of me.

Despite height and weight, I'm not particulary slow (and although this sounds weird, I'm clocked at around 1.8m and about 10 1/2 stone... and I have no fat at all. Doctor says I'm skinny.) and I'm not going to let some snotty little kid push me around.

So he went for a brief flight.

It wasn't that he got injured, it's just that giving idiots a reaction tends to create more idiots. So I'm being pestered. So I decide to leave it there and just walk away from it, slightly more irritated than I already was.

Then I got to my form room and discovered that such and such a person had said such and such a thing about someone, and that they were busy trying to kill each other. I don't step into big fights as a rule, and therefore I just stand there not particulary being in the way. And then up comes the year idiot and decides I'm a target.

I'll leave it there, else this post will get reported for obscenity or something. I'll leave it to your imagination what he attempted to suggest that we should do and that I would enjoy but which, in reality, I'd be far more interested in doing with a certain someone else. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by going any further.

These small things apart, I seem to have had a greater number of people than normal start trying to attack me in various ways today, whether mentally or physically or emotionally and so I get home feeling drained.

And then I spend a relaxing hour or two playing computer games... always fun. However, I suddenly realise that I need to get a file off of the web, so run downstairs and while I'm downloading this file decide to stay on the computer for a bit.

So I log onto MSN. Within a few seconds I've got "friends" insulting me in various different ways, I've got other "friends" dragging me into conversations where they're just insulting each other, I've got friends complaining about each other to me behind each other's backs I've got the general undertone of unfriendliness all through it all.

So someone tell me.. what the effing hell is going on! I'm sure that none of you know, which is why it's a statement not a question.

But as everyone feels this need to confide in me (as I foolishly agreed never to reveal anything they said on MSN to anyone unless they told me to spefically. I have broken this rule once, and it lost me several friends. Lesson learnt, which is when specifics are avoided above) I know most of the secrets and the hidden feelings of everyone.

Which isn't so great. It means that all the time I'm thinking "Should I tell them what such and such said about them," or how i think that such and such feels about them, or what little secrets someone has. It's not what I say to people or what people say to me that's got me wound up (and as I'm writing this I'm wishing that I could just go and yell at someone..) but rather what they don't say which I then find out from someone else, which they should have told me or which they shouldn't have told someone else.

You probably are wondering why I don't just go and yell at them all. The answer is simple. When you know so much about what so many people keep hidden for so long, once you start letting things slip then it all goes. The entire precarious house of cards which keeps friendships together just collapses and gets burnt up.

There's practically nothing left to build friendships on.


It wasn't so bad last year. They were all open with each other (Excepting me, who never told the truth in it's entirety apart form to one person, who knows just how useful she was in keeping me from exploding. She agreed not to tell anyone, so she's the only person who I do yell at and let steam loose on... she's also ill at the moment) and so all these nasty little secrets that mean next to nothing if you actually think about it have just chipped away at all their friendships.

Their actions, which could be explained off before or talked about, are all discussed with me in secret, and I have to try and manipulate entire conversations to get someone to answer a simple question without revealing that I knew of the answer beforehand (because otherwise it looks dodgy, and the trust which things like the confidentiality thing, that they like to have to keep what they're saying private, rely on.) so that I can find out the reason behind that answer.

It's just too much effort.


So tell me, without any specifics, what the bloody hell would you suggest I do?

Do I just collapse the pile of cards and stop sitting on enough secrets and hidden feelings to create an entirely new person? Do I sit on them and slowly let them out one or two at a time or do I just sit on them forever?

Or are you just going to say that you don't know enough and that the days been fairly awful and that I should live with it?


Teenagers... why does everyone but me have stupid hormones that make them do stupid things?

[santa claus]

Happy birthday mediaboy !

[Norky]

[TAKTAK]

erm...


poop happens, and so do annoying people...
i get more annoyed with the people that stand in doorways nattering away...

[TheAnimus]

thing is some people don't seem to grow out of stupidity, the weekend before last I was in the badlands that is central manchester. A mates house warming, a friend of his got a little too drunk, a fight broke out, when he's place started to get a bit trashed, i decided it was time to break it up.

The guy had no idea who he was fighting, and considering it was 3 am, and i'd been drinking constantly for 8 hours, he was damn lucky how restrained I was. I'm a big fella 6"4, 15 stone, so restraining him wasn't that much of a problem, the thing was he didn't get the leave and don't come back hint. He came back with ghusto, punching me in the back etc. Long story short a neighbour called the police (thank god!) and he was arrested (after he'd tryed to strike this tiny WPC... way off the mark).

Thing is he had no course to be angry against me, the police. He was just been stupid, then to try and make matters worse he decided he wanted to try and sue, as if he hadn't gotten off lightly enough with a very bad beating (entirely of his own doing, he gave himself a nasty shoulder injury struggeling in restraint).

My point is people are stupid, and at times it boils over, shame its ur birthday thou!

[Funkstar]

[tiggerai]

Happy Birthday Mediaboy.... life gets better as you get older, honest!

I was in the same position in school... hated it to be honest... until you realise that you have to look after No.1 first (you).

STOP trying to make everyone else happy before yourself, it only makes you destructive in yourself.

[pollaxe]

Happy birthday big fella - to echo the wise comments above, yes, it does happen. It will get better and, in not too long a time, you'll look back and laugh at a lot of it.

[sammyc]

Did you ever mean to end up in this position of everyone telling you their secrets? Very difficult position to be in, and as you say, too much effort. People that are expecting to trust you with confidential stuff must have a fair idea that if that's become your role, you are probably doing the same for others.. I'd be tempted to just say 'hey, you might want to tell me your private stuff (which is good that you trust me...) but how would you feel if other friends ask me to keep things secret from you? Would that be fair?' Then they might think twice.

It's not really your place to let out what you do know - but maybe try not to be everyone's sounding board in future as it's a huge hassle in the end. Some of my biggest bust-ups with people have been over finding out they knew stuff I didn't - it's not good either way. You are likely to find you are getting involved in rows that aren't even your argument.
Hopefully you'll find a lot of the current stuff will just sort itself, these things do. Then try & limit the amount of people you do this for in future - i.e. your main friends ('friends' that are insulting you on MSN on your birthday are not up to much are they...).

On the positive side, it's the nice people that others tend to choose to turn to with their troubles... it can easily end up with your being used though. If in doubt plead excuses such as having problems of your own & can't take on anyone else's at the moment.

Anyway Happy Birthday and sorry it's been so crap, sometimes it happens, make it up to yourself on another day if you can & don't let other people get you down. Hope your friend gets better soon as well.

edit: PS if it's any consolation..as a Bradford & Bingley shareholder, I've had a pretty crap day as well

[Virtual Monkey]

Happy Birthday mate.

It gets better. Enjoy not being in debt!

[Rave]

I was like that to a certain extent at school- people confided in me because I wasn't really with the in-crowd, but I wasn't a total geek either. I suppose I was lucky that we didn't have MSN or facebook or any of that in my day (didn't have mobiles either, now I come to think of it, which shows how old I am). At the end of the day lots of people aren't happy unless there's some sort of drama going on- and/or they're insecure and so they blow up any perceived slight into a major issue.

So now I insist on not getting involved. In my experience people don't like it when you say "You're my friend, but he/she's my friend too and I'm staying out of it" but they generally respect your wishes. It saves a lot of grief.

[finlay666]

I was like that to a certain extent at school- people confided in me because I wasn't really with the in-crowd, but I wasn't a total geek either. I suppose I was lucky that we didn't have MSN or facebook or any of that in my day (didn't have mobiles either, now I come to think of it, which shows how old I am). At the end of the day lots of people aren't happy unless there's some sort of drama going on- and/or they're insecure and so they blow up any perceived slight into a major issue.

So now I insist on not getting involved. In my experience people don't like it when you say "You're my friend, but he/she's my friend too and I'm staying out of it" but they generally respect your wishes. It saves a lot of grief.

I am/was the same

I wasn't a cool kid, I wasn't a huge geek (bit of a one yes) but I was happy with who I was and didn't really care for all the associated carp that goes on with it, kids are always goign to be superficial and melodramatic, it's life.

Now of the people I get on with are doign university degrees at well respected universities. I didn't have a huge number of friends (despite nearly everyone knowing me by name as I knew a wide age range of people) but the friends I had I could trust and depend on and offered the same to them.

The people that made fun of me (generally ones in large friendship groups as they are afraid to be individuals) either have either flunked out and became failures leeching off their parents (either repeated drop outs, dead end crappy jobs or at a rubbish university doing a stupid course like sports sciences with business). Thing is I ignored them as nothing they had to offer interested me (hence why a lot of them made fun of me).

End of the day compared to them I'm doing a course I enjoy, have a great girlfriend having started uni and meeting new people who aren't of the mentality of the previous bottom-feeders, and recently got offered the job of a lifetime during my place in industry as part of my degree and have had some great opportunities, held a number of jobs down untill I was ready to move on (as opposed to being fired), learned a lot about a lot, met some great people and had a lot of fun.

A lot of that was from having the courage to stand up and say no to people, so don't always be that shoulder to cry on when you don't want to and dont be afraid to ask for it if you need it from someone you trust, get what YOU want out of your education/life... You generally make or take your opportunities, you are very rarely given them

And 2nded the opinion

[2Cold Scorpio]

First off, happy birthday. Secondly, idiots tend to come out of the woodwork all at once, it often seems; don't feel bad, I've seen it myself too many times. One thing I have learned, though, is to never log onto the IMs (or MySpace or the rest of that ilk) when having a bad day...or at least log in as Invisible; that helps in having more crap from popping up when there's already enough of it mucking up the works. Other than that, I can't think of much else that would help...though you were right to keep that off your blog; that would just open up another can of worms you don't need. ^_^

[Andeh13]

you want woes? Try finding out your 18+month gf is cheating on you (out of the blue) a week before your 21st birthday (not much fun explaining to the posh hotel & restaurant why you are cancelling the reservation for two), only to wonder if things can get any worse....as you plough your car into the back of someone else's because you were too busy wondering & not concentrating on the road ahead!

21st to remember? i think so!


edit: dont mean to steal your thunder mate, just a tad of perspective!

[pollaxe]

^Sorry mate. They're all evil witches. But don't grow up old and bitter like me.

This too will pass. Trust me, I am a doctor. (Though it's always hell when you're going through it.) I had a similar situation with my fiancee back when Christ was a carpenter. I can almost laugh about it now... almost...

I still see women as the spawn of the devil, of course.

[sammyc]

^ bad luck Andehh, m8