My buddy number 13, enjoys every once in a while reading my correspondence with others, what follows is an email with my cousin, that I think makes some interesting points. I have changed references to my name, in keeping the thin veil of anonymity this blog maintains, but this is how I responded to the question, how do I deal with Neurotics.


One of the things of being over here is that people in my life all the time want to introduce me to people they know, "that I will love" who are either in London or are visiting London or whatever. Now I am an optimist, and a realist and a cynic at the same time (that probably make me neurotic). But for the most part I think my line on people:
a) most people I can deal with in small doses
b) most people wear out their welcome with me after four hours
c) If you make it past the four hour mark, twice, I will forever love you
d) if you do not go over well in the first ten minutes your chance of ever making the four hour mark is about .01%.

Now I realize this all sounds harsh, and this is not The Lakes' standard operating procedure as much as it, how life plays out. so people keep telling me I have to meet so and so. And A) because while i have a cool group of friends here, it still is slightly lonely from time to time, and B) because I don't want to be rude, I will often agree to a pint or coffee to meet these people. now since being here the success ratio of such "set-ups" for lack of a better term, has been zero. In fact most of these people who I will love I can't stand. They have grating personalities, they are obnoxious, they are into hardcore drugs, or lots of sex with strange people, or generally are to quote Austin Powers - not my bag.

So the last few months this has bothered me, It has me on multiple occasions to think to myself, why do they think I will like said people. My thoughts have boiled down to this

a) In some way the feelings these people inspire in my friends who are suggesting we should hang out, are similar to the feelings I inspire. And since I can't stand to be alone with myself for very long, of course I can't stand to be with people like me.
b) People in the US overestimate the combination of being an American in London as potential common ground (my own experience runs opposite to this however as my group of friends here is much more eclectic than in the US and in a lot of ways our only common ground is that we are American)
c) forced set-ups never work (think blind dates or mentor relationships like Big Brothers Big Sisters)

My conclusion is that it has to do with the fact that I am a happy-go-lucky person who prefers matters of friendship (or retroactively liking someone romantically) to be organic. To be something that happens because it happens, not because someone else thought it was a good idea.

So what does all of this have to do with your question: well the fact that I have thoughts like this makes me either Neurotic, Self absorbed, Self aware, an overthinker or mentally challenged. The truth is probably a Venn Diagram with me in the middle. The other thing to remember is that in New York where Woody Allen is a role model, Neurotic for a lot of people becomes an easy personality template to fall into. Personality template is the thing I describe where someone has no personality so they adopt a pre-defined personality and all the tenets of it, rather than develop there own (see jock, slut, goth, emo, anorexic, Frat-boy all for examples) now we all know people who fit only parts of it, but how every once in a while in life have you met the uber religious Catholic girl that also love to drink or the Sports guy who also was working on a Screenplay, or the Investment banking guy who stays up writing meandering emails to his cousin at 230 in the morning whose defiance of the template makes them not what they appear to be, and its those people who we want to spend more than four hours with. So don't let the Neurotics drag you down, remember there is a big difference between having to spend four hours with someone and wanting to.

good to hear from you

The Lake

PS yes the insomnia hit tonight