User Friendly Receptacles of Shit

Okay, so we've all heard the cliché stories about a woman whose boyfriend or husband slaps her around, blatantly cheats on her, and consistently rips apart her self-esteem. While these stories bother us, the most frustrating thing is that somehow these women tend to make excuses for their men and stick-around only to be beaten and abused time and time again. As a friend, or even a bystander - the objective party looking in on the situation tries and tries to convince the woman to leave the man - that she deserves better. It's most often a futile attempt - because let's face it, women who attach themselves to these situations are usually following some unconscious pattern of thinking stemming all the way back to childhood daddy issues. As friends, we try to be supportive and offer advice, but how long can you waste your breath and subject yourself to the ignorant venting of a person with very little common-sense.

Here in Worstever, there seems to be a unique twist to this all too common scenario that's been annoying me as of late. Perhaps, it's just the pendulum swinging back in it's opposite direction, or perhaps it just happens to be a serious lack of common-sense and self-esteem in the particular group of men I grew up with - whatever it is, one thing I know for sure is it's just downright pathetic to witness. I'm talking about grown men, with skills and talent - throwing away every possible opportunity they have to better themselves, due to their misunderstood, misconceived concepts of what they think love is. I'm not talking about a man being "pussy-whipped" by some hot woman who uses her sexual prowess to lure and hold a man as a slave either. That's a separate issue seemingly easier to understand.

No, what I'm talking about is more akin to men acting like straight Cabrons, knowing their wives are whoring around, leeching their money all along, and still somehow lacking the self-esteem, courage, and wherewithal to kick the woman out of their lives. Men who, like battered women, make every excuse in the world why their wife or girlfriend does what they do - and justifying it with a warped idea of what love is.

Friends of men like these typically go through a roller-coaster of sympathy, advice, and frustration. Feeling bad for a friend only lasts so long, then it's time to offer some unbiased, objective advice. Of course when the friend refuses to take the advice and circles around in familiar, self-defeating patterns - how long before one loses patience and just drops the friend out of sheer frustration? I mean, with each of us dealing with our own daily obstacles and stresses, who has time to watch some idiot ignore good reason and chase their tale around in circles?

Case in point: Jack and Kathleen
Jack is a 5'1, zit-faced man who's mother abused alcohol while he was in utero causing fetal alcohol syndrome that resulted in him being born with one leg slightly larger than the other. Growing up, he had plenty of friends, but he was the whipping-boy of the group, always the center of jokes. All of this, combined with his extremely poor hygiene and utter disregard for being clean-cut in any way helped pave the way for a severe lack of self-esteem. However, his personal interest in technology and computer science coupled with his intellectual aptitude to forge an unrefined skill in the field of computers make it obvious he has a natural gift to work with computers, but his lack of self-esteem and talent for making excuses for himself, kept him far from pursuing the field academically or professionally which led him to work along side of high-school children as a cashier at a fruit-stand. Satisfied with a salary barely above minimum wage, and being bossed around and shit on by kids half his age were something easy to adapt to given his past.

Somewhere in the midst of landing the shitty fruit-stand job, Jack hooked up and impregnated Kathleen -a 250 pound unemployed half-wit with a 7 year old boy from a previous relationship. Kathleen lived at home with her parents where she slept all day long and got up each night to wash down a script of painkillers with Boone's malt liquor. Once she became pregnant with Jack's daughter, he moved in and blended with her family there that took care of her - a family similar to the cast of The Devil's Rejects.

Jack continued to work 10 hour days, walking five miles to and from work daily for a couple hundred dollars a week while Kathleen rolled around in bed munching up painkillers like fruit snacks. She had several overdose situations and was put in a mental institution once, was threatened to lose her kids by DSS once, and had several other like adventures - all while Jack worked hard with his handicapped leg to support her habits. Eventually, he too was munching painkillers daily and the two of them maintained a pretty expensive cigarette habit.

One day, in the middle of his ten hour shift, Jack received a call that Kathleen overdosed on Flexeril and was rushed to the hospital. Because she was supposed to be caring for the two children when this happened, DSS got involved. Jack had to leave work early that day to go care for the kids and make arrangements for them to be watched while he slaved at the fruit stand. Kathleen's family took the opportunity to take full advantage of charging to help Jack out - all the while being deadbeats themselves - using his food stamps to eat off, his paycheck to pay bills and rent, and his labor to help fix things around the house. Anybody with the slightest knowledge of what was transpiring could see that Jack was being completely used and abused and on top of that risked losing his daughter all because of Kathleen's apathetic ineptitude. Jack himself cried the blues constantly, playing the self-pity card, desperately acting as if he wanted out.

That's where I came in. I made some calls, spoke to some people and vouched for Jack on all aspects. I found a friend willing to put him up for a while, dirt cheap, right near his job. I offered to help him watch his daughter while he worked until he could find a suitable alternative. The process took a little time, but it was falling into place. Then suddenly, Jack stopped returning phone calls.

After weeks of trying to reach him, I contacted Kathleen and explained that it was urgent I find him, explaining all that was going on. She was furious. Turned out she knew nothing about me trying to find him a way out. I thought they spoke about this all along. Come to find out, he was a coward and a liar - to both Kathleen and I. I made the humiliating call to the guy I vouched to for Jack and explained that he wouldn't be moving in after all. About a week later I got an email from Jack apologizing for everything, telling me, "Sorry man, I Love her. I don't know why, but I do." I decided at that point to write Jack off as an idiot and an asshole, self-esteem issues or not and I cut him off from my life and immediately stopped contacting him.

Case two: Alex and Kara
Alex is a tall lanky man who grew up abused by his family and made to think he was stupid and worthless. Growing up he was often homeless and most contact with his real family resulted in them swindling him out of large sums of money or automobiles. Alex grew up extremely anti-social and lacked many people skills. His mechanical skill and work-ethic more than made up for it though, and he developed a sense of pride for the amount of hours he worked and the weekly paycheck her earned.

Somewhere along the lines, Alex met Kara and they were married. Kara was much more out-going and personable than Alex. She ran the household and handled paying the bills and all other household business. Alex pretty much worked around the clock and when he wasn't working, he'd shut himself in playing computer games, another skill he excelled at.

As time passed, it became clear that Kara was fooling around on Alex. It has been said that she had boyfriends and girlfriends alike. Alex and Kara had their marital issues, but co-dependency seemed to keep them together. Alex needed Kara for a sense of family and love, and Kara needed Alex to pay her fun budget and fund her recreational drug usage.

Then Alex began getting calls from the landlord. The rent was many months behind. He was facing eviction. Next the electricity was shut down for non-payment. Kara began coming home less and less. All this time, she was supposed to have been paying the rent and the utilities, but apparently was blowing the money on her own personal entertainment. Alex was distraught - talking suicidal. He called up in near tears for advice.

Again, that's where I came in. I made some calls, spoke to some people and vouched for Alex on all aspects. He was perhaps the hardest working man I ever knew and I felt sympathy because life always seemed to shit on him in spite of his work ethic. He certainly wasn't lazy and apathetic with his goals the way Jack proved to be. I found another friend willing share his apartment with Alex for a very reasonable rate - even allowing him to keep his beloved cat. Then came the hang-up. My friend only had room for one, and for some reason I've yet to comprehend - Alex refused to move-in if Kara wasn't allowed to come too!

This blew my mind completely. Kara had recently advertised a big "Going Away Party" on Facebook and was supposedly moving out west with her current boyfriend. She had just stolen the last of Alex's paycheck because she had access to his bank account. Somehow, plans with her new boyfriend weren't working out and so now she went back to Alex for help and he actually fell for it!

He gave up the opportunity to move into a decent place where he could begin controlling his own finances and get ahead, all to help out the woman who completely fucked him over. I knew at that point I wanted nothing more to do with hearing the drama of any other relationships again.

I concluded that people are oblivious and totally pathetic when it comes to making themselves into user friendly receptacles of shit.

What really drove this point home was when I received a call from Kathleen the other night. I never speak to the beast, as I hate everything about her - particularly how she's brainwashed my old friend into losing his ball sack completely. She had the gall to text me, cowardly hinting around to see if I would give her a ride to Kara's big going away party (a party which obviously had no merit since she certainly wasn't going away anywhere anyway!) I told her to fuck off in so many words. That's when she responded that she was able to use Alex for a ride anyways.

In other words, Alex chauffeured guests to his wife's pseudo-Going Away party that he wasn't even invited to . He did this on the very night that he was supposed to move out of his shitty situation and into a safe apartment away from the drama where he could start rebuilding his life.

I've heard it said before that God only helps those that help themselves. From now on, when it comes to these user friendly receptacles of shit - I'm following God's lead.