Under the influence

I'd like to talk about who I'm influenced by as a person, what molds my personality and choices. I mean, we all like to think that we are independent beings that act and think in a completely unaffected way but that's such bullshit (even if it does make me uncomfortable to know that my brain chemistry determines a huge amount (if not all) of how I feel and act. Damn being a psychology student). 

First, my best friend Mia. She affects me a lot I think. She's one of the most central people in my life. If you discount the people I live with, she's the most important. Even including them, she may still be the most influential... hmm. But it's mostly positive. She's one of the best things in my life and I think we have a really healthy friendship. Like, I don't care if I don't see her for a few days and I act totally independent of her (as does she of me) but we both put effort into our friendship and hanging out all the time. She's aggravating to the extreme but you know with some people, you just don't mind? Sure she's always going to be nosy and pushy, but I think what I like most about being with her is the lack of pretense. I am me and she is her and we say what we are thinking, not what sounds best or most interesting or what would keep the conversation going just for the sake of it. I think I know what she's thinking mostly and that's comforting. She speaks her mind and yeah, it's blunt and rude but it's honest and that takes so much stress out of relationships, when you don't have to fight through layers of doubletalk and half truths and 'did she mean that?' If she thinks something I do is weird, I'll know about it but that gives me the ability to defend it. And I'm secure enough that her raised eyebrow doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong. Like, she calls me a hooker half the time if I wear a short skirt or red lipstick. And just this week she told me my black lipstick not only made me look like a hooker but like I had frostbite. Which is probably true but I like it and that makes me confident enough to keep doing it. I think healthy friendship requires a base level of self esteem from both participants, otherwise you have to be too careful about what you say. Not that we aren't considerate of each others triggers I suppose, but I have a lot more leeway with her than I do with friends that'll get upset at everything, or judge-y.

Maybe I was wrong that she influences me a lot... she does I suppose in that I'm more a follower than a leader, and I'm happy to let her take the lead a lot of the time-- which I am learning to be okay with. What's important is that I am totally comfortable asserting myself when I want to, mostly I just don't want to. I prefer to look to her to do the talking. Not that sometimes she won't totally do the 'shove the baby bird out the nest to make it fly' thing to me, because she has a habit of dropping me in it when she thinks I'm lacking assertiveness.

But generally, for an incredibly judge-y person, I'm quite unconcerned about her judgement of me. I care, but I don't feel anxious most of the time that she's thinking negative things. Like, what I wear or how I do my hair or what decisions I make or relationships or choices, she has opinions but doesn't make me second guess or feel bad for being me. I guess that's friendship. And she is my bffl. Today she came over, I wasn't really in the mood but she was just like 'you should come over, or I'll come over, and we'll watch AVPSY (which came out today [!!!!]) and study stats' and I was in my PJ's and wanted to stay in bed and eat junk but I was like 'idk' and she was just like 'fine, be a loner' and I changed my mind and she came over and we spent 4 hours watching it and we had lunch and raised our eyebrows at how each of us made wraps and the contents of my fridge and then she went home to get changed for work and then we both went to work, because we now work together and had the same shift.

Mia is good for me. I'm secure with her because she holds the same place in my life that I hold in hers. Bar the fact that she has a boyfriend which obviously means I'm 2nd, it doesn't mean I'm much less of a priority and I appreciate my role in her life. Same with my friend Megan, I know really well how to be 'best friend' to girls. And guys actually, I do best friend well. Probably because I chose people without many other friends....

And actually, some of those people who consider/ed me their best friend are moving on. Some got into relationships, like my ex, so I'm no longer holding a quarter of the influence I did, but that isn't something that makes me unhappy. It's not that I think I'm a bad person, I'm not, I'm awesome, but I'm not awesome for him, and if I ever was, it was a long time ago. He's not been a priority in my life for a long time so he never got the best of me really...

I think that's what's important about influence, it has to be relatively even or it isn't good for you.

Like, You-Know-Who isn't good for me, because a text in the middle of the night that literally just says 'beep :)' is enough to rattle me. And just as a side note, who texts people randomly after midnight? Inconsiderate people. But let's not dwell.

He influences me because I just straight up care what he thinks and it hurts my feelings if he doesn't like me or anything I do, think or say. A negative passing comment from him tends to rattle around in my brain years later. But it's also just that I think I may do something on the off chance that he'll see, or hear about it, or so I can tell him, even if odds are 100 to 1. I want to impress him as a general rule because to me, what he thinks matters.

That influence is irritating.

Other influences are just everyone. I care too much about what people think of me, even the ones I don't know. I look away when I'm driving and I pull up next to a car with guys in it. I am trying to work on it, because seriously, what is the worst thing that a teenage guy can do to my self esteem from the car next to me, in a 30 second frame of time? It really can't be that bad.

The other type of 'under the influence' I wanted to talk about is the substance kind. Drugs and alcohol.

I'm actually finding myself becoming way more liberal towards to idea of marijuana, which was unexpected. It's not the 'it's natural!' argument that got to me, it's the 'it really isn't that bad for you, not compared to alcohol and smoking and it doesn't kill people and you could always just try it once?' argument. I would need to research it a lot further but yeah. I'm not going to try (at least not in the near future), but I'm just going to stop being so judgmental. Even if people that smoke weed are freaking idiots half the time, because it does fuck up your brain chemistry and make you weird.

Alcohol on the other hand, I really have no problems with. I don't care about people getting messed up from that, in the way of getting smashed and being super hungover, if people want to, why the fuck not? I don't, but it's generally because I'm a heavyweight and alcohol is gross to taste so it involves too much discomfort to get to the nice stage of drunkenness where everything is funnier and you have a nice buzz. I wish I was a lightweight, but what can you do? It doesn't matter, I don't drink socially.

Certainly I've never felt any peer pressure towards drinking or not. When I don't want to drink, I don't. When I do, I do. My friends are a judgmental bunch as a whole, but generally I don't give a fuck what they think about me drinking. Honestly I think they just over exaggerate it. They make it into this devil when it's honestly just... not. It's not a big deal at all. It's a social lubricant, it makes things easier. I'm shy and it makes me less self conscious and it gives me an excuse to be more outgoing (placebo effect anyone?) but it doesn't make me do anything I couldn't do sober.

My family doesn't care how much I drink, they maybe thinks it's weird I don't, but when I have two parents who are pretty liberal with alcohol that is to be expected, and they certainly don't push me either way. To an extent, I'm just comfortable with it because I think it's normal at gathering for everyone to be drinking lots of wine and beers. I raise my eyebrow at families that aren't like that.


Anyways, I just really wanted to finish an entry. Lately I just start a post, then get bored after a few pages and that means my post log is full to the brim with drafts which is frigging annoying. I'll try to finish some of em.