There was someone who once said to me “We see what we want to see in the words of others”. I never really paid much attention to it when he said it, but today I feel almost entirely certain that can be true.

Here I am doing this whole try to improve my life thing, be a better person, get on with my world….and in the process I seem to be screwing up even more than I used to. Granted in different ways than I used to, but once again I am in the position where I am losing friends.

*sigh*

This one really burns deep too. It’s someone I honestly admired and thought of as an inspiration. The kind of inspiration where they were so good at what they did, that I wanted to try harder at what I did, knowing I would probably never get to the same level of skill as they had, but I could reach my potential in an attempt to reach hers.

I have really gotten into animation recently as a medium to tell stories. Using a program called Poser I have been slowly (sometimes very very slowly) re creating a Machinima film I did last year (and earlier this year). It has been an intense challenge. One of those things where once and a while through my day I think “I have to be crazy to think this is going to actually work. I should just quit now.

But I was obsessed with it. To the point that almost every moment I had when I wasn’t working, I was working on the animation…and man…it is way harder work than what I do for a living, but a million times more satisfying. The world speeds past me as I work on this stuff and I don’t miss it.

It is because of the person I am referring to, that I even felt I could attempt this. She gave me some tips, showed me in the direction of some tutorials was pretty supportive of what I was doing….but most importantly, she was producing art of her own that really made me go “wow….”

I wanted to create something that made people do what I did when I saw her work. I wanted to bust my ass to be even 1 fourth as good as she was at it. And I think I really improved because of that. I did get better and was making serious progress on it. Progress to the point that I threw together a trailer and announced to the world “I’m making this!!”

What happened to reach this point of losing my friend is still kind of a blur to me. I have been working many hours at home and at the job and find myself exhausted at the end of every day, so maybe I missed a key moment, a defining factor that led to this situation.

I was in a regular chat where a few of us hang out. We all met in a online game. While the conversation was going on, she said something about a idea she needed to come up with, or a drawing she was trying to do, or something along those lines. She said it in a way that sounded a bit defeatist….like for some reason she didn’t think she could succeed.
I will never understand that you know….why it seems some of the most talented people in the world are the ones who for some reason think they aren’t very talented, or have anxiety about their talent, or don’t ever think something they did was as good as someone else thinks…..

…….I do it too, but I still don’t get it.

Anyway, I thought I’d try and pick her up a bit, see if I can’t shoot some compliments her way, which is something I have done a lot of to be honest…when she was worried about her grades in school I told her not to worry. When she thought a 3D render she did was no good, I thought it was fantastic and told her….

That was pretty common for us really. There was nothing new about me telling her how good she was at her art.

In this particular case I decided to go overboard, in the hopes that it didn’t just pick up her spirits about whatever she was trying to do, but to maybe get a chuckle out of it too.

I knew the moment after the text left my hands and the enter button was pressed on the keyboard, that I had screwed up somewhere. Here is what I said.

[23:41] <me > that's ok. You're a genius and better than everyone else at what you do so I'm sure it will come to you, being as uber as you are.

As I typed it I thought nothing of it except that it was a compliement. I still look at it today and go “it’s a fucking compliment!!!!” But the first reaction I saw in the chat was….

[23:41] <someone else> o___________O

For those who don’t know that is something that kinda says “what the hell?” or “where did that come from”. So I officially knew at that moment something was being taken wrong in what I said. When she finally responded to it she said this

[23:42] <her> that just looked like it was dripping in sarcasm

At that point I knew I had to explain, it wasn’t coming across well and I need to rectify it before it turns into a thing….keeping in mind that I look at it and, with my history in complimenting her, this wasn’t really different. Maybe because I said Uber? It’s a computer term for awesome, or the best….what the hell?

[23:45] <me> none the less, you are a genius, are better than most at what you do, and you tend to be able to show that without trying to and well when you put that all in computer lingo that'd make you uber...so really it was kinda a compliment

There, that should set things straight. The world will be right again. You can’t get any more straight forward than that!......right?

[23:46] <Her> im sure

.....

.....

At this point I was just lost. What could I possibly do? I’m not going to sit there and try to defend myself, when I had just spelled it out. In that moment everything about our friendship changed…and I still don’t understand why.

I logged into the chat and tried to make myself available in case she wanted to talk about it, but she didn’t. She ignored me, which is all fine and good but she did that ignore me thing like kids do in High School, where they just don’t talk to you but will talk to everyone else around them. They will respond to other people but not to you in the same conversation.

It had been a few days of this, and tonight I was logged into a chat again, hoping there would be an opening, maybe something that would be said where I could get through her wall and talk to her about this. And there was, so I thought. She got her marks back from school…the same marks she was concerned about before where I told her she’d probably done great and shouldn’t worry.

The results? She had done great and shouldn’t have worried. So I said to myself “fuck it. I want to congratulate her. She deserves it and she should be proud of it. My mistake. It obviously was too soon, or not the time…or maybe it never would be the time. But none the less it was what it was.

[23:13] <me> not that you actually care about my opinion, but you should have expected it. You deserve it because you're good.

[23:14] <her> No, not after the other day I really dont care

[23:14] <me> right. after the other day when I was trying to compliment you.

[23:14] <her> Oh come on, im not dense

[23:15] <me> no you're not. but you're wrong about what you think I was saying

[23:15] <me> but like I said, take it anyway you want. I don't have a problem with you, your amazing talent and I never did.

[23:15] <her> Yeah, im not so sure about that.

[23:16] <me> well then there is nothing I can do about that

[23:17] <her> Indeed there isnt.

[23:17] <me> I don't have an issue. I never did.

[23:18] <me> wow

What do you say to that? How do you react to that? How do good intentions turn into something like that?

Someone else told me “there are a lot of people hurt in the name of good intentions”. Guess so, though I thought when he said that he was referring to the person on the other end…not the person with the intentions.

I am hurt. I feel like someone kicked me in the balls and said “ha ha…let me do that again!” and then DID do it again. This was my friend…I thought…..someone who was an inspiration to me to do my very best work, as she did hers. Someone who I looked forward to seeing in the chat at night while I worked on my animations.

What happened to laughing and joking and being insane? What happened to the dry wit that she would throw into the room every night and leave me laughing uncontrollably? And how about those few times I was able to make her laugh as well (I can only assume….when you read “LOL” in a chat room, you assume it means what it was originally intended to mean….(that’s Laugh-Out-Loud for those who have never used the internet and stumbled across this on your first computer as you hoped to find information on Paris Hilton)

The more I think about it, the more I know it has to be something deeper than just that one moment. But when I seek back in my brain I can’t figure out what it is. Things seemed somewhat good……or did they…

Actually when I think about it, things havn’t been great like they used to be since we had done that podcast….the one that I thought was perfectly clear to her I was going to post online for people to listen too….but ended up being one that she was unhappy about me posting.

And the SECOND I knew she was unhappy about it, I removed it. That has to count for something. It was a misunderstanding, where I thought she understood….I had said it actually, and she had no protest….until it actually went online….

But yeah, now that I think about it, things really did change in our friendship at that point, but she never talked to me about it, never expressed anything being wrong….I even tried to confront her once about it and was assured it was all in my imagination….

Maybe, there was something from before that caused her to read something into my comments that wasn’t what I meant? Perhaps she has been unhappy with me for some time and was just waiting for the excuse to justify shutting the door in my face…the small door, with the low handle that crushed my balls on the way out…..

I don’t know. I might never know. I can hope that she’ll take a step and talk to me about this stuff…..but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Regardless, she remains one of the most talented people I have ever known. I don’t really care about all that other shit when it comes to that. That is honest. She is a genius and good things are going to come for her if she wants them to. I’ll always do nothing but wish her the best with it and have confidence she will be a success.

Meanwhile though, I can’t bear dealing with it right now. I have enough going on to worry about….sorting out my inner me, working on my animation, looking at school, trying to re-build a non existent social life….I can’t add someone I admire hating me to the list right now.

So I’ll stay out of chats, stay out of the game, give her the space she obviously desires to have from me, and take the space I need to try and move forward, without obsessing about it. It’ll never sit right with me the way things went with this. I can honestly say I still don’t understand

Time heals all wounds, they say, but I’d rather someone show me the wound I am not aware of and let me help them mend it. I finished high school years ago…I’m not interested in those kind of solutions anymore. Once upon a time people talked about things. Now we just live from one misunderstanding to another and only the strong survive.

Now….back to trying to make myself strong.