I went out and got drunk. Happily, wonderfully drunk. Not so schwasted to the point where I needed to hurl every time I smelled meat, but enough that I was happily giggling by the end of the night even as my friends lead me to a bar I’d never been to along streets I don’t ever remember walking .
(I actually ran into one of my exes then. He was pretty tipsy and reaching for another drink like every other guy at the place. He said hi and we might’ve laughed over something that I guess didn’t mean much since I don’t remember it.)
We drank, I smoked a nasty cigarette, and had a pretty ok time. At the end of the night, I rolled out with a childhood friend, Cue*. On the ride home, with an eye out for the Lunar Eclipse that some hoped would grant us superpowers a la Heroes, we talked about our friends and, more controversially, the pasts of those friends.
I don’t think people can change. I think that we are just inherently born a certain way and, as we get older, society starts expecting things from us and so we adapt; we develop social mechanisms so we can function with other human beings. A little psychobabble and a bit of my own philosophy has made me believe that there’s only so much of us that we can change. Altering how we act takes a bit of self-control, but altering how we think is just a smidge above “impossible.”
Everyone’s got their fair share of baggage, and it’s probably accurate to say that you aren’t the same person you were 5 years ago. But there are undoubtedly some things that have not changed in your routine; you still leave the seat up, you mix your ketchup with your mayonnaise, you run at 6 am every day, etc. Everyone’s got a few things in their lives, in their minds, that they just can’t or won’t change.
Cue and I had a long conversation about those things (it was a long ride). We argued if those things in people’s pasts mattered in who they were today.
I say yes, that because if it wasn’t for the things that happened to you before, you couldn’t be the person you are today. It’s like coming into a TV series after three seasons; the little nuances and moments lose so much meaning because you don’t know where they come from.
Conversely, Cue suggested that much of the past doesn’t matter if you’re just having a casual relationship with another person, that the important facts and issues shouldn’t have to be up-front and on the table unless you’re actually invested in more than a friendship with them. After all, should everyone be defined simply by the things they’ve done in their past?
(Personally, I say “yes” since you can’t really escape what you’ve done short of developing amnesia or Alzheimer’s and even those scenarios don’t completely absolve you of your previous actions)
Then we got to the gritty part: If you know something about someone’s past, something damaging, something dangerous, then don’t you have a responsibility to make sure people know of it?
I’m not talking about sexual predators – they’ve got websites for that.
I’m referring purely in the social setting sense: Like, if you know the girl dating your friend was actually a guy about six months ago, or if you knew your sister’s new boyfriend once put a girl in the hospital for leaving a wet towel on the bed, stuff like that. Cue insisted that, if you’re entering a relationship with someone, they should be the ones to tell those little details, not some outside, third party. There are a fair share of advice columnist that also say that those kinds of things shouldn’t be shared in the first few dates until you’ve actually hooked someone into a relationship with you since it’s supposedly more important to show them the reasons why they should stay with you, as opposed to showing them what they’re really buying into.
After all, you ride the pony you get at your birthday party, not watch poop fall out of its butt.
Or something like that…
Still, I maintain that it’s imperative to know someone’s past when you want to have a future with them, however long you wish it to be. Perhaps this is an outdated way of thinking, as not every person enters a relationship for the purpose of finding a spouse, in which case, who gives a crap about their childhood when you just want a one-night stand. But it’s only fair, I think, to know what you’re walking into. Roads have signs warning you of deer, parks have brochures telling you how to deal with wild bears; shouldn’t relationships come with some kind of flashing yellow light? And if you know that troubles lie ahead, don’t you have some kind of responsibility to hold up a flashing neon sign for the people you care about; the people you want to protect from what you know they’re about to walk into?
The 13-year-old in me argues that there’s a fine line between being cautious and having faith. I used to fight with my parents fervently about the people I hung out with, the places I used to go and the events I used to attend. They insisted it wasn’t me, just that they didn’t trust the crowd I would surround myself with. Of course, I asserted that they should trust me and my own judgment.
Then again, I was 13-years-old, and logic doesn’t work well with teenagers…or infatuated people. So really, I guess the really dilemma is, warn your friend and risk their wrath or don’t warn your friend and risk them hating you when the truth comes out.
I’ve personally been a victim of the latter and, I gotta say, it did a lot more damage than it would’ve had my friend gone with the first option. So maybe I’m just a little biased.
Just a little of course.
*name changed even though this one is blatantly obvious...
Written 12/23/10
