Give several shits, get several shits in return

I'm not necessarily the smartest thing that ever happened.


I can't do math to save my life.

I think the capital city of every east coast province is "Where Anne of Green Gables is From."

I thought Gatineau was the French word for 'cake.'


But there's one thing I have managed to piece together with my mathematically, geographically, and cake-challenged brain: Most people don't give a shit about you as much as you give a shit about them.


Now before we ----


Holy shit. The Trivago guy is hot. Sorry. I hadn't seen that commercial yet. WOW.


Right. So, before we send emergency personnel to my house to see if I'm about to take a bath with my toaster, I'm not. I don't even have a toaster. Bet you feel pretty stupid now, eh?

I don't mean that in a whiny, woe-is-me, please-just-be-my-friend way. I mean it in that factual way that facts are meant. But if you're just going to sit there calling me a mopey bitch, then I guess I'll have to explain it. Even though it's not my fault you're dumb.


Everybody cares about people. Maybe you care about 50 people. Or ten people. Or one people. However many isn't important. Who they are isn't important. Could be your husband or wife or friend or the guy who sits at the next desk at work or the chick at the gas station who seems to notice that a human person is trying to pay her for something or I guess one of your kids or something. Not the nose-picking one. The other one. The point is, you care about those people. You probably think about them once a day or whatever. You wonder how they're doing, what they're up to, if they ever got that weird tooth fixed.

Here's the thing, though -- there's a good chance they're not wondering that same stuff about you. They likely don't give a shit if your tooth is still crooked (mine still are, by the way) or what you watched on TV today or if you did something interesting. They're probably not going to send you a text message asking if you're doing alright when something sucky happens, or come to your house when your boyfriend leaves you because you don't like camping. That actually happened to me, and I was really lucky -- someone came to my house to make sure I was ok. And that moves us along nicely to the next paragraph.

Because, you see, every once in a while something really wonderful happens. You find yourself giving a shit about another person even when they're not around, and it turns out they give a shit about you when you're not around, too. It won't happen often -- and sometimes you'll think it happened, then you'll find out it didn't -- but it will happen.

Over the last six months or so, I've been unlucky enough to find out I'd been wrong a bunch of times when I'd thought it happened. But I also found out that it had happened and I didn't even know it. I've even been kinda mad at myself a few times, because I didn't realize there were people out there wondering about me. I was too busy being all butthurt about the people who didn't wonder about me at all.

If I'd just stepped away from all that "wah wah no one likes me wah wah" bullshit, I would have realized that I have a friend who I can message with for hours about video games who is also very good at cheering me up by giving me ideas of ways I can torture people through the postal system for my own amusement.

I would have realized there's a guy I know who not only gives me endless joy with his smart, funny Facebook posts, but can also say really nice, insightful things that always make me feel better when I'm sad. And who has introduced me to a totally cute, super-smart chick who helped me identify some mushrooms, which was incredibly important to me at the time. (Don't worry -- I didn't eat them. Yet.)

I would have (and now will) made more of an effort to drive a frigging hour (seriously -- it's not that far for Christ's sake) to hang out with someone who literally makes me laugh til I puke a little with some of the most insane, offensive, hilarious text messages I've ever seen.

I would have (and now will) try to spend more time with The Admiral. I mean, how can I seriously hope to fight the oncoming Cylon war without him? He's obviously the brains of the operation, and I'll fly into any battle he tells me to.

Also -- Bingo. Bingo-Dude, we need to Bingo again soon. (That is not a euphemism. I'm just un-cool enough to get excited about Bingo.)

I've been lucky to have some incredibly amazing friends. From those two blonde ones in the suburbs with the hilarious kids to my hetero-lifemate and her wonderful husband headed out to the west coast, I've won some sort of friend lottery. I just wish I'd realized sooner that there were other people I was thinking about who were thinking about me, too.

But I know that now. I know now that they give a shit, and when it comes to friends, it doesn't matter how many you have -- it only matters how hard you give a shit. And I give a shit THE HARDEST.

~~~~~