The last of May
Tuesday, 31 May 2016 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59"Forget Enemies; The Guy Didn't Have Friends!"*
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I've written about this before, but now I have a TV show to use to illustrate my point!
Growing up, I watched The Andy Griffith Show. By the time I was a teenager, I'd developed an aversion to it, and when Pat and I got together, it was something we talked about. (We talked about a lot of TV shows, it was one of the things we had in common. She thought Andy was a terrible father, but that's not what I'm here to write about.)
My aversion to the show started with a dislike of Barney. I didn't find him funny. Like Ted Baxter, he was incompetent and arrogant, but he was presented in such a way that I understood I was expected to like him. It left me frustrated with the people who made the show.
But as I got older, I realized the one I really, really disliked was Andy.
Sure, Andy seems like a nice guy. He's the opposite of Barney: competent and self-effacing. While we're supposed to like Barney because he's funny, we're supposed to like Andy because he's a good guy.
Only he's not.
Andy uses his knowledge of Barney's flaws to ridicule him. I don't like Barney, so I don't want to spend time with him, but Barney is supposed to be Andy's best friend. I don't like Barney, but I wouldn't treat him the way Andy does.
The basic set-up of a "Barney acts like an idiot" episode is: Barney gets himself in trouble and Andy rides to the rescue. What we're supposed to take from this is what a great friend Andy is, helping out his good friend.
That is not the message I get. What I get is, this is a guy who will only be nice to you when you're in trouble.
Which is where we get to my weird philosophy.
It has been my experience that most people will be kind to you when things are going wrong. If I walked into the grocery crying, strangers would ask if I was all right, and some of them would listen while I rambled about my mother and how lost I feel.
What's hard to come by is a friend who will listen with interest when you talk about some obscure thing that you just love.
After Pat died, there was no shortage of people who were more than willing to sympathize, but finding someone who just wanted to be my friend and have fun with me was nearly impossible. I got sympathy cards and flowers from people who wouldn't talk to me for two minutes unless I was crying and going on about missing Pat. I actually got a card from someone who had told me that my bad housekeeping was killing Pat. (I was afraid to open it; I was expecting her to tell me I'd murdered Pat. But, no.)
What I craved was some way of getting out of my own head, someone to play with, but apparently that wasn't allowed. Or I wasn't fun enough. Or something.
And it'll happen again. My mother will die, and people who don't want me in their lives will kindly send me their condolences. What the fuck do I want with their condolences? Am I crazy, or is this just cruel?
*Phil Guardino
-:- -:- -:- -:-
I've written about this before, but now I have a TV show to use to illustrate my point!
Growing up, I watched The Andy Griffith Show. By the time I was a teenager, I'd developed an aversion to it, and when Pat and I got together, it was something we talked about. (We talked about a lot of TV shows, it was one of the things we had in common. She thought Andy was a terrible father, but that's not what I'm here to write about.)
My aversion to the show started with a dislike of Barney. I didn't find him funny. Like Ted Baxter, he was incompetent and arrogant, but he was presented in such a way that I understood I was expected to like him. It left me frustrated with the people who made the show.
But as I got older, I realized the one I really, really disliked was Andy.
Sure, Andy seems like a nice guy. He's the opposite of Barney: competent and self-effacing. While we're supposed to like Barney because he's funny, we're supposed to like Andy because he's a good guy.
Only he's not.
Andy uses his knowledge of Barney's flaws to ridicule him. I don't like Barney, so I don't want to spend time with him, but Barney is supposed to be Andy's best friend. I don't like Barney, but I wouldn't treat him the way Andy does.
The basic set-up of a "Barney acts like an idiot" episode is: Barney gets himself in trouble and Andy rides to the rescue. What we're supposed to take from this is what a great friend Andy is, helping out his good friend.
That is not the message I get. What I get is, this is a guy who will only be nice to you when you're in trouble.
Which is where we get to my weird philosophy.
It has been my experience that most people will be kind to you when things are going wrong. If I walked into the grocery crying, strangers would ask if I was all right, and some of them would listen while I rambled about my mother and how lost I feel.
What's hard to come by is a friend who will listen with interest when you talk about some obscure thing that you just love.
After Pat died, there was no shortage of people who were more than willing to sympathize, but finding someone who just wanted to be my friend and have fun with me was nearly impossible. I got sympathy cards and flowers from people who wouldn't talk to me for two minutes unless I was crying and going on about missing Pat. I actually got a card from someone who had told me that my bad housekeeping was killing Pat. (I was afraid to open it; I was expecting her to tell me I'd murdered Pat. But, no.)
What I craved was some way of getting out of my own head, someone to play with, but apparently that wasn't allowed. Or I wasn't fun enough. Or something.
And it'll happen again. My mother will die, and people who don't want me in their lives will kindly send me their condolences. What the fuck do I want with their condolences? Am I crazy, or is this just cruel?
*Phil Guardino