"I'm sick of this...everything!" I flail my arms wildly about me, hoping to convey the enormity of my dissatisfaction. I pause to look at the expression on her face -- "Perhaps you haven't had enough to drink?" it seems to say. There is truth in this, I suppose. I am rarely this agitated when drunk.
I don't know a goddamned person in here, and it bothers me. Strangers coming in from the street, every fucking night. EVERY FUCKING NIGHT! Drinking my booze...drinking her booze! Those fuckers! Those...FUCK! Damn it, it's not even my booze and I'm mad! I don't have a fucking right to be mad and I'M MAD! See how stupid this makes me? Everytime I come to this screwed up, retarded-ass town I end up going home feeling like a piece of shit. What the hell am I doing here, acting nice, being so accomodating to a mob of drunken leeches? When did my friendship become so cheap? A few empty compliments, some drunken adulations and suddenly I'm YOURS. Oh yeah. I'll whip you up something real nice. Get you stumblefucked, send you home and you won't remember a goddamned thing in the morning because that's how good I am. That's how good I've gotten at this...thing...whatever the fuck it is I'm doing.
Socializing. Fuck that shit! I fucking hate that word.
She's looking at you weird, you know. Calm down. Jesus.
Breathe...OK?
Okay. Start over, go back to the beginning. Remember how I got started? I got into this to make friends. In high school, I mean, I was shy. It was hard for me to approach people because I was awkward and kinda goofy. Had self-esteem issues, never thought I had anything worth saying. Couldn't socially vibe. Somehow it dawned on me that nobody could care less what you say so long as you put a glass of alcohol in their hand. You become their hero.
For me, discovering alcohol was like Prince Adam discovering the sword that transformed him into He-Man. Everytime a bottle touched my hand it was like I had The Power™. I wielded some sort of magic, a way to make me more appealing, or at least appear less conscious of my inadequacies.
My brother was a bartender back then. Cool guy, everyone loved him. He bought me my first shaker and taught me how to make proper martinis. It was the summer after my senior year in high school that I really began to make use of the skills he taught me. Weekend nights I would drive around town looking for parties and I'd crash them. I'd roll up to stranger's homes with a case of alcohol and a bag of dixie cups and head straight to the kitchen. Nobody ever turned me away. I suppose they assumed I belonged there because I acted like it. And they'd be fools to refuse free booze. Free good booze.
I never stayed for more than half an hour. In and out in 30 minutes and on to the next party. I was careful never to say goodbye -- just pack up and disappear like there was some pressing emergency. Word eventually got around. To hear that there was an alcoholic equivalent of the Tooth Fairy running about, and that he might come to YOUR next shitty party, it got people excited. Sometimes I'd walk up to doors and they'd open without me knocking. Inside, I'd find grown men and women, their glazey eyes all lit up like kids who just saw Santa's jolly fat ass. It made me well with pride.
And it continued all through college. All the things I wish I had done in high school I did here. Parties began to find me. Hordes of familiar and unfamiliar faces would find themselves at my house in the middle of the week. Complete and utter debauchery soon followed. Not a shot had gone untaken, nor a glass had gone unspilled, nor a booty gone untapped. In the center of it all I seemed to float, subject to the whims of the masses, bottles in each hand held aloft like buoys in a sea of drunken heads. And I enjoyed it immensely.
But I settled into the role. And therein lies my mistake. In my zeal to become the Man of The Hour, I've lost the ability to make friends. It sounds stupid but it's true. I can no longer fulfill any capacity other than the guy who makes tasty drinks. Take away my shaker and liquors and suddenly I'm left without an identity. I'm completely incapable of pursuing anything meaningful out of the tenuous relationships I create, night after night. The connections I've made, while several, are frail and delicate. Mere spiderwebs. I'm now surrounded by strangers and acquaintences and remember-me-from's and I'm just so tired. How well do I know the people I consider friends, the people I met this way? Even you -- whom I adore -- you're still a stranger to me. Tell me everything you know about me and it amounts to nothing. Ask me what I know of you and it's even less. And this breaks my heart.