You do you; I'll do me

Much has been written about Jesus' golden rule.  His rule was "Treat others as you would like to be treated." Variations include Confucius, "Do not do on to others as you would not want them to do to you."  Even in modern terms, "Turn about is fair play" seems to be referencing this age old rule.  To me, though, the golden rule doesn't encompass everything.  It assumes that everyone has the same likes and dislikes.  For instance, I want to be left alone.  Most people like to constantly have people around.  These people, following the golden rule, will see someone sitting by themselves and come over to talk to them so they have company.  If we believe they are following the golden rule, they do this because they would want someone to do it for them.  Me, if I'm alone, I don't want a complete stranger to come up to me so that person is now bothering me even though he followed the golden rule.

Here is my creed, "You do you, I'll do me."  Unlike the golden rule, I need to explain it.  I have noticed that those I considered my closest friends are obsessed, and I'm using that term to the fullest power, with telling me how to live my life.  Most notably, the way I dress, it's always the same motto to sell out to the corporate world because you'll be homeless if you don't.  Yes, I dress up to go to work, but I'm not going to get fired if I'm dressed casually outside of work.  They, in a sense, are trying to break me.  When I was younger, this was amusing bordering on cute, then I got into my 20s and it started getting annoying, now it's just trite.  The thing is, unlike drugs, the more you say no, they louder and more obsessed they become.  How is this like drugs?  Well, in high school when people would offer me drugs, I'd say no.  They then harassed me and after a while they would use the phrase, "Come on, I want to be the first one to get Larry to do drugs."  It's amazing how many people begged me for that privilege.  They all failed however.  In college and beyond when people offered me drugs and I said "no" they responded, "Cool, more for me."  I like that creed MUCH better!  I don't mind if people do drugs around me, I just won't partake.  I didn't realize it, but I was living by, "You do you and I do me."  If you want to do drugs, I'm not going to stop you but I will not do them with you."

My last example is sex.  My closest friends are obsessed with me having sex and hate that I'm asexual.  Two of them planned a trip to Amsterdam and offered to buy me a prostitute just so I could have sex.  I went to Amsterdam and declined.  A year or two later, another person, who doesn't associate with the first two, decided to have an overnight layover in Amsterdam on our way to Berlin.  She didn't tell me this till after the trip but the overnight layover was not to save money but she wanted to buy me a prostitute.  Due to her missing the flight, she never got the chance.  That makes three people who spent hundreds of dollars to go to Amsterdam specifically to get me to have sex.  I can't grasp this mentality.  Now that I'm in my 30s, the persistence has reached a yelling, fever pitch.  To which, I finally had to ask, "Why do you care?" Most of the time the answer is, "Because I want you to see how great it can be."  When I press it further, they can't elaborate.  I am not telling them not to have sex, I just don't want to.  They have been adamant that they would not have sex with me, so they're not propositioning me.  Why does something that objectively doesn't affect them at all mean so much to them?  The only thing I can think of is, they really are trying to break me.  In which case, I need to evaluate who I consider my closest friends.

As I had gone through a gauntlet with these friends, I had lunch with a friend of mine.  We are not extremely close, she will readily admit she merely tolerates me, which is fine by me.  We were discussing marriage and my desire not to get married.  We then talked hypothetically about if I were to get married, what type of person would I want.  One of the first things I said was, "Well, you're not going to like this, but she would have to be Greek."

     She interrupted, "Why would I care about that?"

      "Well because you may think I'm being elitist"

      "No, if you said that I could only marry Greek, I'd be like 'whoa, you have no right to tell me that."

      I glared at her because it makes absolutely no sense to me why I would ever say that to her.  The reason I would want to marry Greek is because being Greek is such a large part of who I am and you would have to be Greek to understand me fully.   Since she is not Greek, this is irrelevant to her in choosing her mate.  Then it dawned on me what she was actually saying.  "With regard to marriage, you marry who you want, and I'll marry who I want, as your choice doesn't affect me at all."   Damn, if only my closest friends were as understanding as the people that merely tolerate me.

After all this, it has occurred to me that if you're ever around someone that is loudly and obsessively pleading for you to live your life to do something that has absolutely no affect on them whatsoever, then that person is merely looking at you as a strong willed person and looking to break you since they are broken themselves and can't stand someone with the audacity to do what they want, even if society is against them.  These are people that you certainly shouldn't consider your closest friends.  When your being yelled at, just ask, "Why do they care?" if you can't think of a reason; run

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