Impossible Altruism

Photo by: Ian L freerangestock.com

Mike Birbiglia is an outstanding comedian. I put him at my personal top with Hannibal Buress and Louis C.K. He's not so much a comedian as a storyteller really. A friggin funny story teller. I first heard him on an episode of This American Life on NPR. Wow. It's one of those times where you sit in a parked car and wait for the story to end. You say to yourself, “Screw it, I'll just be late to wherever it I gotta be.”

One of his routines has a bit about being a “good guy”, about not being creepy.  The gist is this: not being a horrible person isn't enough to make you a good person.

I don't really have many regrets in my life. There was the horrid way I acted to my band director ( Will write on that another time), how I broke up with my first girlfriend  ( Will also write on that in future) , and making fun of my Spanish teacher in a shameful way (once again, I will write on this in future).

I can normally justify my actions. Sometimes bad decisions are okay, if you learn and grow. This is a moment I regret. But surprisingly for purely selfish reasons. I learned, but didn't really grow. More like realized something about myself that I wish was still unseen.

There was this girl in high school who, for whatever reason, really fancied me. Sarah, on more than a few occasions, asked mutual friends to ask me to ask her out. Every time I politely rebuffed those requests. We were both members of the International Thespian Society (ITS). Other than that we had nothing in common.  No classes, not even the same grade. I was always friendly with her though. Even after turning her down practically weekly. I was a good guy and did not want people to dislike me. I was pretty vanilla.

To this day I am the same way pretty much. I don't really give people reasons to dislike me. At the same time, I don't give them a reason to like me either, I'm just friendly and inoffensive. Not THAT likable.  Not creepy. I'm just sort of there.  "Meh".  Outside a small circle of family and friends, I'm kind of invisible.  But at least I'm a good guy.

The internet was still fledgling when I was in high school. Online commerce was in its infancy. The dot com bubble still a few years away from bursting. Yahoo! was a community and the search engine of choice. AOL had your mail and Amazon was a book store. A lot of us with computers and a 56k modem used an instant messenger program (back then we didn't call them apps) called ICQ. 

The ICQ logo

This was a precursor to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). I'm not sure what the kids use now. Something on their phone I'm sure. Whatever the latest app craze is. Kik? Skype?

One evening I was chatting on ICQ with a high school friend. Not really a friend, more like a buddy. A buddy is somewhere in between acquaintance and a friend You are social with a buddy. Chat with a buddy. You don't share secrets with a buddy. People have tons of buddies. You really only have a few real friends. Friends are people that choose to be family. They don't have to be family. Friends are valuable, they are precious.

My buddy Kim and I were chatting one evening on ICQ about whatever, I don't remember. She mentioned something about Sarah and her boyfriend from another town. I replied to that with, “It's got a boyfriend?”

The screen didn't change, was virtual silence. A moment later, I was treated to this gem, “LMFAO! Sarah is here!”

I'm exposed.

Honesty. The true person that you are is how you act when nobody is there to see you. The internet emboldened me and I let my guard down. I forgot the line that separates buddy from friend. A friend would tell you somebody is there before you talk about them. Kim screwed me over.

“That looks bad, I meant ITS, not it's!” This was before auto-correct on smart-phones. Had auto-correct been around back then, my excuse would have been believable, had it made any fucking sense. But it didn't exist yet, and it made no sense.

“She already left lol.”

I was ashamed. I felt so bad. What's pathetic is that I didn't feel shame for hurting her feelings. I wasn't ashamed for implying that a teenage girl that constantly put herself out there for rejection was an "it". An it is subhuman.  And it isn't a person.  I was ashamed that I dropped my guard. Ashamed that I was not a good guy. And I was ashamed of the reason I was ashamed.

I never apologized. I avoided her for a while. Fact is, I don't even really know if she had a boyfriend. Like that's even important. Hell, I don't even know if she was even actually there. Maybe Kim was screwing with me. I assume it was all true though. I felt I wronged myself. I never really looked at it as hurting somebody else. 

It's been like 17 years, literally half my life since.

I suppose I could look her up and reach out across social media. But what's the point of that? Surely she's moved on. Surely Sarah doesn't even remember. And if she does remember, what if she sees right through me? I wouldn't be apologizing for how I made her feel. Not even to make her feel better. IT would be to make me feel better. I made myself feel rotten. It would be about me. And that's none of her business.  Maybe that lifelong shame is punishment enough?  Or would the actual punishment be the personal confession?  If that's the case, I prefer denying justice.

I've always been concerned about being perceived as a good guy. A good guy is not the same as a good person. A good guy can be a front. Putting up appearances. It's about being able to be counted on so people KNOW you're a good guy. It's not always sincere. It's something you could put on a resume or have somebody call you if they are your reference. It's generic for: this guy won't steal your shit or sleep with your woman.

When applying for colleges, I never did the whole volunteer work thing. It's common knowledge that doing good, wholesome extra-curricular stuff can put you over the top. But I figured (and still believe) that an admissions person would see right through an applicant that all of the sudden works in a soup kitchen her senior year of High School. It's not necessarily about service, it's about what that service can get you. Often times, in my view, it's phony. Good deeds shouldn't get you into college, sincere long term commitment is what should get you there. This isn't to say that good deeds, despite their motives, isn't a blessing. Certainly they are. That don't make you a saint though. It makes you a conduit for a system.

Being a good person is legitimately hard. True selfless acts with the possibility of going unrewarded, unrecognized. That's the work of a good person. Truly genuinely altruistic.  Surely that is a rare thing. It's worth wanting to be, even if for selfish reasons.

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Myself and my brother. Don't have a lot of pics of myself in this time period. 1999

If I had to pick a song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be...