TeknoJunkie’s Aman Fahimullah Plagiarizes Articles

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The Class Divide

Class, I feel, is one of those touchy subjects like religion and politics that people just don’t want to talk about openly. They believe that just thinking about ideas of class are insensitive and shallow. Or, they choose to deny the concept outrightly, believing that the borders are so blurred that social class hardly, if no longer, exists (sadly, I find people in this category to be of higher income levels than the majority).

The boundaries that previously defined social class blurred over the history of America, making it harder than ever to decipher between the rich and the poor at face value. It seems anyone can get a cellphone now a days and televisions and music players, even computers are becoming more affordable – all items once only attainable by the relatively wealthy. But why would any righteous person ever want to make that distinction? What difference does it make whether a person is lower, middle or upper class since it doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) affect how we treat each other?

Class, for me, does not and will never make a difference in how I treat a person. In general I strive to be kind and courteous to anyone and everyone willing to be a part of my life. But I would be lying to say that I have never consciously assessed a persons class when talking to or thinking about them, even for a split second. As a gay man, judging is sort of in my nature. From the clothes people wear to the cars they drive, I discern (or what I like to call mentally assessing and constructively criticizing) almost everything. It’s called having eyes.

I hope those of you reading this don’t kid yourself and say that the same hasn’t happened to you. At least I’m being honest. And I believe it is this fear, the fear that making a mental distinction between classes and treating people from different classes differently is one in the same, that keeps any dialogue about the subject hush-hush.

For me, now more than ever, socioeconomic identities, and their accompanying pressures, have been rearing their ugly presences in my face. It’s not like I hadn’t seen these lines before. I always lived in certain parts of my hometown of Harlingen while the wealthier residents lived in Treasure Hills or Palm Valley Country Club. As a child, I lived off Mac n’ Cheese and Ramen and at times discovered first hand what food stamps looked like. Now I live some what comfortably with certain superficial amenities and possessions with my father and his stable, blue collar income. I have family members wealthier than me and poorer than me and I’ve been to all of their houses. I’ve seen both the upper crust sections of the east and west coasts, as well as the ghettos in the cities and the South. But just as the class lines have blurred, this blurring has affected my comfortableness with my life.

A few months ago, I worried myself sick about not having some very much needed health insurance, so as to see a few clinicians that I needed to see, a scenario that I doubt and don’t hope most middle income families have to face. I don’t own a vehicle, even a shitty used one, and I doubt in the future I can ever count on my parents on helping me with my first down payment on a house. My father strains every day to pay for my college education while supporting an extremely dysfunctional family of four. And I’m not the only one affected.

My best friend since the first grade just got his girlfriend pregnant after only six weeks of going out with her (meaning they sure didn’t wait long when they got together) and they’re not even married. My other best friend Cano, a kid that lives in the projects, failed most of his college exams this semester because he was too enticed to skip his classes (payed for by tax payers) for the ‘free’ Internet the library at the school provides. In fact, at this very moment, he’s using the Internet on my cell phone right now. Other friends of mine are dropping out of college like flies.

It seems like the American Dream, the dream of being able to “make something of yourself” by equal or open opportunity is becoming increasingly difficult – income mobility they call it. And although it may be that the rich have it better in almost all walks of life, I understand that life can only be so fair and that hopefully, if I try hard enough, I can make it too, out of the rags and into the riches. And just so you know, my rags are from Target.

Note: If you’re curious, I was inspired to write this entry after reading this archived article from the New York Times. I provided the link below, along with an interactive graphic where you can input some simple pieces of data to see where you fit in America’s socioeconomic classes, if you’re curious.

Shadowy Lines That Still Divide – New York Times

Graphic: How Class Works – New York Times

Are you a Texas mother with problems?

Take out your angst by killing your kids. You’ll get off scot-free. Promise.

Digg Labs

So, I just wanted to talk about one of the links near the bottom of my side bar under the ‘webware’ category. It’s called Digg.

Digg is a user based community that submits and votes on different stories, pics, videos – anything with a URL – and compiles them all into one cohesive website. In real world terms, it’s a site where you can see up to the minute tech info, news and oddities with a rating/voting system so you don’t have to waste your time surfing the big wide messy world of the Internet for popular tidbits. That’s cool. But what’s even cooler is what the people at Digg Labs have come out with.

The picture below shows one of Digg Labs three projects. This one is called Stack. It’s one of three different graphical interfaces that you can use to see content posted on Digg. Blocks fall from the top of the screen every time a person votes on, or “Diggs”, a story on Digg.com – in real time. The taller the stack gets means that people just like you are currently viewing those specific stories, signifying their popularity. The greener the stacks means that they are popular in general, and not just at that very moment. Both means you better be checking whatever that story is, if you haven’t.

I seriously recommend trying out Digg Labs Stack, or one of the other two projects, Swarm and Bigspy. It’ll be worth your while.

Did you mean he invented?

Re: Is it worth going to college?

This is a response to a post I read on a person’s blog I found via 9rules.

 

I can understand your argument in that it is now easier than ever to learn in today’s society with the variety of resources at hand like bookstores, libraries and the Internet. One of the things some people fail to realize is that universities offer a lot more than just a piece of paper.

 

The availability and quantities of the books in their libraries is vast as is the variety and specialty of said books – one of a kind, out of print and limited published ones. A lot of universities also offer subscriptions to several scholarly journals and article resources that offer specialized, in depth content for a multitude of subject areas. The average person may not be able to access unless they wanted to pay a high premium for them.

 

Also, since intellectual prowess is a very relative and subjective matter, it can become very difficult and inefficient for employers to assess how competent a person is without a standard rubric for comparison. You would have to take an applicants word for it. Plus, you learn so much more when you’re surrounded by and competing with people of similar or higher intellectual levels. You share ideas. You learn from one another. It’s the same concept of playing tennis with someone that is better than you to get better.

 

This is why there is such a high demand to matriculate into today’s leading universities – the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, etc. These universities have a history of admitting the best and brightest, so even if you performed moderately to poorly at these places, some companies will turn a blind eye to your GPA because they know it probably took a lot of effort just to get in. Either that or money.

 

Plus, learning and competency is more than just reading. It’s more comprehensive than that. It’s reading and application. It’s books and hands-on education. I doubt every university has a linear particle accelerator. Or a genomics lab. And even if you were considering fields other than the sciences and engineering, many of the professors are experts and leaders in their respective fields. It’s very interesting to take a class where the book you learn from is written by the professor lecturing right in front of you. This leads me to my last claim.

 

College is an experience. You get to meet people from different parts of the globe with a variety of interests and cultures all in one place. You get to share ideas. You get to debate over issues – engage in dialogue. And because of this, you get to meet some pretty amazing people. I met one of the civil engineers of the World Trade Center give an open lecture about why skyscrapers can’t be built to sustain airplane impact. I heard Bill Gates talk about the Internet and technology’s role in the future. I heard Merryl Streep talk about acting and heard Steve Martin read some of his prose. I even saw Sarah Silverman do some pretty funny standup.

 

It is sad, at least for American universities, that a lot of colleges have turned into very expensive daycares for twenty-somethings. Alcohol, drugs and apathy have flooded the college system. And a lot of the lower branches of public universities as well as some of the technical/community colleges spend half of their time teaching remedial education rather than college level. But it’s not always like this. Not if you know where to look (attend).

 

This is my argument for why college is still viable and ultimately worth it. If you still think otherwise, if you feel that my description of a university isn’t the description of yours or what you feel it is, then maybe you should have tried harder in public/private secondary school so that you could have been accepted to and attended a good university. Sorry if this contradicts your feelings towards “the establishment” and notions of conformity but, to me, those are just excuses for not trying and laziness. If you really want create change, bring the establishment down from the inside.

Photo Exhibition, circa 2006

So, I know it’s been a while, but I just wanted to make this it’s own post.

In late Fall I had a photo exhibition at the Lucas Art Gallery at Princeton to show off some photographic works of mine. The collection as a whole is fluid and there are a few “greenies” in the batch. However, as most artists feel about their own work, it definitely isn’t up to my personal expectations. I’m capable of better photography. Either way, I figured I should let people see it that didn’t get a chance to fly to Princeton to come for opening night.

Enjoy.

Modern Elements

Hello WordPress

It’s been great having a reliable and free space online to hold my thoughts on LiveJournal. It’s been great being able to peer into the lives of my friends that blog there, with everyone’s posts collected and organized into one simple ‘friends’ page. And it’s been great meeting people from all over Texas and the United States through it’s wonderful means of online communication. In fact, if it weren’t for LiveJournal, I wouldn’t be going out with Stephen today.

 

But I think one of the main reasons I stuck with Livejournal all these years was because everyone else had one and it’s all I’ve known for quite a while. It’s the same reason I still have a Myspace (kinda of), but I’ll save Myspace babble for another post. There wasn’t a good enough reason for me to leave el-jay, as much as I wanted to.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I like the fact that it’s free, like email, but I hate the fact that it looks so shitty. It has no real design and looks like how the internet looked back in the early days using basic html – like those crappy websites you made in that computer class you had to take in public school.

 

But everyone was on it. And it was free. The only way you could’ve gotten a well-designed, easily customizable blog back in the day was to pay for it.

 

There was a point in my life where I actually imagined getting one of those fancy paid accounts through Six Apart’s TypePad for serious bloggers, professionals or for those who wanted more than their current weblog service. They were well designed yet left enough room for creative freedom. I thought about paying 100, even 150 dollars a year just to get a group account that could host an unlimited amount of blogs by an unlimited amount of users. I would invite all my friends that had blogs to join me, possibly arranging some way for them to help me with the tab, if they wanted to. But I knew that would’ve been too complicated. Even now switching over to any blog is complicated, if you want to move all your older entries over anyways.

 

But times have changed. LiveJournal isn’t the only good, free weblog service out there anymore. Sure, there was always Xanga. Sure, Myspace has its bulletins and Facebook has its notes (of which this blog is linked to btw). But now there’s a new league of blogging experiences – Blogger and WordPress, both of which offer a variety of interesting functions, design schemes and other knicks and knacks that most people didn’t think. For instance, on Blogger you can add Google AdSense on your blog to earn revenue or post entries straight from your cell phone. And on WordPress you can add categories to your posts to link entries with similar themes, and it also has built in blog stats and a spam blocker.

 

It’s all a matter of preference I guess, but the main reason I chose WordPress over Blogger was because you can import your old journal entries (saved as XML files) into your WordPress blog. No copying and pasting. No redating, etc. Lucky you if you’re a PC user, because there’s a handy little desktop application called ljArchive, which can export all of your journal entries to your computer into one big XML file that you can import into WordPress. Blogger.com has yet to add an import feature and was the main reason why I chose WordPress over Blogger. I, on the other hand, took the more difficult route, and downloaded every month in which I had made a post from LiveJournal, named and saved it into a folder and then uploaded the files one by one to WordPress. I was that stubborn.

 

I could have started WordPress anew. I didn’t have to move all my posts. I could have left my adolescence and my teenage angst, my emotional rants and mutilated usage of the English language, to live (and die) on LiveJournal. But I didn’t. I’m not ashamed of my past, as good or bad things may or may not have been. I don’t want to forget it. And more importantly, I don’t want to be forgotten either.

 

After living life up to where it is now, I’ve come to realize that life is too short, and too small for most people. There are 6.5 billion people living on this earth, and that number keeps climbing. I’ve been to a lot of places across the country and seen the people there. Who am I in this sea of people? Am I nobody? I certainly don’t want to be nobody. I don’t want to drink or smoke or drug abuse or idle my life away. I want to be somebody. Someone remembered, even if it’s only by a select few. But I hope it’s more than that.

 

That’s why I have made a WordPress account and moved my blog to this web service. If people really care about me or want to know the goings-on in my life, then they’ll come and read this blog, in the same sense that people look at individual Myspaces and Facebooks. I would treat people I cared about the same way. It may be a little unorthodox, but sometimes change is good. I feel that sometimes people don’t like to change the way they live because they are comfortable with how their lives are currently and don’t want to find that something that could make their life better or easier. Sometimes, people even know of these different ways that are available to them, that can change their lives for the better, but don’t want to put the effort into trying them out, into changing.

 

I don’t expect everyone to follow my suit. But I do encourage it. If not WordPress then something else that is better suited (and better in general) for your needs.

 

P.S. – If you need help saving/moving journal files, just email me.

Happy “Anniversary” Lisa

Because I’m your nephew of which you almost consider as your son, I want to be able to tell you exactly what I think about your current situation, without any lying or sugar coating, in this open forum of feelings in which friends can give you support and relate.

I find it surprising to know that you’ve always been in a long-term relationship since junior high school. Well, not really. I know that you’re my Lisa (one hot bitch), but I do find it a bit odd that there have not been any large gaps in between them. Sort of. I don’t know.

I may not be an expert in relationships, as a 19-going-on-20 college student, but I have been in three of them. My first two relationships didn’t go as well as I planned. They were both long distance relationships and there wasn’t much of a gap between the two. Now I’m with Stephen and he’s the closest person, distance wise, I’ve been with yet (about the same time it would take to drive from North to South Austin). And things are going very well. I don’t want to speculate, but this is probably the best relationship I’ve ever been in. But it took me quite awhile, two years, to find him. Or actually, he found me.

And I think it is this difference that makes our relationship so great. This time around, I wasn’t desperately checking the gay personals every day, sometimes twice a day, just to see if I could find a potential match. This time I wasn’t [stalking] people’s personals, myspaces, journals or what have you just to make sure this person I was interested in was exactly what I was looking for. He found me. It wasn’t until after I met him did I do these things. Haha. I’m not lying (I told him about it later).

You’re right to say in your later entry that the Internet has changed the way friendships and relationships are kept and made, for better or for worse. It sucks sometimes. Sometimes, it can make us overly abuse it’s power to interconnect almost everyone on earth to everyone else, and all the information and culture along with it. But it can also be a useful tool.

It can be an outlet to show people all of our favorite things and oddities. It enables us to share pictures of ourselves so that everyone can see how beautiful (or not so beautiful) we really are without even having to visit one another in person. It allows us to put our thoughts into words, like this very blog, and let anyone and everyone understand the inner workings of our brains. It gives people the opportunity to take a peek into our very lives with pictures and words (and now even video) so that one day when the right person comes along and looks at your myspace, reads your blog, sees the wonderful person you truly are and thinks, “Hmm… I really like this person. I think I should try to talk to her,” it’ll happen. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The way of the game is to change roles. Instead of being the pursuer, and persistently try to find people for yourself, be the pursuee, and wait for Mr. Right to find you, even though you want to find him first (and ASAP). Put yourself out there. Make the world know that you’re available nonchalantly and also make sure that what you have to offer is enticing. One of the greatest personal examples I can give is my mini-epiphany I had when I was in high school, when I was finally coming to terms with my sexuality, what I wanted and what that meant to me.

To me, being gay meant I liked men who are men that liked men who are men (a little confusing, I know). So, since I found this masculine, nonflamboyant breed of men attractive, shouldn’t I, too, try to be whom I wanted to date? And if I wasn’t reciprocally mirrored to my ideal love, perhaps I should try to shape myself, my identity, to better attract a mate (exercise more, [control] to an extent my inner affections of feminized stereotypes and mannerisms, work towards goals of greater education, careers and wealth)?

To digress a bit, I would like to make a few comments about the antithesis of who you are and make known my worst fears about your possible self-image. Debbie, your sister and my aunt, is sad and alone right now not because she can’t find anyone but because no one wants to be with her. You are not with anyone right now not because you can’t find anyone and not because no one wants to be with you, but because he hasn’t found you yet. And I want to make sure that you never make a misconstrued comparison of yourself to her, mental or otherwise. If you ever think that people are staring at you thinking, “Oh, look, there’s that woman in her mid-thirties who isn’t married,” that’s not the case. Not at all.

You are single, fun and beautiful. And if it takes awhile for fate to work it’s magic, instead of you forcing fate to work in your favor, then so be it. If I had to make a choice between being unhappily married or being alone, I’d rather be alone and, if anything, my father is a perfect example of why. I could never be comfortable with just any warm body sleeping next to me in bed every night just because I don’t want to be alone. I am not and will never be that desperate. And, also, there’s nothing wrong with being single.

I am confident that you have the wisdom, experience and judgment to make good decisions for yourself; you’ve handled plenty more responsibilities by yourself for a greater amount of time than I ever have. If you wanted to divorce someone, or not, I’d totally support you. If you want to make improvements to your home, or not, I totally support you. If you want to get a roommate, or not, I totally support you. And if you want to lose weight or not, I totally support you. I will always love you Lisa, whoever you are and whatever you do, and I just want you to know that.

Love,

Robby

P.S. – I totally had to rewrite this post because it didn’t go through the first time and I didn’t save it in Word or anything. But I care about you so much and wanted you to read what I had to say, so I tried to rewrite this entry as best, if not better, than I remembered it. Oh well.

I Think You Need to Know – A Letter to My Mother

So, hopefully when you’re reading this, you’ll be more calm and reasonable, and that maybe reading my entire thoughts at your own pace will be better than making assumptions after you interpret my logic word per word as I talk.

I’m sorry about what I said yesterday, but there wasn’t a thing I said that I didn’t mean. I’m sorry that I will not be going tomorrow with your friend Rolando Vela to go job searching because of the circumstances of what happened today, my illpreparedness and my overall feelings of this process. No sense in forcing a situation to happen, especially one that involves me, about me, that makes me feel uncomfortable. I think what is also needed is a greater explanation of what happened today, what went wrong, why, and how I felt because of it.

It first started Monday, the day after we had a pleasant (and delightfully short) session of coffee and conversation. I called you back close to noon after I received your call about your friend Rolando Vela, the PR Manager at your work and a friend of yours I believe, of which I assume you have shared your stories about me and my abilities, accomplishments and current situation. In doing so, you captivated Mr. Vela and gained his interest in my well being, especially in regards to my pursuit of work and my lack of employment. It was a nice gesture of him. I am very grateful that a person that I don’t even know is willing to help me in a time of idleness and healing.

But that’s just it. I don’t know him. Call me whatever you want: ungrateful, immature, lazy. Whatever. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t know Rolando Vela, as great of a person he may or may not be, as well as the variety of other names you put before me of who you know personally, through a friend or a friend of a friend. And that makes me uncomfortable.

So, although I appreciate his willingness to help Monday, especially after talking to him once, on the phone, and the hasty return of possible job vacancies and/or openings Tuesday, I was really caught off guard by all of this. When I said that I didn’t mind it if Rolando would help me find a job, that was me appeasing your ever increasing willingness to try to help me out. I think sometimes that you try to help me as much as you can, especially when I don’t ask for your help, because you can’t always help me for those time in which I do ask for your help, perhaps to make up for those deficiencies. I also went along with this arrangement because I figured, what harm can become of this? It shouldn’t be all that difficult. We’ll just take things in stride. No worry. Well, that wasn’t the case in this instance, I think.

When you called me today at around 4:00 P.M., I had just finished eating some lunch. I woke up early, 7:30 A.M., so as to drop off my father in order to drive myself to my psychiatric appointment with Dr. Collier at what I previously thought was a 10:00 A.M. appointment. In actuality, it was scheduled at 11:15 A.M. No matter. Better to be ready earlier than later. I also had to call Princeton and played phone tag between the university’s health center and Dr. Collier’s office, signed releases and had information faxed from one place to the other. So, when you called me today, I had just finished the end of a semi-productive day in which I had made plans for, and had not expected for anything else to come about. You called me, informing me of a Lisa Lopez, and an ensuing number to call, a Mr. Duncan Sr., not to be confused with plain ol’ Mr. Duncan, Rolando’s official title, and Nat Lopez and his title, President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Harlingen. This was a lot of information to take in. A lot of names of important people; I have no idea who they are and what it is exactly that they do, especially those in which you could not verify their official job titles. Even worse, some of the players in this game did not even know what you or Rolando were trying to work out. It was all ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak.

I called First Community Bank, like you asked me to, because although you insisted that I go immediately to their office in Harlingen, I was not ready to make any sort of formal first impression. I had not shaved for a couple days. I had not ironed any shirts or slacks presentable for an office environment. I did not have a copy of my resume, nor a working printer available to print said resume nor the time to tailor my resume specifically for a consumer banking position. But still I called, as unprepared as I was, just to inquire about this situation, to at least talk to this Mr. Duncan Sr. that wished to speak with me and lend a hand at a capable individual in look of work, and possibly arrange a more formal meeting in which I could sit down with him, clean shaven, dressed sharply, resume handy, a smile on my face and an open palm ready for a firm, business handshake.

The woman who answered was Lisa Lopez, of whom you know and whom I am now aware that my Grandmother, too, knows. I asked her, with a slight stutter, typical for someone who is rushed and not completely aware of all the facts, if I could have a word with a Mr. Duncan Sr. (I didn’t even know his first name until tonight) to inquire about a possible job vacancy or meeting. She told me that she was unaware of any vacancies but said that a ‘new position’ may be made available. She also told me Mr. Duncan Sr. was on the phone and asked if I were willing to wait or be transferred to his secretary. To free Ms. Lisa Lopez up and to get closer to Mr. Duncan Sr., I politely asked to be directed to Mr. Duncan’s secretary, hoping that she knew something that I did not: that Mr. Duncan had an interest with me, that there was in fact a job available that I was possibly capable of doing, and what exactly was the job title, description and entailing functions so that I could be made aware.

I waited for Mr. Duncan Sr.’s secretary, but after 4 rings, gasp, her voice mail turns on, informing me of her name of which I could not remember and a standard description of what to do after the beep. I didn’t know what to do. Time was running out, and I couldn’t figure out whether or not I was prepared enough just to leave a message. I decided to take a risk, knowing what little I did about everything that was happening, and paced about my room trying to sell myself to a machine.

“Hi, umm. My name is Robert Campos. I’m calling to inquire to a…”

I couldn’t even remember Mr. Duncan’s name. I had dropped the piece of paper I had written on somewhere amongst the mess of papers near my television, and nervously, bitterly, choked up. I introduced myself about two and a half times, hesitantly name dropped Rolando and Nat Lopez’s names as fast as I could remember, and then hung up after asking if I could set up a meeting with Mr. Duncan so that we could talk about… something. I don’t even remember if I left my number.

I was embarrassed, to say the least. And also, who am I to ask to set up a meeting with Mr. Duncan, who I can only guess is the president of the small bank chain and who must be of some economic and business significance in the modest town of Harlingen. I’m just Robert Campos, a 19 going on 20 college student currently on break due to an emotionally driven past, an unstable family from both sides of the parent equation as well as personal legal, academic, mental and substance abuse problems, in varying degrees. Oh yeah, and don’t forget. I’m gay. Let’s not forget about that. Speaking of, I got tested for HIV/AIDS Friday, and I bet you can’t wait for the results.

So, how could this mess have been avoided? I mean the networking, job-finding one. Not my life mess. First off, we should have waited until you gave me a chance to meet Rolando so that I could form a relationship with him outside of merely the impersonal phone and Internet realm, so that I could get a feel for his personality (note that I’ve only talked to him that one time Monday, and only for about a minute). I wanted to better understand his abilities and degree of workmanship and connections, so that he could better guide and help me. But most importantly, I wanted to get to know Rolando so that it wasn’t just “my mommy” trying to get me a job. Or worse, “my mommy” doesn’t know someone, but knows a friend of a friend of a friend that can hire me. The greater the tangled web of connections, the greater the possibility there is for a collapse, especially if the relationships are spread thin. Take the 8 fired U.S. attorneys for example. Except here, no one is being fired for me. I think.

I know that several people in this world get hired because of ‘who they know’ and not ‘what they know’. I understand that. I don’t like the concept of it entirely, but I understand it’s importance sometimes, mainly when it is the person who is trying to gain something that uses his power and his knowledge of people and the underlying connections himself to better benefit his life and future. This also hit an unsavory chord in me as well. This wasn’t me. Not to say that I didn’t appreciate it. Not to say this was all you or all Rolando’s doing alone or that I had no interest in the idea entirely. But I wasn’t in control. It was all a bunch of “he said, she said”. Why? Because I didn’t know all the players in the game. Not physically, not personally and barely by name. I am very grateful that you both tried as much as you possibly could to get me into the workforce, especially a job that isn’t just in retail. But if I need help from you, Mom, I’ll ask for it.

And I think I should stress that last sentence as much as possible. I think that’s one of the things I wish for most now more than ever. The ability to be able to ask for your help whenever I really need it and for you to be able to help me during those times of need. Like with medical insurance. Legal matters. College funding. A place to stay if I ever need to get away. Or anything else that may come up. Exactly what I need, nothing more and nothing less. It touches my heart how much you try and try to be helpful on your own. To help me, Mani, cousins or what have you. But we all work in very different ways and have different needs that maybe are not the same needs of your own. And it is this difference that makes me believe, or actually understand now, why we don’t connect on the level that we do and what continues to perpetuate this dysfunctional relationship. You try too hard in things that don’t matter very much and not as much in the things that do. You think of brilliant ideas that may work for you, but maybe not so much for other ideas for other people. You understand yourself more than I do (possibly). Me, not so much. And maybe not so much for people more than just me.

I don’t want you to get discouraged, by all means. Nor do I want you be unrulishly stringent on placing boundaries, strictly applying my advice and never offering to do anything for me unless I specifically ask you to. But I do want to place some limits. I can’t handle certain aspects of you that haven’t changed since for as long as I can remember.

I don’t really like hearing about every new man you find attractive or nice that you spent time with, gay or not. I don’t like it when you laugh off something that you don’t really understand when I’m talking to you, and think laughing it away and being the “cute, little short woman” is enough. I don’t like it when you say that you are 100% better and that things are fine, but that you are not able to help me financially as Dad can. Or when you say that your life is great in some instances and that you are fine mentally and have no problems just because you aren’t on any medication, but then in other circumstances blame your currently evolved mental and emotional state as the reason why you can’t handle certain situations. I don’t like how you feel that you deserve certain things like pedicures, manicures, “getting pampered” or “spoiled” by other men, or even yourself, expensive meals and all. Not to say that I think you don’t deserve these things, but the way you talk about these superficial things and the people that give them to you makes me think that you’re shallow sometimes. Sure, we all can enjoy the finer things in life from time to time. But there’s a word called being nonchalant about things that I think you should try to learn and incorporate into your personality, especially when talking about things like your man friends, boyfriends and materialistic ventures (just in case the dictionary.com definition is too confusing, as it is for me a little bit, being nonchalant, pronounced non-sha-launt, is basically not getting excited about certain things, acting as if they are not of great importance, sort of like when a person does specific things all the time – the simple and the luxurious – they usually don’t talk about, or gloat about these certain happenings because they are not unusual to their everyday lifestyles).

I try to spend time with you because I love you. I try to make peace and try to amend our relationship so that it isn’t like the relationship between me and my father, or how it used to be (I don’t know how it is currently) in that all we would ever talk about is money and never really spend that much time with each other. A form of reassurance to my parents, even though I think it is not entirely necessary, but something I feel I should do. But it is clear to me now that the way things are right now between us aren’t entirely perfect. Two of the three last times we’ve really talked to each other ended up with me exploding, either by running away from you to get out of your vicinity, or by yelling. It seems that every time we spend time with each other, I get really angry for some reason.

That’s why I like to hang out for a just a little bit. A little dinner here and there. Conversation over a cup of coffee. Baby steps. So that one day, I’ll be able to handle you fully and completely. I’m already starting to get used to your life and current situation. I’m not trying to change your life or tell you what to do. I’m just giving suggestions as to how talk to me. How to understand me and what I think about. How much you can meddle with my life and where the line is so that I can say “when” or “too much”. And that line is here. Because you don’t want you to chase me away. I don’t want to dream about what it would be like if I could cut you off, or my entire family off after I graduate from college. I don’t want that. I don’t want to yell at you, but at the same time I don’t want to lie to you either. I want you to know the truth. I want to be able to want to spend a lot of time with you. Because I love you.

By the time you get to the end of this (here) you should have had a decent amount of tears coming out of your eyes. Your mascara is probably ruined. And worst of all, you’re probably at work, so that’s not good. But I just felt that you needed to know.

Love,

Robby

Update: My HIV results came back Negative, which is great. I suggest to all of my friends, people reading this and more that you should try to get tested every so often, every year to three years depending on how ‘active’ you are, whether or not you think you actually have the disease. It’s just good to get into that sort of habit and to be aware – to be proactive.