My friends - weirdos, junkies, hobos and smart ones

[SandMizzle]

Hey honey!

I'm nearly 22 now and I've had the pleasure to meat many interesting people in my life. But when I look back I realise that all of my close friends are/were sort of extremely crazy.
I tell you some stories: (I'm a story teller WUHU)

At my early years I lived at a nice little village and there were many kids around. Some day i met Andi and we became best friends. This friendship was really nice, but at the age of 15 I moved to my fathers house and I couldn't see Andi as often as before. Short after my transfer he suddenly vanished. About a half year later I was informed that he had become a drop-out who lives at an occupied house and takes hard drugs.

After never seeing Andi again I met Alu, who became my best friend at the age of 16. Every time I skipped school (and this happened often) I went to Alu to hang around at his house. He was not a clever but a really nice guy. When we got 18 and everyone got a flat (Ugh!) and a job (Urgh!) and a car (Gag! Ok car is nice) he didn't care and just hung around our flats and didn't get a job. But after two years of "hoboness" no one wanted to see him any more because he just appeared, stayed for about a week, borrowed money and food which you never got back again and just vanished afterwards without a "thank you"! He was last seen anywhere in Germany or Switzerland traveling from flat to flat.

The next one is a bit special. I met him on a huge music festival when I was 18. His name was Yoshi (probably an INTP). We got really high on the festival and had a very good time. After some weeks we decided to take a flat together to safe money. I should have been aware, because he was 10 years older than me, a total genius (which means on my cognitive level ) and a really, really gifted programmer who once worked for LG in Seoul and had many other orders by big companies. But after one year living together the police visited me and told me that they are looking for him. After stealing about 1000 Euro from me he vanished. He had many issues.

Uh, now we come to Flo. He's my longest friend measured in time. We met about the same year I met Alu. He is one of those guys with rich parents who take drugs and also give them to their son. So we were sitting in a nice mansion, puffing some MJ and playing some video games. It was a nice time. But we grew older and he started to take hard drugs every day. Normally it's totally ok for me if people do drugs, it's not my business, but when I see a very good friend ruining his live at the age of 17 I feel the urge to do something. I'm happy about him lowering his abuse and we still are friends, not as close but still good friends.

I could go on now, but it would get far too long and I already listed the craziest.
What about your friends, are they as abnormal as mine? Is this an INTP thing to attract troubled souls? I would really like to know

 

[doncarlzone]

Nope, interesting stories though. At the moment I am only hanging out with two INTJ friends. They are both very responsible. Our favorite activity is listening to music while discussing everything from Evolutionary Psychology to penis sizes and how to commit the perfect murder.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

One short story out of thousands:

I had sex with one of my friend's girlfriends. In response, I was beaten, thrown in a car boot, kidnapped, beaten again and dumped on the side of a highway two hours drive from where I lived at the time. The next week the guy invited me out to a party.

 

[SandMizzle]

Nope, interesting stories though. At the moment I am only hanging out with two INTJ friends. They are both very responsible. Our favorite activity is listening to music while discussing everything from Evolutionary Psychology to penis sizes and how to commit the perfect murder.

Yeah, this is nice. I used to have such friends, enjoy yourself and try to keep them!^^

One short story out of thousands:

I had sex with one of my friend's girlfriends. In response, I was beaten, thrown in a car boot, kidnapped, beaten again and dumped on the side of a highway two hours drive from where I lived at the time. The next week the guy invited me out to a party.

That's what I call a story for a lifetime. You paid your depts as it seems Oo I hope it wasn't too painful for you.
Did you go to the party and become friends with him again?
If you allow a silly question: Was it scary, because you probably suffered agony, or a nice thrill everyone should enjoy sometimes?

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

That's what I call a story for a lifetime. You paid your depts as it seems Oo I hope it wasn't too painful for you.
Did you go to the party and become friends with him again?
If you allow a silly question: Was it scary, because you probably suffered agony, or a nice thrill everyone should enjoy sometimes?

I was left with a broken nose. I still have a bump where it broke. My perfect pretty face ruined. rofl. In a few years time I will get bump removed.

I was going to withdraw my friendship with the group of people previous to the event anyway. I was heading off to study engineering and they weren't particularly the studious type. Being kidnapped simply motivated me to cut contact with them sooner.

I was not phased by being kidnapped. I did get PTSD after having a gun pressed to my head during a failed mugging. I don't understand why I got PTSD. I had been in far worse situations. It is now four years later and I still get anxious about going outside at night time.

 

[kantor1003]

I did get PTSD after having a gun pressed to my head during a failed mugging.

I hope I never fall accident to such a situation.

I did once get in a fairly uncomfortable (by my standards) situation however. Me and a couple of friends on a trip to Poland were sitting in a pretty shady, but interesting bar one night (or early morning) drinking beer and liquor listening to classical music getting played fairly loud in the background. We happened to start talking with some stranger sitting there. He probably was in his early twenties and had a gangster esque- look. The subject turned to drugs (marihuana) by his instigation and where we could acquire it. I didn't really give a damn about it as I didn't plan doing anything of the sort, but continued having a dialogue around the subject as it seemed like it was of particular interest to him. Besides, his english was too broken to entertain the idea of trying to bring something else to the table. Anyway, after around 15 minutes or so, I accidentally happened to spill my beer wetting parts of his clothes. I apologized and offered to get him a beer. I was surprised to see how badly he seemed to take it. He looked really angry and expressed indignation like I haven't seen before. I don't particularly remember the details from here on out, but I remember him reaching into his jacket telling me he had a gun. Being in a foreign country not knowing anything about this guy, I couldn't do anything but to take his treat seriously even though the chance of him having a loaded gun and willing to fire it inside the pub was fairly low. He seemed anxious and kind of nervous as well, which made matters worse. I continued to apologize and here is where I think I made a mistake. I think I apologized too many times fueling his opinion that he was indeed violated in some sense even though it was just a small, frivolous accident, but I was not accustomed to having someone (a wannabe gangster most likely) threatening me on my life. I'm not sure exactly how the events unfolded from there, but the result was that he, luckily, after about 10 minutes of me apologizing and he having his arm in his jacket threatening me, left. On my way home with my two intoxicated (I was sobered up like a grandmother after that earlier incident) comrades another situation occurred where some guy looking fairly disturbed in the sense that I didn't know where I had him came up to us and asked us to come with him, or something along these lines (hard to say, as his english was terrible even by polish standards). My companions continued walking and I was stuck having to talk with him as I wanted to disarm the situation because his face expressed indignation and his eyes was a terrible sight. It's the kind of eyes that, when you see them, you know that he might do anything. I wanted to avoid him following us with god knows what he had on his disturbed mind. After telling him repeatedly, addressing him like one would with a good friend (or rather in trying to calm a wild animal), that we "unfortunately" couldn't come with him because of such and such something bizarre occurred where he took up a knife and said something I didn't understand. I was acting jovially saying something like "it's a good looking knife you have there, but I really have to go now", playing the part of someone completely ignorant. If I had treated it like a threat, or expressed apparent anxiousness, I think it might have turned out worse. In expressing sentiments of appreciation towards the knifes aesthetic qualities making the disclaimer that I really had to go, I walked onwards towards my drunken friends, trying to make sure without him knowing that he wasn't following me.

I hate Poland.

 

[SandMizzle]

I was not phased by being kidnapped. I did get PTSD after having a gun pressed to my head during a failed mugging. I don't understand why I got PTSD. I had been in far worse situations. It is now four years later and I still get anxious about going outside at night time.

Sorry to hear that. Cutting the contact with them was probably the best idea. When I asked I didn't know about a gun. I always thought about Australia as a peaceful place with a bunch of kangaroos, but black sheeps exist everywhere...

Me and a couple of friends on a trip to Poland

I think that's the beginning of every weird story ever told in Europe.
Yeah don't fuck around with the guys from Poland they are a crazy people.
But your story remembers me of when a friend and I went to England for holidays. We lifed at a family in the suburbs of London, but when the juvenile locals found out that we are from another country they hunted us around the blocs and when we hid in some garden they climbed onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings just to bash us up. They were a minimum of 30 people and I don't overstate here. I was fucking scared and had no idea why they wanted to beat us.

 

[Hadoblado]

One of my childhood friend's is in jail for pedophilia, another is a violent racist after a black driver got his passengers killed outside his house in early childhood, and several are drug-dealers (one of which hired thugs and sent them over to a friend's mothers house in a territory dispute). I am a peaceful nerd, and find it quite crazy to think how things might have turned out for me if I had of made a few different decisions in life.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

@kantor1003

Sounds stressful.

 

[Ruvr]

Hmh...is it weird to have a friend (knew him for about 7 years, so I think he qualifies -at least in the normal sense of the friendship norms- to be called a friend) that actually enjoys killing feline cubs on his spare time?

 

[MissQuote]

I don't think I attract strange people so much as I am attracted/drawn to them.

I am very closed, and have been for quite a few years now, people do not come into my life. Basically. I am good at putting on the mask and being pleasant around people but there is a definite wall up and it is very rare I let someone in for real. I think there are people who like me and would call me "friend" or "well known acquaintance" perhaps, I know there are, but I just do not open and let them in at all. The problem is, when I do open to someone, they tend to be a weirdo or messed up in some way or another. With these people it seems like I let them in by accident almost, I forget my guard and next thing I know I've got someone as off kilter as myself, but in all their own odd screwed up ways, in my life.

My best friend of the past ten years is an addict/junkie (an ENFP female) that has relapsed repeatedly (stepping out of my life suddenly everytime she does) and has been pretty much diagnosed as a potential psychopath, and happens to be the most loving selfish person I have ever met. One of her wild dreams in life is to rob an armored truck when she is an 80 year old lady in a wild ambush. I've told her if we make it that far she isn't allowed to go through with it without consulting me for flaws in her plan first. She grew up as a single child hitchhiking across America with her unmedicated schizophrenic single mother who insisted George Bush senior was her father.

My oldest friend, the one I have known the longest, I have been friends with for 24 years now, since primary school, she is the the bitterest anti-american I have ever met, but is by her own choice an American. When we were kids her family disappeared into the night to another country with no warning because they were in legal trouble. After some time I started receiving letters from her that were circumvented by a third party- mailed to the other person, removed from their original envelopes and remailed to me- she talked of how her mom went over everything she wrote to make sure there were no clues as to where they were, she would draw me pictures of their new house and tell me how her mom made her redraw it several times removing the trees and stylistic aspects of their neighborhood and house so as not to give away their location. They eventually came back and her family faced their time and got it over with, but she developed some serious mental issues. To this day she has never told me what diagnosis she has, but severe OCD is certain, along with other issues. I just accept it and ignore it and maybe someday she will talk about it, she has mentioned needing medication a few times and seemed relieved when I just had an attitude of "what is your point?".

The friend I see most often has turned into one hell of a conspiracy theorist over the course of the past few years. though she is from a very typical midwestern middle class upbringing.

I guess I haven't told any actual stories. The stories of the people from my weird childhood would be more interesting anyway. But those are a few of the people I know, who actually know me for real. I think I end up with these sorts in my life because my own upbringing was very obscure and weird and I just reject any possibility of a connection with others unless they seem sufficiently fucked up enough to be interesting, that is when my guard disappears without my noticing.

 

[lungs]

i don't have any outstandingly weird friends. ):

well my best friend is kind of kooky, gives prozac to her cat for depression, is a pescatarian on the basis that "fish don't have a sense of self like other animals," etc., but i don't know if that really qualifies as weird. more just that she's FiNe.

Hmh...is it weird to have a friend (knew him for about 7 years, so I think he qualifies -at least in the normal sense of the friendship norms- to be called a friend) that actually enjoys killing feline cubs on his spare time?

yes. wtf? where does he find them? how does he kill them?

 

[MissQuote]

Yeah. That is pretty messed up.

 

[Prometheus]

I drive a cab, as a part time job while in college. I have seen and experienced things that are awesome and then downright frightening. I will never forget that time when a guy pulled a knife to my throat, its interesting that I knew something was wrong just before the guy pulled the knife on me. The feeling of your heart racing because of the adrenaline, feeling like its in your throat pounding. It doesn't help since it kept digging the blade into my neck. Though I was fine, though shocked from it. I took it as a day to day thing, life happens and you can die whenever.

Well back to the topic. My closest friends (college)- ENTP, INTJ, INTP, INFP, ENTP. They are all guys by the way (try to find women at an engineering university) I can't say much for high school, I had 3 good friends and I haven't spoken to them in years. Oh well C'est la vie :/

 

[Agent Intellect]

I'm not sure how to define weird. Does this mean statistical outliers in the lifestyles of individuals popularly portrayed in the media (in my case, American media)?

In that case, I have no friends that fit this description.

However, I do have quite a few close acquaintances (although I would probably categorize them as friends if I were an extrovert), and most of them could be considered weird by the definition I gave above (transexual and homosexual acquaintances, one who is a Wiccan and into the gothic lifestyle, an acquaintance with a severe case of syntesthesia, and quite a few acquaintances that are geek geek not Hollywood geek). I can't really think of any particularly interesting story off hand, though.

 

[cheese]

One short story out of thousands:

I had sex with one of my friend's girlfriends. In response, I was beaten, thrown in a car boot, kidnapped, beaten again and dumped on the side of a highway two hours drive from where I lived at the time. The next week the guy invited me out to a party.

With his *girlfriend*, or a friend who was a girl? If the former then the response isn't weird at all.

I wonder what the most common person actually is. Would they fit our definition of 'normal'? Or are the majority of people actually 'weird'?

 

[snafupants]

I'm not sure how to define weird. Does this mean statistical outliers in the lifestyles of individuals popularly portrayed in the media (in my case, American media)?

In that case, I have no friends that fit this description.

However, I do have quite a few close acquaintances (although I would probably categorize them as friends if I were an extrovert), and most of them could be considered weird by the definition I gave above (transexual and homosexual acquaintances, one who is a Wiccan and into the gothic lifestyle, an acquaintance with a severe case of syntesthesia, and quite a few acquaintances that are geek geek not Hollywood geek). I can't really think of any particularly interesting story off hand, though.

Does geek geek signify that these friends bite the heads off of chickens for general delight?

 

[SandMizzle]

I'm not sure how to define weird. Does this mean statistical outliers in the lifestyles of individuals popularly portrayed in the media (in my case, American media)?

I wonder what the most common person actually is. Would they fit our definition of 'normal'? Or are the majority of people actually 'weird'?

Of course everyone is weird. But with my definition of "weird" I meant the crazy ones that even if everyone is crazy in the abnormal chaotic circle of life, these guys/girls manage it to stand out of the wasted mass.

So there are the "normal weird" ones, who consider their shopaholic asses as "normal", then there are the "nice weird" ones, who know how weird the world actually is, and then there are the "crazy weird" or "actually really weird" ones, who manage it that even an INTP would call them "really weird".

Note: Don't mind me.

 

[cheese]

Of course everyone is weird. But with my definition of "weird" I meant the crazy ones that even if everyone is crazy in the abnormal chaotic circle of life, these guys/girls manage it to stand out of the wasted mass.

So there are the "normal weird" ones, who consider their shopaholic asses as "normal", then there are the "nice weird" ones, who know how weird the world actually is, and then there are the "crazy weird" or "actually really weird" ones, who manage it that even an INTP would call them "really weird".

Note: Don't mind me.

This isn't obvious to me at all. "Standing out" is relative.

Blah blah:

Spoiler

A lot of what people call 'weird' is that which is labeled such in popular media like tv shows. I'm asking if that's what you mean - serial killers, pedophiles, extreme geeks, fetishists, religious fundamentalists. The 'freaks' who make most people *feel* creepy when they come across them.

Or statistical rarities. Astrophysicists for instance are 1 in a million (someone worked the math out). This would overlap with some from other categories too (eg serial killers).

Or anyone who doesn't fit the projected ideal of normalcy (9-5 job or some other form of socially acceptable success, somewhat steady family, of average intelligence and temperament, etc). This would include drug dealers, junkies, thieves, prostitutes etc, all of whom are pretty common but aren't part of the accepted 'positive normal'.

You could exist in an environment with a lot of 'freaks' - that'd make people feel your life is weird. You could exist in an environment with a disproportionately large number of rarities - that's statistically weird. Or you could be one of many people living in varied environments, almost all of whom have some friends who're 'weird' in that they're not conventional, even though they're pretty damn common (and as a result of that, almost all of us know some, and it's not really 'weird' at all).

What 'stands out' really depends on your frame of reference. To someone growing up in an environment where the rare abound, they wouldn't stand out at all until someone points out that the rest of the world isn't like that. Ie, their frame of reference shifts. With the common weird, it's only considered 'weird' if you stop to think that these aren't the people portrayed as 'normal' by the media. In fact a lot of the stories we report as weird are only obviously so when we think about them. Otherwise it's just another part of your life. The most obvious kind of 'weird' is the felt/emotional kind - in that sense, the only weird ones are those that creep you out.

The word is fairly shaky. The other day I was sitting at a table with a drug dealer facing trial, a radio dj, a permanently high stocktrader, the (memory of) a departed member who turned out to be part of a child porn ring wanted by Interpol, and a rocket scientist who was advising me about how to overcome schizophrenia with vegetable soup. When I think about it it seems a little absurd, but as it was occurring it was just another part of my everyday existence. There're lots of things like that in my life, and probably everyone's lives. Sometimes you know straightaway people are going to think it's weird and you agree, sometimes you think it's only a little weird and then you find out everyone else thinks you're insane, sometimes you don't realise at all.

How much of what we think is weird is simply the result of everyone else's judgement, a repetition revealing the holes in their experience? How much of what we think is weird is legitimately so, in terms of rarity (or deviance from recognisable humanity)?

Actually I'm not that fussed.

*edit
On a related note: Whatever you think 'weird' is, do you find you have Weird Portals in your life? People or situations/groups through which most of your weird experiences come? I definitely have a couple of those. Some of it's just all my own Weird (within the family and such) but there's definitely a sizeable chunk that's come through just two people (each in several different countries - not in a creepy chopped-up way though - with their own separate realms of Weird).

 

[SandMizzle]

This isn't obvious to me at all. "Standing out" is relative.

Obviously I forgot to mention that it depends on the environment as much as on the subjective definition of weird. I for myself consider being weird as a good attitude.

Actually I'm not that fussed.

Happy for you...

On a related note: Whatever you think 'weird' is, do you find you have Weird Portals in your life? People or situations/groups through which most of your weird experiences come? I definitely have a couple of those. Some of it's just all my own Weird (within the family and such) but there's definitely a sizeable chunk that's come through just two people (each in several different countries - not in a creepy chopped-up way though - with their own separate realms of Weird).

I like your definition... Weird Portals. Hilarious!

 

[AlisaD]

I'm pretty sure that absolutely everyone is weird, the only difference between your friends and everyone else is that you know your friends well enough to pinpoint their weirdness.