Let me start out by saying that, most of the time, I hate the person that I am.  I don't want to say I hate myself; there's still a piece of myself that I think is worthwhile.  It just hasn't been around in awhile.  I should probably also add that I did not always have this snobbish disdain for myself.  No, I used to be confident, secure; I'm reminded of the Ani song Superhero.  But there's no undercurrent of subliminal romantic taming of the shrew.  Maybe I should start at the beginning.  I met my girlfriend "Marcie" four years ago.  She was cute and I was on the rebound, and we were instantly inseperable.  It started out fine; the sex was amazing and she was from Chicago, another world to a young lesbian living in small town New Mexico.  She was worldly and cultured-- I mean, she drank the good beer; the expensive stuff my friends would never spring for.  I was sold.  Sure, she was a little crazy, but it was mysterious and brooding and so damn sexy and anyway, everyone is a little crazy, right?

It started small, and I didn't see it for what it was.  My friends, she informed me, weren't really good friends.  They didn't care about me, they used me as comic relief; they didn't understand me and didn't want to understand me.  But, you know, I mean, they were my friends.  If I wanted to be friends with people like that, she of course wouldn't stop me.  It hurt her to see them use me, she said, but she didn't own me.  My friends didn't much care for her either.  She was a crazy control freak who didn't want me to be around anyone but her.  They were jealous, I realized, and they never cared