Where did all the people go?

I think they put some funky stuff in the water back home. The people from that area grow up to have some serious, and I mean SERIOUS, issues. This is especially true for the females.

Most of my close friends from high school have issues. Especially relationship issues. This includes:

An immense fear of commitment. About half of us seem to suffer from this one, myself included. We want a relationship, yet we are terrified of it for no real reason. Some people wind up avoiding the opposite sex like the plague as a way of dealing with it. We avoid men, thus avoided relationships and the possibility of commitment. This is not healthy and we do need to stop, it's very difficult though. Some others don't hesitate to at least start a relationship, but they put up such terrible boundaries that it stifles the relationship. These are girls that are just a little too independent, and make sure their boyfriends know that they DO NOT need any guy's help in life. Eventually the guy gets tired of not being needed and leaves. Once again, this isn't healthy. The third way I find that people deal with this issue is that they become flat out whores. They bounce from one guys bed to the next so fast, the there is no time for a commitment to develop.

Now on the opposite side of that issue is an immense fear of being alone. These are the girls who need a boy friend in order to feel good about themselves... I find myself quoting Foamy when I think of these girls "unlike you, I don't need the existence of another person to validate my own existence!" These are the girls from home that I usually didn't associate with. These girls latch on to the first guy that shows them any interest in high school, and hang on for all (or most usually more) than it's worth. They get engaged in their senior year of high school, and within the first year after graduation, they get married, and get themselves pregnant. Or, if the relationship doesn't work out, they become whores as well, bouncing from guy to guy, looking for love, because if they don't have a guy to love them, they have no love for themselves. It really is sad. Especially when the marriage doesn't last long and their stuck by themselves with baby, no education, and no self-esteem.

Unfortunately, I have, or at least had, one good friend who falls into that second category. She dated all sorts of losers from home. The one was mentally unstable, but hey, if he showed her affection, he can't be all that bad can he? So... what happened when she can't find a man to show her the affection she is lacking for herself? She finds one on-line. He was 54, a registered sex offender, and had two daughters right around his "girlfriend's" age. At the age of seventeen, she had this guy coming to visit her from several states away, so that they could fool around while her mom was at work. She normally met him at the snackette we worked at. How nice, an old sex offender at a restaurant where all the employees are young girls under the age of 20. When her mom did find out, several months later this girls had to leave college for the rest of the semester, because I believe her roommates kicked her out. She had to get tested for all the STDs and get a pregnancy test done. Everyone felt so bad for her, and she'd go on and on about how this guy brain washed her. Her parents got her a car, and she went back to school, and right around Thanksgiving last year, she married the guy. Ran off to the courthouse and got hitched. So her 1 year anniversary is coming up. Better yet, she's pregnant now too, and due in December.

It boggles the mind. She's 2 months younger than I am, so I keep thinking, if I were her, right now, I'd be:

1. Married to a man older than my own father.
2. The wife of a man who looks just like my father (yeah I know, creepy as hell)
3. A mama.
4. Living at home with my mama full time.
5. Alienated from my family.
6. Out of school with no education.
7. Friendless.
8. Jobless.

I try not to feel too much sympathy for her, but i can't imagine being in her situation. I'd be so sad, so depressed, so sick of my life. However, she brought this on herself, and had been warned of where her actions would lead her.

*sigh* Now I'm depressed as well.