Share it with me...if you must.

Sybok: "I couldn't help but notice your pain."
Evil Sybok Twin:(Caught off Guard) "My Pain?"
Sybok: "It runs deep. Share it with me!"
(Sybok then lunges at his evil twin and they go at it)

Now I am not a Trekkie by any means. Hell, even Tupac quoted this in his song on the Above the Rim Soundtrack entitled "Pain". The reason I am using this here is to make a point. I don't know, but I am trying to find out, why people come to me to talk about their problems? Now I would understand if it were friends of mine, my ear is always open to them, but I am talking about people period. I am saying this because I am screwed up in the head as it is. I don't deal well with the problems befacing me, yet I have everyone coming up to me dumping their load on me. This, in turn, makes me concerned about what is going on with their situation while adding more stress to my already complicated life.

For instance, I am sitting at Pool and Pizza several months ago and a female who happens to be on my ship sits down to talk to me. Now the reason that she sits down to converse is because she felt sorry for me. Okay, let me back up. I walked in wit a female friend, who just so happened to be attractive, to meet another mutual friend of ours who was back in town visiting. Now he hugged her and then they engaged in conversation and was having a good ol time. I was too, but maybe it wasn't written on my face. Unbeknownst to me, there were a lot of people from my boat who saw me walk in with her and they were admiring her beauty. Well the aforementioned female who sat down to talk to me actually thought that my friend had "taken" her away and she felt compelled to come and keep me company.

Now this girl and I don't even talk when we are approaching each other down the narrowest of passageways at work so why she feels that she was the right person to keep me company, I couldn't tell you. Well what happened next startled the hell outta me. She engages in small talk for a few minutes and then leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. What was going through my head as she was leaning in?
"What, is there something in my nose? Why isn't she saying anything? Is she trying to smell my cologne? I know this bitch didn't just kiss me!!!!!"
She later said that she was trying to make my friend jealous. Why, I don't know. The woman is about as far from attractive as you can possibly be. I look around to see if anyone witnessed what just happened and then I start to cry. I felt violated. Her only saving grace was that she was a little drunk and I soon was able to see that. She then proceeds to tell me about her life story and the problems that she is having with her grossly enlarged vericose veins. Yeah, my two friends are laughing and talking about old times and here I am listening to someone telling me how they can hardly walk due to pain stemming from some gross ass vericose veins popping out the side of her legs!!!! I listen. I mean, that's what I do, but I am pretty pissed off that I am stuck in this situation. As she continues on and tells me about a similar situation with her mother, I start to feel sad.

My friends are having a good ass time together and I am stuck on the other side of that table about to cry because this poor girl, who could possibly be stuck in a wheelchair for an indefinite period of time, is beating me about the head with some pretty f*cked up stories. Whatever happened to trying to make her jealous? Get your ass underneath the table and hum a little or something. This is f*cked up!!!!Well when she finishes she realizes that she has to leave. As we say goodbye she acts as if she is walking away but then leans in again, this time I didn't even see this one coming, she kisses me again on the damn cheek!! It was one of those, "Oh I forgot something" moves. You know, you walk away from the table and then you lean back and grab your cigarette lighter? Yeah, one of those. I am angry right about then.



Anyway, what prompted this particular blog? Well a coworker of mine, whom I respect just about the most outta all of my peers, came to me yesterday while I was talking to Ace and Snake (read prior blogs if you don't know who they are) on the fantail of the ship. The fantail is the aft most (toward the rear) weatherdeck of the ship where smokers congregate during the daytime hours. As he walks up to me and shakes my hand, we greet and I continue to listen to whatever bullshyt is coming outta Ace's mouth at that particular moment. Well straight for the jugular he goes!! "Man, my wife's talking about leaving me." Whoa. Pump the breaks buddy!!!!
"What are you talking about?", I ask. And then he fills me in on what was happening with him. It was all due to a misunderstanding but, being that we are several thousand miles away, it was something that he couldn't really handle right away. All he could do was email and try to straighten things out. Unfortunately for him our email has been up and down since we left Sydney. The sad part about it is that it's affecting his job performance. I hate to see that happen to someone who has all the tools and is ready to put on the next higher rank.

So what do I say? How do I console this guy, I mean I am not married. A simple, "F*ck you and thanks for the years", wouldn't sit well in this situation. I tell him that you need to start with figuring how this information got back to her because that is the root of your problem right there. If you only went out one day and didn't even stay overnight then whoever is telling her otherwise needs to be dealt with. He seems shook, so I continue to hear him out. He's telling how it all went down but mainly focused on the "I didn't do anything man. She's had a history of dealing with cheating boyfriends and ex-husbands who have done her wrong so that doesn't help." I wanted to walk away right then and there. I didn't have anything for him. I felt anger well up inside me and I knew that I would tell him that his wife's issues are the problem.

It's sad when things like that happen when you are out to sea because all you can do is just worry. You can email and try to fix things up but then your mind gets to wondering what she might be doing back home. Is she going to be there when I get back? Is she screwing someone else just to get back at me for the alleged infidelity on my part? How will I know?

I have had an incident where a woman has destroyed to career of a guy who worked for me. We were supposed to be out for two months and he was recently married to a woman with 2-3 kids already. Despite warnings from friends and coworkers who felt that she was trifling, he married her anyway. Then the problems began. She loses her job and that strains them financially. When we are little more than a week into the two month underway period she emails him and tells him that she can't deal with the separation. She also tells him that she believes marrying him wasn't a good idea. After that his performance started circling the drain. He gets drunk the first night inport and threatens to kill himself.

Oh, the point? Well during his drunken stupor when he had threatened to kill himself, who do you think they called down to talk to him? Yep...me! As I walk in he immediately begins to cry. I guess the disappointment on my face was too much for him to bear. I give him a half-hug and settle him down so he can sleep it off. I wanted to tell him that he deserved what he got for marrying that chick, but couldn't find the nerves to do it with all the people that were present.The command, in an unprecedented move, sends him back home to straighten his shyt out. Big mistake.

When we return to Hawaii, he's happy for a while and everything seems fine until the next scheduled underway period. What do you think happened then? Yep. They pull the ole "We are having problems again" routine. Well he eventually gets out of the Navy for whatever reason and has found a good job back on the east coast. All is well with him and now he is making almost twice as much doing the same thing he was doing in the military. He played it like a fiddle.

This seems to happen a lot for me. If I am going to perform the duties of a psychiatrist then I would like the pay. I can be as forthcoming with my opinions as necessary to set whomever straight but don't burden me when I am getting nothing in return. Maybe I should write a column or start a talk show. That would be the shyt.

Today on the "Huggy McFeely Show, 'Trifling Ass Females and the Dumbasses Who Love them'".