i learned something today that, i think in the state i was maybe a few months or a year ago, would have devastated me. i can't really be specific but i guess maybe i realized i'm getting used. but then i thought about it, and maybe i'm using this person, too. and as long as i'm getting what i want maybe i can't be too critical of that person taking advantage on the other end. i think it was nietzsche but i can't be sure, anyway it was some philosopher i studied in "intro to philosophical problems" freshman year, but all relationships are based on a mutual desire of something from the other -- like... hey i'll be friends with Joe because he has a convertible, and i need to get around and look cool doing it, and he'll be friends with me because I can get him pot or something. and we talk to each other in the meantime and enjoy each other's company -- and maybe that's a really simplistic and cynical way to look at it, but think about friendships. why do you have the friends you have? not because you admire them more than anyone else. a lot of my best friends are not perfect people and neither am i. you need something from them. they make you feel better about yourself or make you jealous or make you competitive. they feed to your personality in some way. so maybe we're all using each other. and we try to make it out like using someone is the worst thing you can do, but you do it all the time. normally i'd be pretty upset to learn the piece of information that i did, but who knows what that person would think if they could figure out what i was using them for. we've all got these deeply complicated reasons for seeking out the people that we do, and they're mostly there from childhood, from all the things that happened to us, and they'll never be undone. but they dictate why we need the people that we do. you're using everyone you know, to fill a hole or to highlight a strong point, to superimpose revenge on something that happened to you a long time ago. so, who knows. maybe this is the same thing.