Now you know a little bit about life Saine.
I'm a little older than you are. I'm in university now, recently started. But not too long ago I was in a similar situation. Saine, if you think your situation was bad, read this.
Early in my junior year in high school (also around the time I found this site, though I never really read it much until last year). I had one "friend"(note the quotes) who from now on I will refer to as L. L was a bit of a crazy sort, but if there was anything that he was good at doing, it was making people like him. I was very susceptable to this at the time because back then I had no friends at all. Not one. OK perhaps two, but I very rarely hung out with them because of schedule conflicts (and now one of them is dead, I will miss him dearly).
Desperate for friends, I gave L a chance. He seemed pretty cool, and we hung out a lot and seemed like best friends for a while (though you can't really say that because we didn't know each other that long). To give you an idea for what a loser I was back then, I loaned him some money so he could get a ring to add to the his girlfriend's collection (she already had a significant collection that he gave her). And on top of all that, his girlfriend was three years younger than he was and was also a "dirty slut" (no joke, and this girl is currently pregnant at the age of sixteen). But despite loaning him the money and his taking a good long while to pay it back, I still continued to be his friend.
He started winning over a lot of people I knew and even helped out with the my Recycle Program, something I did in high school which I lead and ran. He even tried to start a business, getting an office and all of that. And one guess for who helped him pay for the security deposit and supplied him with a plethora of computer equipment? Yours truely. It worked out for him to do this for a few months, but eventually tension started to swell, and people were beginning to start missing things. It turns out that L was stealing from people and using people. Eight families were burned by L. In one family the mother was robbed of her jewelry collection, the older daughter had fraudulent checks against her account (the checks bounced, by the way), and the younger daughter lost her CD collection. Another family L fixed their computer so only he could change the administrative functions (if you aren't computer savvy trust me that is a serious matter). One kid I know L swindled him out of $3,000. That kid's mother gave him $3,000 to make up for the loss but then she pressed charges on L shortly afterwards on behalf of the eight families who were burned by him. He also robbed a computer store to get a laptop, because of course he didn't want to buy it. He also "borrowed" people's cars without asking them, but instead just used them without their knowledge. That last thing never happened to me, as no one is able to get me to trust them with my car keys. But that gives you an idea of how easily he was able to make people like him and trust him, a true operator. But needless to say near the end of our "friendship," that "business" of his was using my computer equipment (except for one computer), so one day I just drove my truck up to the "office" (he apparently thought I was trustworthy enough that I had a key to the "office") and removed every single last piece of equipment that was mine (since I'm honest, though L isn't. I even let him have a few cables). Shortly after, I used the "office" key to bargain for my P.O. Box key (in my foolishness he convinced me to get him a copy of the key to my P.O. Box so we could share it, though he never helped me pay for it).
Soon after, the one kid who lost $3,000 to L, his mother was pressing serious charges against L. Defaulting on the lease on the "office" and his mobile phone plan was the least of his problems (though his credit is now shot since he was only 18 at the time). And though L did go to jail for a year (effectively dropping out of high school), would you believe that there were still people who believed his lies, people who visited him in jail. I feared the day that he was due to be released from jail. I still remember it was six days before high school graduation (which he went to despite a restraining order, but more on that later). He called my parents' house several times while he was in jail, trying to get people to vouch for him. My parents never picked up his calls, but he thought that I thought he was a great guy (though I knew better at the time).
Remember his slut girlfriend? They did break up a month or so before he went to jail, and she had a restraining order on him. Guess what? He violated it, because he was a huge AFC deeply in love. I'll also throw this in: Her mother hated him and wanted to charge him for statutory rape.
There was also another restraining order, that states that after he is released from jail, he cannot come within 100 yards of my high school, or within 100 yards of any school event (like a football game that was off-campus or Prom), and that this was effective for two years after his release. This order was because of the terrible things he did to all of those families.
Well..that summer after he got out, he tried many times to call me, though only once he actually got through. He tried to be all friendly-like as if he was still my friend (and no mention of the money he owed me, naturally). I told him that I was moving out of my parents' house, but didn't say when I was going to move out or where to (all he knew is that it was an apartment in this town, and this is a big town). Since then I've avoided him, which is easy since we don't go to the same school, have the same hangouts, or have the same friends. I've gotten a new number since then, and declined to tell him what it is. He IMs me occasionally, but apart from that he leaves me alone now.
I just realized that this thing which was going to be short, turned out to be quite long. I apologize for it's length, but it won't be much longer.
The really sickening thing about this incident, is not so much as how I let myself get screwed over (though that was bad and will never happen to me again). But how L screwed over so many people. Just what an operator he was, how everyone thought he was the greatest thing in the world, but then backstabbed and robbed everyone he met. Though it did tell me one thing: [iHow well you can get people to like you can make a major difference in your life, whether it be positive or negative. People loved him despite the fact he had a felony on his record, and his acheivements were minimal. People gave him a chance much, much bigger than what any one man had any right to have. But he still screwed it up.
L also owed me $550 at one point, but so far has only paid $50 of it back making that $500. I don't ever count on ever getting that money back, and the disgusting part is that I was actually one of the lucky ones. He never got into my computers (I'm too computer savvy and I would know what's going on), grabbed every last cent I had, or stole something irreplacable with serious sentimental value.
This incident, combined with earlier incidents during my childhopd, has quite unfortunately caused me to be a little cynical and critical of others. I'm still pleasant to others, but I rarely trust them with anything significant. I'm always on the watch for ulterior selfish motives on the part of others. I don't try to get telephone numbers from women (or anyone for that matter) very often (the last time I attempted to receive a number from a woman was months ago around late August or so), but whenever I do I always do as much research as possible on the number to see if it really is the correct number, or if it matches their location just to see if they lied to me. Even if the number does seem like it could be real, nine times out of ten I still don't call the number.
Yes, that may seem rather anti-social, but at least people's crap don't seem to affect me anymore (though "people" with no manners or class continue to annoy me to no end, that scum are nastier than gutter dirt or last year's garbage and just shouldn't be here).
This was a long and roundabout way of saying this, but Saine:
You have to be critical of people if you don't know them, yet still be pleasant and nice (not in a nice guy sense or you'll be used like I was) or else you'll never make any friends.
And:
Yes, your situation wasn't fun, but nevertheless there's always someone who has been screwed over even worse than you were and still turns out fine.
That is all.
Ben
P.S. I just noticed that the maximum message length is 10,000 characters, and that I just used 9,000 characters in writing this huge post. I don't think I have ever written any post longer than this before. Shall I push for 10,000? Shall I? Sure! Let's go....
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Just kidding.
