Need some serious advice

[Nathander]

Originally Posted by Mr.Marshmallow

I'm currently 23, going on 24 by this May. I live with my parents and my 18 year old brother who has been drinking and has outright assaulted my very way of life. To be honest about who I am, you must know I am still heavily into cartoons, anime, and spend a great deal of time surfing the web and talking to people.

I don't have a multitude of friends but I have one very close one and others at another school, though even though he is singular, he has become one of my most kindred spirits in the way of friendships. I'm graduating from college this may with my bachelor's degree in liberal arts for psychology and going on for my masters.

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with your lifestyle. I'm into anime and cartoons and the like though, I must admit, not as much as you from what I can garner from talking to you. In a lot of ways, I'd describe how deep you are into your preferred anime and cartoons as a form of extreme escapism, at least from what I can tell from the discussions we have. Escapism, in and of itself, isn't dangerous, though it can be if it gets out of hand, which is the problem I see with spending a great deal of time online and with these escapes of anime and cartoons.

One thing you mention is that you don't have many friends, and to that, I have to ask, why? While having some multitude of friends certainly doesn't constitute being a necessity, the way you state this makes me think you don't believe yourself to have as many friends as you believe yourself to have. Is it because you're not outgoing, or because of your own personality, as, no offense M, but you tend to have INCREDIBLY extremist views and take a vitriolic attitude towards anyone who disagrees with them. What I'm getting at is this: that while a good deal of your decision to stick to being alone and sticking with anime, cartoons, and internet time is probably because you truly enjoy it, I'm wondering if some of it also isn't because you're afraid of genuinely socializing in the outside world. I ask this because I'm the same way, to a degree.

Also, the whole thing about you living with your parents 23-24, that does eventually need to change. I don't think it says anything about you as a person that you're still living with your parents. However, you will have to move on eventually anyway. While you say later on that you're not still there simply because you're UNABLE to move, why is it you haven't? If you are capable, then you probably should. This is, of course, my own personal opinion, as I'm an incredibly cynical man, as well as my feelings once you have the power to be capable of doing something, you should do it and, when I get the money to, I intend to make sure my parents don't have the millstone of having to support me around their neck. But that's just me.

My brother feels I am an outcast, that I am hiding behind my parents and that his life is normal and mine is not. To him, I'm farther back on the evolutionary chain because of my lifestyle despite me being older then him. His rants have met with me standing up for myself, and times when I chose not to.

He believes I am doing "Jack S**T" wasting my life on anime and going on the computer. I admit i spend lots of time online and not out as much as I like to. But I don't believe in his way of life in going out with people to bars and getting drunk. That it is not me, it is not my life and I'd rather die a lonely old man then turn into the lifestyle person he has been pushing me to become.

I think your brother is overreacting, but I also think that's normal for that age and given the situation. My sister, who is also eighteen, blew up at me that I still live with my parents at 20, going on 21. Her main point was that she didn't want me as part of her life, a hatred that she's had for me since she became a teen. It's not that that hatred honestly bothers me, as I expect outright hatred to be anyone's natural reaction. But I digress.

I don't believe there's anything necessarily wrong with your lifestyle. I don't feel your doing jack s**t with your life in that you have a job and are graduating from college (as little as I genuinely consider college meaning anything), which is at least showing your on track to starting a genuine career and becoming a productive member of society.

At the same time, I don't see anything necessarily wrong with your brother's lifestyle, though I'm distressed to hear he's drinking fairly commonly at only 18. You have your way, and he has his. The problem, really, is only that he believes his to simply be superior to yours.

Do as thou wilt, and that shall be the whole of the law.

I hate fighting with my brother like this, and sometimes I feel he's right and my life is some sort of babyized fantasy I live in simply because of my loneliness. As I said I have few people to talk to at this very moment, so I hope you'll forgive my boldness and don't mind me expressing this and possibly helping me on this subject. Believe me, I know how sad I must sound in RL.

You assume that socializing on the internet is somehow a "lesser" form of socializing, an idea popularized by a lot of people. While I have to admit that I don't think socializing on the internet possess all the subtleties and interactions real life socializing does, I think that the boundaries between the two are becoming less and less distinct quicker and quicker. I don't think it's babyish at all to necessarily live the way you do. There are some things I think you could improve on, but hey, don't we all?

They feel he really needs to cool off and we feel he's gonna try and stay at his friends place for days and I really hate to see this. My brother and I can get into seriously ugly ass arguments but I don't want him to be like this. My dependency on my parents isn't part of some weakness where I can't live on my own.

Unlike my brother, I have a very good relationship with my parents and they talk to me and support me instead of how my brother thinks I am like stapling myself to them and leeching off them. My parents have done more for me then I ever thought a parent could do and for that, I share everything with them.

I have the same problem with my sister, though my sister isn't exactly doing that badly with my parents. I think it's a common younger sibling thing, in all honesty, as I think younger siblings can tend to have a form of jealousy for the older sibling, and seeing you still at home probably drives him crazy and, thus, he accuses you of leeching because of his own jealousy.

As for his current state....let him cool off for a bit. I know that may sound somewhat detached and cold, but confronting him at this current point in time will, in my experience, only make things worse.

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

Your brother is an idiot. Hanging around bars and getting drunk is a far greater waste of time than watching cartoons or spending time online

No offense Cassini, but you're doing exactly what M's brother is doing in supposing one lifestyle to necessarily be better than the other. You're free to your opinion, of course, but I just think it's wrong to make such a judgment.

[Cassini90125]

Originally Posted by Nathander

No offense Cassini, but you're doing exactly what M's brother is doing in supposing one lifestyle to necessarily be better than the other. You're free to your opinion, of course, but I just think it's wrong to make such a judgment.

No offense taken. However, given the health effects of alchohol abuse and it's cost to society, I cannot judge it as anything other than inferior. I won't bore you with medical statistics or DWI stories; they're easy enough to find online. If we were talking about social drinking that would be another matter entirely and I have no problem with that, but based on Mr. M.'s description his brother's behaviour seems to have gone well beyond that.

[jekylljuice]

Originally Posted by Nathander

I have the same problem with my sister, though my sister isn't exactly doing that badly with my parents. I think it's a common younger sibling thing, in all honesty, as I think younger siblings can tend to have a form of jealousy for the older sibling, and seeing you still at home probably drives him crazy and, thus, he accuses you of leeching because of his own jealousy.

Well, as a younger sibling myself, I wouldn't say that I think that's entirely true. I think it's probably a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence. My older brother and I do get on reasonably well overall, but there is an extent to which he still bullies me now, when we're both in our 20s, much as he did when we were kids growing up. He's certainly not as hard on my lifestyle as Mr. M's younger brother is on his, but nonetheless his need to criticise me over the tiniest little things can get mighty tiresome after a while. I find it plausible that many older siblings would harbour a form of resentment for their youngers, since some of them never appear to get over the younger sibling's arrival and consequent diversion of parental attentions, but I reckon that we're getting a bit off topic here. So I'll simply repeat, the grass is always greener.

In your case, Mr. M, there doesn't really sound like there's an awful lot for you to be jealous about. I'm about the same age as you, and I have absolutely no interest in hanging out at bars, drinking intoxicating substances which have no appeal to me. I'm much rather curl up with a good book or cartoon. I think the best advice I could give would be to stop giving a monkey's about what other people think and to get on with what feels right to you. Admittedly, I'm not always brilliant at following it (as Niles Crane once said, "It's one thing to give advice, it's another thing to take it"), but I do think that it's quite a solid little tip nonetheless.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Originally Posted by Nathander

Is it because you're not outgoing, or because of your own personality, as, no offense M, but you tend to have INCREDIBLY extremist views and take a vitriolic attitude towards anyone who disagrees with them. What I'm getting at is this: that while a good deal of your decision to stick to being alone and sticking with anime, cartoons, and internet time is probably because you truly enjoy it, I'm wondering if some of it also isn't because you're afraid of genuinely socializing in the outside world. I ask this because I'm the same way, to a degree.

Not to turn this into a debate but I do have to clear up a few things. First off, I never said i was not outgoing I simply said most of my time is on the computer or going to the movies etc. Secondly, my so called extremist views you refer to have mostly stemmed from our conversations involving anime and stuff like that.

You don't really know my views on religion, beliefs, morals, politics etc. I don't tell people my views to change their minds, I tell them my views so they can see what my mind sees. I don't expect anyone to believe what I say just as long as they listen to it which most people don't do, they tend to miss that.

They assume I'm in a never ending battle to be "right" which is one of the things my brother strongly hates about me (I have done it but not as much as he makes it sound), I don't want to be right all the time I just want my brother and others to understand my views and why I feel this way/that way.

Thirdly and most importantly and not to sound aggressive over this but I NEVER EVER said I wanted to be alone. It is not a decision its a state of being, at least for me it is. I don't want to be alone I HATE being alone and I HAVE tried socializing and I still do I just still end up spending a lot of the time at home either way.

Nothing about my solitude has anything to do with choosing it, I don't want to be alone and I do want to socialize and I have been so I just want to make that clear. I'm not afraid to socialize what i am afraid is having to change my lifestyle to my brother's in order to further socialize because to me, that's not living.

He's not a druggie or a super burnt out addict but I have some moral standards that exceed any worries about being alone. There are some things and some ways of life I would rather die alone then live under.