So recently I was invited to a good friend's bachelor party. A bachelor party is what many human males do before marriage. What is marriage? Next post I'll answer that. Anyways, it's pretty typical of bachelor parties to be where the male does many things he will not be allowed to do after he is married, or things his wife will not approve of. This may involve strippers, binge drinking, gambling, and so on. Just watch The Hangover for a 'typical' bachelor party.
Anyways, I have been a good friend of the guy who is getting married for five years. Hell, I met him back when I thought I was a human. We played a lot of sports together, watched a lot of movies, took a lot of trips, and so on. All the social bonding stuff humans do, we did. We were best friends.
I was also a Christian then, as was he. Well, I never really saw myself as a Christian, because I never liked a lot of things Christians bought into or how they ingrouped and outgrouped people. We met at Campus Crusade for Christ, and went with this organization to New Orleans for spring break to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. We were more than friends, as we were also Brothers in Christ. This is what some of the humans who align themselves with Christianity say about other Christians.
About the time I realized Earth was not for 'people like me' (before I knew I was a sleeper agent), I ended up trying to leave the planet via an overdose and ended up in a psychiatric ward, mental hospital, funny farm, looney bin, whatever you want to call it. I had a major falling out with my pastor, who is the human who leads the Christians onward to God, when I told him how I was depressed, couldn't get better, didn't see a point in living, and wanted to die. He told me I gave the Devil a foothold in my life and blamed me for my problems. This was before I took the overdose. Upon my departure from the hospital, I had no intention of returning to church. I still have not, with no plans to change. My friend did not like this very much, and we since have grown apart.
I go into all of this background to show you what happened next. In weddings, humans have groomsmen, best man, bridesmaids, and maid of honor. This is an honored position for good friends or helpers if those getting married. After we had called each other best friends for so long, I was not selected. I had no interest in going to this bachelor party, full of (mainly) people from that church who would agree with that pastor and who had not contacted me since my church departure. I did not care to hold small talk, cheap conversation, and pretend like I cared what they had to say. I went anyway, out of respect for the friendship I had had with this guy.
It started out with dinner, than a baseball game. This guy comes from a tough upbringing, on the wrong side of the tracks, without a father. I met his brother and mother some time ago, and it turned out his brother was there. I was glad I went, because his brother didn't have a lot of people he could talk to.
So baseball is a sport where humans throw circular object, hit it with wood, throw the object into big gloves, and run to different safety zones. It is incredibly boring, unless there are stolen bases, pickles, home runs, or amazing catches. Basically, someone has to get on the ground for it to be exciting. This rarely happens. I cannot imagine how the humans can watch this. I used to play baseball, and loved it. I lived for stealing bases, hitting the ball hard, and so on. One of my savant skills was memorization, and I could memorize the batting lineups of every MLB team, with reasons and strategies for why and when each player would bat. This Aspie interest didn't last long, and it was also before I knew I was an Aspie.
With basketball, a human can watch a game without having to talk much. Same could be said for football or soccer. These sports have non-stop action. Part of the appeal to humans with baseball is the ability to socialize, connect, and all that stuff. So many of these former friends and church-goers talked and talked and talked to me. One said, 'I haven't talked to you in a long time.' I said, 'Well why is that?' I did play the bullshit human social game some, but wouldn't let them off the hook that easy. Others tried to talk me into coming to church. One year later, after not calling, emailing, or even facebooking, they are suddenly worried about my 'relationship with God' or my 'soul.' I don't have a problem with people's concern over this, I mean if a fiery guy with pointy ears and a pointy tail wants to poke my ass with a pitchfork for all of eternity and they want to stop that, that is very nice of them. It would be selfish of them not to. Even Penn Gillette, famous atheist of Penn and Teller, agrees with me on that. See his youtube video on that here. However, there are ways to do this without having an agenda or being an ass. What bothered me is that I was so involved in the church all the time, and when I quit coming, hardly anybody seemed to notice or care. I realize this is not personal, with most humans it is 'out of sight, out of mind,' but I thought I had been better friends with people than that. When I was involved, I was often still talking to and hanging out with people after they quit church, because I cared for people, not for attendance.
Anyways, I played the human bullshit social game, told the humans what they wanted to hear, was friendly and left the impression of one nice guy. I did not really care that much though, aside from my friend and his brother. I have proven, once again, just how easy it is to play humans and let them think what they want. Even when I thought I was human, I often played them, simply because it would be too difficult or dramatic otherwise. The baseball game actually ended in the bottom of the ninth inning when a pinch hitter scored the winning run for the home team. This was right after I saw he was from Canada, and said, 'Oh great, he's Canadian and not playing hockey?' Then he won it. I ate my words.
