<a ngry rant>
One's implicit theory is how one views the world. It is rarely the same between people, and it is often their motivation. It can change many times during one's life, suddenly or gradually. I realized that one of my views was a tad off, and I would like to talk about it tonight.

You know, currently I have 124 FB friends who aren't family. I would say that, at most, 20 are truly my friends...and that's probably an over-estimate. Hmm...lets think who I can say are my real friends, UNQUESTIONINGLY. The first three that pop into my head would be Miss Noffke, Keith, and Essence. My mind then goes to Seth, and thinks about a couple of other people before stopping. It stops simply because, in my head, I have reason to question many people, such as Mr. Noffke, Jenn, Fernand (is he even aware I still exist?) and Cody. I'm not saying that the questioning is sound, but it is still questioning nonetheless. After adding Brice and Jenny to the list, I think of some of the people who I haven't really talked to in a while. I feel adding them would be cheating, so I skip over people like Adam, Derrek and Mr. Houston. I also skip over the three other members of our random four (Cyle, Ian and Kevin). I really want to add some of these people to the list, but I said unquestioningly, and so I cannot. I skip over many more, and then stop. I'm at the end of the list from back home, and I only have six people. I don't even think I have fourteen questionable friends from Ripon, so 20 is busted. Let's shoot for ten. On the Ripon list, the first unquestionable one I can think of is Fabrizzio, then my roomie Hiro, and then Tyler. Next I think of Paul, then Daniel and Ojash...but wait...I barely know these people. Is it fair for me to include them despite the fact that I barely know them? Let's rewind to the start of the Ripon list. The ones I know well (like Derek) are questionable. It's only the ones that I barely know that aren't questionable. I now have to leave Ripon off the list, for none of them are truly unquestionable (since I have to question the ones I don't really know).

Wow. I have six people I would currently consider to be true friends. That gives me 118 acquaintances.
Yay.

I have managed to depress myself. Why did I do this? Why do I question so many of these people?
Perhaps I shouldn't. Perhaps I should ignore that some couldn't be bothered to show up to my grad party, perhaps I need to forget that I was left out by those people when they all went to see a movie while I was just sitting at my computer, bored to death. Perhaps the fact that no one tells me what fun activity they are doing on campus unless I overhear it when they tell someone else is moot. Perhaps not.

I don't like being forgotten, left out, ignored, any of that stuff. It really offends me. Let me tell you a story that only a few of you know.

In sixth grade, I was in a play called "The Penny Dreadfuls," written by one of the best teachers I have ever had the pleasure of studying under, Ray Sheers. My character was called Mad Aggie, one of the stars of the show, in a way. I had one of the lead parts (not the lead, but pretty close) as the lowest grade level that could be a part of the play. The part was actually written around what I had to offer, for he wrote the rest of the play while we were rehearsing the first act. I gained a lot of respect all across the school from it, and I liked the feeling. I like not always being looked down on, not always being called weird or odd or different...
Then I moved. Well, my family moved. I was taken from Cook County to Lake County. Not an upgrade, believe me. I was very annoyed by this, for I had no way to contact any of my past friends (still have no way...). Another thing I didn't have was the respect that I had just gained. I lost it all, had to earn it all back. Never did. Over six years later, still haven't got it back yet. I suppose that's what I've been working toward these last six years...and I have nothing to show for it. People ignore me, people leave me out, people don't notice me (which you would think would be difficult, since Hawaiian shirts are kinda vibrant...).
Then there's the other group of "friends" - the ones who are friends with my intelligence or my other abilities, not me. I don't think I have many of those anymore, but I can still think up a few.

Object permanence. Do you know what it is?
It is the idea that, despite you not being able to see an item, it still exists. Babies lack object permanence, which is why it is so fun to play Peekaboo with them. Sometimes, I think my friends lack Ben permanence. I'm not in front of them, so I'm not a part of their world. They can't see me, so they just won't include me. That seems wrong, but what can you do? Well...I guess the question is what can I do?
I've tried letting it be, I can't deal with it. I've tried being proactive, but that doesn't seem to be working either. I can't just tell them, because they wouldn't believe me, then they'd vow to change, then in about a week, it would be back to Ben permanence for them.

But the ones who annoy me the most are the ones who forget me. I can be a forgetful person at times, it's true. Many will tell you. But when it comes to my friends, I have only forgotten them a tiny amount of times, almost always because something distracted me, like someone wanting help in French or someone wanting to audit my French class. But I tend to be forgotten a lot. It seems like people constantly forget that they were going to inform me if they couldn't come to my grad party, or if I could go over to their house (or them to my house), or if we were supposed to go biking, jogging, or whatever. I wait and wait, and then nothing...nothing. Part of this we can blame on communication, since I seem to be inept at it. My cell phone hates me around 90% of the time and I don't have all the people's numbers that I should...but that still doesn't merit me being forgotten, does it?

Perhaps I'm just too picky. Perhaps I want things to be a certain way. Perhaps I don't know what I want (which is completely true). Perhaps I care about my friends way more than I care about myself (also true). Perhaps I care about my friends more than they care about me (I hope I'm wrong on this, but I seem to be right in these types of matters, which always pisses me off).

Or perhaps I am completely correct.
</angry rant>