Wild Card

Wild Card

Randy heard the familiar sound on his phone notifying him of a new text message. He swiped the cracked screen on his phone that had already been replaced three times this year and typed in his password. I need to be more careful he thought to himself. A group text message from several of his long-ago estranged friends included the details of an upcoming party along with an invitation to all of the recipients included. Randy wondered to himself, Why now? Do they finally trust me?

Randy had a love/hate relationship with partying, but one thing was for certain. A sober party was not a party. In the past, he had always tried to be the life of the party and did his best to make sure everyone was having a good time. He would try to make parties more lively by playing upbeat music and pouring shots for the partygoers who seemed to need them. Maybe he truly cared about his guests having a good time. Maybe he did not want to party alone. Maybe he wanted to be known as a “party animal” because he thought that would increase his worth and allow him to belong to a social group. He seemed to pride himself on being the first to start partying and the last to go to sleep, but drinking and spending time with his friends was also a release for Randy. 

This affinity for partying began early in Randy’s life as it offered him an escape from thinking of his fractured family life and allowed him to escape the stress of living with a drug addicted and mentally ill mother. However, Randy progressively partied harder and harder to try to escape his own mental illness as well as cope with the ever-increasing existential dread of the predictable and repetitive lifestyle aspired to by his peers.  The path that he was taught to follow as a child was fraught with the meaningless pursuit of acquiring material possessions and professional prestige. Both seemed of little interest to him and subject to diminishing returns. 

When he was not partying, Randy briefly searched for meaning in philosophy, cosmology, religion, and science, but that did not seem to help. Philosophy left him with more questions than answers. Cosmology confirmed his bias that life is meaningless when he began to realize the scale of the universe. Religion was unappealing due to conflicting claims and the prevalence of cherry-picking beliefs as if people were in a dogmatic Build-A-Bear workshop. Science was subject to paradigm shifts and answered “How?” rather than “Why?” which was his main concern. Alexander Pope’s advice that, “A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring” could not have been more true in Randy’s search for meaning. He thought to himself, Oh well, I can always party. That will always be fun and interesting. That can be my meaning.

What Randy did not realize is that anything can become repetitive and predictable. As the parties became more predictable and his existential depression gradually became worse, Randy tried to drink more and use more drugs to compensate for the boredom and meaninglessness. When that eventually stopped working, he would try to do or say something provocative or risky for attention at parties. My friends would surely appreciate the unpredictability he often thought to himself. He would put out a cigarette on his skin to show how tough he was with the added benefit of a shock value that was sure to draw a crowd’s attention. If someone else was receiving more attention than Randy, he would try to one up them to maintain his reputation. Eventually, he made increasingly alarming statements about how he did not mind dying and was actually looking forward to his death. This will surely draw some attention and perhaps even pity. Maybe he was looking for attention. Maybe he did not care if it was negative attention as long as someone showed interest. Maybe it was a cry for help. Maybe the phrase in vino veritas was to blame.

Regardless of his intentions, Randy began to notice that his friends were withdrawing from him. They were less likely to respond to his messages and spent far less time with him at social gatherings. Do they no longer care about me?  Am I too honest and they cannot handle the truth? Have they become too boring and no longer worth my time? Am I to blame? Randy decided that the reason for the departure of his friends and family was irrelevant. At least he still had alcohol and drugs. Those trusty friends never abandoned him. He loved his demons because they were the last to desert him. 

Randy doubled down on his drug use. He overdosed, crashed cars, embarrassed his family, and made regular threats of suicide to pressure those who had not yet left him to never leave. Eventually, he attempted to follow through on his threat when all hope seemed to be lost. By mere chance, he was taken to the hospital in time to be saved from his attempt. 

After years of treatment and recovery, he had finally achieved some relief from mental illness and substance abuse. He began to realize that his friends and family were leaving him because they loved him. The pain of seeing Randy destroy himself was too much to handle.  However, despite his progress and the realization of his role in destroying his relationships, Randy’s friends were understandably hesitant to trust him.

Randy reflected on his past and began to write a response to the group text. After meticulously revising his response for thirty minutes, he settled on typing, “Can’t Wait!”. He was thankful for a second chance, but he could not help feeling nervous about attending the party. Will it be awkward to show my face after acting so recklessly? Will my friends understand why I acted the way I did? Will my friends understand that I have changed? Have I truly changed? He decided to go to the party regardless of his reservations. If it did not work out, he always had his demons to make the party more fun. Maybe I will do something surprising if the party becomes boring and predictable…