This whole thing has been really rough on me. Blogging twice a week for this whole year has taught myself and others a lot. At least I’ve been told it has. However, sometimes with the feedback I get [which is grossly private for some reason] it seems like I don’t get my message across clearly. The way I think about things isn’t widely accepted. So it’s important that when I express my standpoints and views that even people who are rightfully at a different level of comprehension get the message loud and clear.
We’ve been taught all our lives not to use people and not to let ourselves be used. To an extreme extent that is true. But I’m here to tell people that no relationship will continue if the two in that relationship have no use for the other. I believe that we all use the people in our lives for something or another, if not, then that relationship will cease to exist. I’ve seen it happen way too many times for it not to be true. I think people just have a problem with the word “use”, but it is the most appropriate.
I’ve seen people used for common things like money, sex, status and social circles. That’s the more common and negative side of using people… but still okay to a certain extent if there’s some sort of reciprocity. In the forms where it happens on an everyday basis to people who might not get it, I suppose I’ll start with something easy. Say, a friendship between two people. Even more easy… let’s say one person is me!
I have VERY LITTLE to offer a friend. Which is why I know about a hundred thousand people, but only 4 of them are friends. People’s use for me is narrowed to a small window. I’m insightful, I’m a pleasure to be around, and I write shit. That’s about it.
The people who stay in my life use me for my ability to bring a smile to their face, offer them honest, UNBIASED perspective on something, or advice about writing. That’s it!
I let those people use me because that’s what I’m good for! And in turn, if I have a use for them, we talk even more because I’m using them for something. However, if I have no use for the people using me, we barely talk. See, the use we have for people must be mutual. And the more uses we have for one another, the more we are in eachothers lives.
If you have the same taste in clothes or shoes, we might be shopping buddies, and nothing else!
If you offer great advice. Can cook. And have the wanting to let me use you for sex…? Hell, we might be lovers!
If you do all that, plus let me use your apartment to sleep in, hell… we might be in a committed relationship!
It’s a simple concept and a numbers game. The higher number of uses you have for someone, the more you use them, the more time you spend the deeper your relationship.
(A short video i found after searching the title of my blog on youtube.)
Adversely, if you don’t have a use for someone, whatever initially brought you together will wear thin and you will soon be wondering, “Hey, whatever happened to that one guy”?
Look through your cell phone messages right now. Scroll all the way down. With the exception of onesey-twosies of people who randomly may have sent you a text recently, who are the ones you speak to the most? How about the ones all the way down at the bottom [thats if you’re like me and rarely delete ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS]. Those people at the bottom outwore their usage a long time ago. Or proved that they weren’t good for what you were using them for in the first place! But that person who you need for moral support, the person that you need to help you through hard times, the person who makes you feel good because you like to help them with their relationships endeavors, or that person who always compliments your outfits or WHATEVER…. they’re at or near the top. And you guys talk the most out of everyone. It could be the biggest use you have for them is to see that they’ve been thinking about you today.
As I look at my own life… I have people who have had a major use for me at one point, and now… have other people that they use for the same things. So I never hear from them. I’ve been used for dick. Companionship. A shoulder to cry on. Someone to vent to. When those people needed those things, I heard from them quite often. But as soon as I refused to be used for that, or they found someone else for those things, they become a memory. At any given point I felt like they were using me to the point it felt unfair, I had the choice to pull the plug and stop being used, or allow them to continue.
I think I’ve beaten this to death. I figured perhaps repeating myself in different ways would help the point get across more smoothly, but all in all, those who feel the concept of using others is a negative one, they will continue to disagree, which is fine. But either way, you will go back to your own life and look around at the people you talk to the most, and don’t talk to at all and realize, It’s OKAY to Use People.
Scream at me
Rooks
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Robert Lovelle Rooks 
I couldn’t agree more!! Now, I see why you wanted me to read this blog. Like you said, there must be a level of reciprocity. Otherwise, in most cases, one will begin to feel taken advantage of and will become resentful. I think that if more of us began to understand this concept in a much deeper way, we could become a movement of the principle “helping one another.” Great Blog, Rooks.
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Thanks for reading and commenting, Cami! Be it far from me to express a lack of fate in humanity, but I’m afraid with the label of helping one another we’d lose some traction lol. But I’m with you lol!
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I use people (in a good way) and I’m proud! LoL I’ve honestly never thought about it like that before.
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Thank you for reading and commenting! And thank you for letting me use you! You can use me anytime 🙂
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From a writer’s perspective, the relationship with our readership is usually summed up in sales but often goes intellectually unfulfilled with the lack of feedback. The fact that you are receiving feedback by way of your blog, be it private or public, is a rare treat where you can ascertain if your communication skills and verbal acuity is on point. For the readership, you offer the opportunity to escape their own mediocrity and trip through circumstances, events and logic while being conveyed by a mind other than their own. Depending on whether you fulfill your needs to your own satisfaction, you decide if you will follow up with more offerings. In short, you are using your readership and they are using you. It’s the social intercourse with your readership that brings this relationship to fruition.
Going into any relationship with expectations sets you up for disappointment. Know that any relationship has two parties. Both party’s needs should be met or the relationship loses its vitality and ceases to exist. The best we can do is offer ourselves, accept the offering of the other party (whatever that may be) and enjoy what may come from the relationship. If mutual gratification or benefit cannot be shared, the relationship naturally ends.
The relationship is the common reality. It’s the beliefs and various filters with which we are armed going into an agreement with another and those that develop afterward that becomes the story we carry forward and the memories we retain. This will most likely be very different from the story and memories retained by the other party. This is simply how the universe works and one of the many processes in place to help us find our way, choose those with whom we align and learn about one another and ourselves.
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I should’ve expected you to expertly find and explain an unknown parallel between a long-term conundrum of mine and the very blog I just wrote! Alas, I did not expect that lol. But Thank you.
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I love the blog but not fund of the phrase “Using Someone ” I do, however see your view point. My circle of friends as you know are very small (my choice) and each of them serve a purpose in my life and vice versa I know this to be a matter of fact. It is what it is!
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Well, I dont know who you are (but apparently you know me) but I’m glad we agree! Thanks for reading and commenting!
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You are entirely correct in you assertion that people use other people. It’s the way of people and relationships. One must serve a purpose in order for the relationship to have meaning and any real staying power. No one wants to give all of themselves all of the time and never receive anything in return. Not that we should go into a relationship, be it friendly or romantic, always expecting something- there needs to be balance. So yes, I agree with your statement even though I don’t particularly love the way “use” sounds when referring to people and relationships.
And as always, thank you for your honest thoughts and opinions my friend.
Wait, we’re still friends, right? 😉
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LoL, I wasn’t aware we had crossed that road yet, Fallon! 😋
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“everything is used even the most beautiful food gets chewed maybe we are here to devour the good” -greenangst Maybe we ARE here to devour the good. As long as we use things or people for good and have good intentions while not taking advantage of them then it is ok to use people. I believe we are here to use each other or things for lots of reasons. 😊
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I completely agree with you. Especially that it’s the word “use” that people are so against, as it has a negative connotation to it. People are more comfortable with the word “provide”. She provides me companionship. He provides me with advise (or dick, lol). But essentially, it’s the same thing. As you said, the more things that a person can find use of in another person, and vice versa, the more time they spend and the deeper their relationship, whatever that relationship may be.
Great post!
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Everyone in our lives we have for selfish reasons. Even our best of friend we have them for our own selfish reason. So yes I would have to agree with this article that we ALL use people. Perfectly put.
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I’m glad you agree! Thank you so much for reading and commenting!
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