Soap Opera Anyone?

Life can be strange sometimes. I've gone most of my life (ok, so it's only sixteen years and ten months) without any real drama. Due to my father's job my family moved around a lot when I was younger, but that's hardly dramatic. I remember once when I was nine my father moved out of the house for a day after having a bad argument with my mother, but that's hardly dramatic. Even when I came out it wasn't exactly dramatic - I told my best friend I was gay and in love with him, he told me he was gay and felt the same way. We told my parents and though there were a lot of questions and conversations there were no raised voices or tears. We told his parents we were gay and they shouted...for about ten minutes before calming down and realising they were being stupid.

If my life up to July of this year had been a soap opera, people would have gotten bored of watching long ago. And that's just how I like it.

Then July happened. Don't want to talk about it again, but I think it set something off. After July I had the drama of August, locked away in my house, my boyfriend trying to coax me out of my depression, finishing the month by proposing to me. Then there was September. We had the drama of telling our parents we were engaged (my mother knew before Dylan asked, but my father and his parents didn't know until after). That prompted long lectures from them about rushing into things and waiting until we're older, and long lectures from us about how we're not planning on getting married until we've graduated from University at the earliest.

Then we had drama from my brother. In the middle of September he sat us all down and told us that a girl he had never dated, never had sex with, never really said more than a couple of words to, was claiming that she was pregnant and he was the father. I know my brother can be an ass at times, but he is more responsible than I like to give him credit for, so if he did get a girl pregnant he'd do the right thing. He hasn't, though. He has had sex exactly once in his life - an admission that caused me great amusement - and that was back when he was fifteen.

To cut a long story short, the girl in question is somewhat lacking in sanity and wasn't even pregnant. She just wanted attention, so earlier this year she made up a story about a secret affair she was having with my brother, telling all her friends about it, and the lies escalated. She first told her best friend that she thought she might be pregnant, then said that she was pregnant, then said that he had accused her of cheating and denied being the father, then said that the stress caused her to have a miscarriage. She might have got away with it too, and ruined my brother's reputation, if her friends hadn't caught her in the lie.

Perhaps that's why I feel sympathetic towards someone I don't really like on a forum I go to. He's an arrogant, opinionated ass who thinks he's smarter than everyone else and has an aggressive style of debate that verges on bullying. Some of his views are racist, many of them are ignorant (like claiming that rape victims are complicit in their attack by putting themselves in a situation where they can be attacked, which of course didn't endear him to me). However, now he's being accused of being a pedophile, and the evidence for that allegation? He's told a few bad taste jokes and admitted that, at the age of twenty, he is attracted to older teens and has had sex with a sixteen year old.

It doesn't matter whether you think it is morally acceptable for a twenty year old man to have sex with a sixteen year old boy. It is legal where he lives and having an attraction to sixteen year olds does not make him a pedophile. You can call him misguided. You can call him morally bankrupt. You can call him sick. Those opinions are subjective and we are all entitled to believe whatever the hell we want. You cannot, however, accuse someone of being a pedophile, an accusation that can not only impact their current and future employment prospects, but which can also place them in very real physical danger from idiot vigilantes who see it as their moral duty to protect society.

Bullying of all kinds angers me, and while his behaviour at times has verged on bullying (the intellectual kind), this is outright, unashamed bullying that could have lasting consequences. It's sickening.

Went off on a little tangent there, but after seeing my brother go through something similar it's hard not to feel sympathy for the guy, no matter how I feel about him.

So, back to the drama. End of September comes around and I'm feeling drained. Hardly unexpected given all that's been going on, but my mother decided to have a good flap about it and ended up sending me to the doctor to get checked out. I thought maybe I might need anti-depressants or something, but he did a blood test, then sent me to the hospital for some more tests, and then delivered the good news. Turns out I have a minor case of cancer. And I do mean that it's a minor case. It's been caught in the early stages and according to my doctor it's one of the better kind of cancers to get as the chances of survival are high even if it hadn't been caught so early. I'm sure as shit not dying anyway. But I have started chemo and so the past week has been spent feeling even more exhausted, with the added bonus of vomiting. Couldn't deal with the hair loss so I shaved my head (with my brother's help), and now realise just how much warmth my hair provided.

I really can't catch a break at the moment! I've got another month of treatment, and then I expect I'll be given the all clear and can hopefully resume a quiet, drama-free life. Seriously - I know there are people who thrive on drama - you can't spend any real length of time on the Internet without encountering them - but I'm not one of them. I'm not saying I want my life to be boring, but a little less interesting would suit me just fine.