A friend, who I shall refer to as Emo Friend, got kind of drunk, and was talking shit. He was having personal problems and was wallowing in what I would call an emo moment.
He and another friend of mine started talking “god.”
Emo Friend was saying “I’ve been a good person all my life. Why is god doing this to me?” The usual questions about faith. A dialogue between him and Non-Emo Friend continued.
I was smoking my cigarette while silently listening to the two talk it out. If Emo Friend needed his god, who was I to get in the way of that?
She (Non-Emo Friend) knew what I believed in (or what I didn’t believe in, for that matter). He (Emo Friend) didn’t. Yet.
Then in the midst of all the emoness of it all, he turned to me. “Diba?” was all he said. Diba, god should be good to you if you’re a good person, was what he meant. I said,
“I don’t believe in a god, honestly.”
To which he replied with a huff, “Me too! From now on, I won’t believe in God! …What happened? Why do you call yourself an atheist now? How?”
I couldn’t have said anything more than “I don’t know. I just came to a point in my life when I realized that I don’t.”
Another huff, and he says, “Come on. Nothing happened?! You’re not angry? You’re not bitter? Come on.”
I nod. Right, I wasn’t angry or bitter. I shrug. He looks at me in disbelief.
And he says, again, like a kid robbed of Halloween candy, “Okay. Whatever. I don’t believe in god anymore.”
At this point, I’m the one trying to convince him otherwise. I said “Dude. If you don’t believe in a god anymore, then fine, fine. But it’s obvious you still do. You’re angry. At a god. How can you be angry at something you don’t believe in?”
Then, drunk as he was, he resumed talking to Non-Emo Friend about their god.
I “preached” for the first time that night. My views haven’t changed, but I hope Emo Friend’s hasn’t either — not for the wrong reasons. We may have different beliefs, but they’re there for a reason. Our faiths keep us where we ought to be. And for some, gods are the only ones they can cling to for sanity.
Stay strong, Emo Friend. May you have less emo moments as the days come. :)
