You can very easily be a willing victim of a vampire.  Only, in this world, unlike Anne Rice’s, you don’t allow yourself to be a meal in order to get eternal life, or whatever all those goth kids think they crave.

It’s a situation I’ve been in before: one in which you give and give and give, but receive far less.  An assymmetric, inherently unequal trade.

Look around you, and you’ll see these situations and relationships all around you.  Hopefully, you’re smart enough to avoid being in them yourself, but they’re there.  Workers that don’t get compensated enough; friendships that aren’t fair and balanced (hi, Fox News!).

The questions come: do those in those situations — on either side, be it taker or giver — recognize the inequity for what it is?  Why do they stay?  Did they know beforehand what was coming? And if so, why did they proceed?  Why are they still there?

These are the questions I have to ask of myself.  It’s not just one situation, but many. And as I determine to extricate myself from some and to demand more for myself in others, I have to determine why I continue finding myself here, and (more importantly) validating and excusing the behavior of others at my expense.

It’s also occuring to me that I’m never gonna get everything that I deserve in life if I keep letting others take it away from me.

Bleh.  It leaves you tired, this whole life thing…