Moral Matters.

I can’t help feeling that not turning up for lunch with Sebastian wasn’t the act of betrayal that the group demanded. Especially since he met up with a woman instead of me. Apparently they met on Thursday, and when she saw him sat alone she simply had to join him. When it was proposed that I plot against Sebastian, I didn’t think it would be me that kept coming off the worst. And what does it mean, this act of betrayal? As I went through Sebastian’s things, looking for something personal to steal, I had to wonder exactly what was involved, morally. The deceptions over my initiation were one thing, but for the first time I was intruding into Sebastian’s life. I stole a bracelet, out of desperation, hidden in a bag of oddments in his case. On Saturday I sold it to one of the antique shops here, and then slid the profit into selected slot machines. The money finally ran out today. I don’t quite know why I feel bad about it, since it is, after all, only a simulated abuse of trust. When I hold up my selfish motives against the generalities of being good, I’m convinced that what I’m doing is right, and that Sebastian would agree with me. The trespass into his private belongings is a source of regret only because he might catch me out, not because he trusts me. And really, outrage over betrayal is just feeling miffed that you didn’t get away with anything yourself first. I have to remember not to confuse proximity with friendship.

But then that makes me wonder if I’ve ever had real friends, or just people whose habits coincided with my own. That’s why I see more of Norman and Angela than I do my mates from school. Any selfish need can be dwelt on until it becomes a moral ambiguity, and from there it’s just a matter of rationalising long enough until objections become naïve and superstitious.

After a few hours of contentment with this argument, regardless of the paralysis of panic every time Sebastian went near his suitcase, or the compulsion to check the case to make sure I’d not left any tell tale signs, I began to wonder if I could now twist anything until it was acceptable, what sort of person does that make me? It’s impossible to know if everyone plays these semantic games, while they conform to acceptable standards, believing that everyone else believes in them, or is it only since I learned that the world is not what I thought it was?