Teaching myself, and bad habits

Hello, thanks for taking your time to read what I've got to say. Anyway, I wasn't shown how to hold a pick or play a guitar properly. a friend of mine has been playing for a year and shows me a few things here and there on playing notes and shows me chords, which i dont remember!!! .... does it matter how you hold it? the pick? i mean i hold it the way i feel comfortable with..... As far as that goes, i didnt know anything about scales and playing them, or curling fingers, and ive got this habit ,my thumb likes to lay parallel with the neck and it hurts when i try to keep it alligned with the rest of my fingers, and i slouch too when i do try to play sitting up, i mess up horribly... well,was jsut wanting some tips and thoughts, let me know

I always wandered the same for years, but the key to it all, and i quote you on this "i feel comfortable" thats all that matters :)

I'd say that you need to figure out what you're expecting to do, long term, with the guitar. If you're just looking to strum chords out, it doesn't really matter who teaches you what and you can certainly teach yourself. If you're wanting to extend that to play riffs and some lead GET A LESSON, even if it's only one. There are fundamental building blocks that you need to know and once you've developed your bad habits, they're hard to break.

Example:
I started playing about two months ago. I play about 2 hours a night every night... more on the weekends. I had my guitar for a month before I had my first lesson and the fundamental things that I was doing wrong would have hindered me the rest of my guitar playing life (playing the G chord with the wrong fingers, holding the pick wrong, holding the guitar wrong, resting my arm on my leg, etc). Sure I would have been able to strum out around the campfire but I would have only needed the first three frets.

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully it'll help.

Yeah, I dont know who to turn to for lessons though. i plan to learn lots of things on guitars, i want to play leads and riffs, everything the guitar has to offer...

i looked up a few things last night and found a chromatic scale in 'e'... so ive been doing that with my fingers curled and thumb straight aligned with the neck... more tips wouldbe appreciated

Have you tried looking this stuff up using the search feature?

Scales
http://www.guitartricks.com/search.php?input=scales&submit=%A0++go

Riffs
http://www.guitartricks.com/search.php?input=riffs&submit=%A0++go

Chromatic
http://www.guitartricks.com/search.php?input=chromatic&submit=%A0++go