Wait...So That Wasn't Hitting on Me?

           Okay. So like, you know when you go to the eye doctor and they have you do that annoying thing where you cover one eye and read those ever shrinking letters until your actually just making crap up and don’t really get why the doctor continues to nod since you are now rattling off letters in Na’vi? Right, well, we all hate those tests, think they are a waste of time or whatever, but don’t you kinda wish there was some kind of test for reading those tricky signs of attraction (and the doctor actually told you when you started getting them wrong?)

            I know, I know, bad lead in but whatever you get the point (and I really liked that Na’vi reference.) But like really, haven’t you ever wished there was like How to Tell if He is Really Into You or Just Being Nice For Dummies or something? I mean, half the time we wind up mistaking common human decency for infatuation and the more desperate we get the more muddled those signals get. Hell! A simple hello and we’ve already got 500 save-the-date cards mailed out before the calligraphy is even dry.

            Truth is, more often than not, we don’t even have feelings for this person, but the simple thought that they might be into us has us picking out wedding dresses and engagement rings while obsessively stalking their Facebook page to see if any “skanks” are making moves on your man.

            If you are now thinking OH MY GOSH and making those circles around your ears to indicate insanity, than yep you are absolutely, 100% right. It is entirely ridiculous. Sadly, however, misreading the signs can have us on top of the free-fall ride, looking out over the whole amusement park of life, one second and  falling, at what seems like 700 million miles per hour, and praying to whatever G-d you subscribe to that you don’t plummet through the center of the Earth and burn to a crisp the next.

            So, there you have it, those pesky little sideways glances or slightly too long hugs that leave us elated for one second and curled in a ball in the dark at 6 pm crying and watching Netflix instant streaming the next, remain the wasp bites of the romantic world. Worst of all, though, if we are really honest with ourselves, we don’t actually want them to stop, because living without those fleeting moments of fireworks and self-confidence boosts is just as depressing as living with them. Of course, despite knowing this, we still constantly wish that one of the hundred times we imagine ourselves going out on a romantic date in Central Park with “that” guy (who just has to hold our hand or cuddle with us or dance with us at a party) we actually were right and actually got that happily ever after we so long for.

            I guess, at the end of the day it comes down to this: if every once in a while we got a win, if every one in a hundred guys actually called after they asked for your phone number, if every so often the guy that acts like he is into actually followed through, it would make all of the other times easier to bear. Unfortunately, for some of us, that one in a hundred chance is waiting for us all the way at number 99, and sometimes, just sometimes, we just can’t muster up the strength to make it there.

            XOXO

                        E

Damn! Out of Glue!

            For so much of our lives we hold ourselves back, hold back the feelings of inadequacy, hold back the fears of isolation, hold back the pains of rejection, hold back everything about ourselves that we are sure will make us completely unlovable, unapproachable, and all around undesirable. As a result, we essentially float around in orbs of society made fuzz that reflects what’s within us in order to appease everything that is outside of us.

            I mean, it’s not all bad. The truth is, sometimes we need something to hold in all the crazy that threatens to lash out at unsuspecting passerbys on a daily basis. Unfortunately, attempting to contain something that overwhelmingly powerful is a tiring and ultimately impossible job.  Inevitably, the crazy is unleashed in one massive spurt that, like Mount Vesuvius, threatens to forever encase the Pompeii of our lives in a molten tomb of destruction.

            Of course, this only succeeds in making us work harder and harder to shield the rest of the world from our volcanic insanity and retreat farther and farther into that shell of society’s expectations. So, we continue to hate ourselves because we are too afraid of what the world will think of us and then we hate ourselves even more for hating ourselves. We exist in this vicious cycle of self-loathing and self-deprecation thinking all the while we are protecting ourselves from something that in actuality has already succeeded in scaling our well-made walls and like the Mongols wreaked havoc on what lies within.

            Who we are becomes whom we define ourselves as. We choose which parts of ourselves get exposed to the world and which parts are hidden completely. We choose ourselves like we would choose a meal at a fast food restaurant, picking the combinations that work the best for a specific situation or specific needs. Now, I’m not saying that this is wrong. I mean, the truth is, it doesn’t make us any less ourselves, it just makes ourselves something less.

            As we seek to hide our true colors from a world we are afraid of blinding, we find ourselves unraveling a web within our own consciousness until we eventually find that there is nothing left. I guess we hope that before it gets to that point we will find someone to stop us, to tell us that it’s okay to show the whole picture, but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, you wind up at the end of the tapestry and all you have to show for yourself is a pile of yarn on the floor. 

            The truth is, all we want is to find someone to hold us together, to replace that orb of impersonal societal fuzz with something solid and protective, something to remind us that what’s inside isn’t wrong or dirty, but rather it is makes us who we are, both the best and the worst parts of us. We all yearn to find that person who doesn’t contain the crazy for fear of the explosion, but because they know how to deal with it before you fall apart. We all long to find another human being who will cuddle with us when we feel exposed, patch us up when we feel about to break, and take our hand even in those moments when we feel like some leper that nobody could bear to touch.

            It all comes back to companionship, seeking the glue from someone else’s bottle because you can no longer trust your own will make the pieces stick. The sad truth, though, is that sometimes you wind up at the craft store and the last bottle of glue has already been bought. It’s in those moments that you pull out the duct tape or even the scotch roll of friends and family, hoping to find something strong enough that can temporarily put you back in place until the glue finally gets restocked.

           

            XOXO

                        E

Soooooooooo NOT What I Had In Mind

           You know those moments that you’ve effectively over-thought and over-planned till you essentially have scripted out all parts of all conversations, experienced all emotional ups and downs, and practically lived the moment at least a hundred varying ways in your mind. Yeah, now you know when you actually get to those moments and nothing (no but like actually NOTHING) turns out anywhere  even close to how you imagined it. I mean, seriously, you would think that something might turn out right every once in a while, but experience has shown me that the more you expect something to happen the more you are ensuring that it doesn’t.

            For this reason, I have come to the unsettling conclusion that expectations are the root of all evil in the world. Come on though, if you really think about it, expectations are the reason that we feel disappointment, the reason that we feel cheated out of things that we’ve never had to begin with, the reason we deal with the loss of things that have never been won. Without expectations, we wouldn’t be forced to suffer through the torment of living a moment that falls so drastically short of our fantasy that our would be reality becomes in actuality a horrifying nightmare. 

           Don’t get me wrong, we would all love to live the dream, but at a certain point, I honestly would give up the dream if I could just have something that didn’t make me sweat, cry, and scream out in agony. But, unfortunately, humans, in all our growing wisdom, have yet to develop a way to prevent expectations.

            Sure, we can squabble on and on about not getting ahead of ourselves, promise not to over think things and just live in the moment, but we all know it’s a load of crap. I mean, even as we feebly attempt to block our imaginations from wandering down the path, we find ourselves already standing at the finish line looking back and willing our body to catch the hell up because the grass is way greener where our minds already are. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if our bodies and minds could just stay in sync during our lifetime, that stupid saying of the grass being greener on the other side or whatever might actually hold true. However, as I’ve attempted to make perfectly clear, our mind is the hare and our bodies the tortoise and no matter how hard we try to convince that pesky little hare to take it slow and such it just keeps on running like the freaking energizer bunny. So, instead of just enjoying the things that we do have, we are constantly expecting something better down the line that our mind has already visualized but inevitably won’t be there anymore once the rest of us gets to the scene.

            Now, I know this sounds all depressing, and trust me, it is. In fact, I hate to break it to you all but I don’t even have a positive or slightly less cynical outlook to give on this point. I mean, I’ve basically explained that expectations suck the very light and soul out of our existence and are completely indestructible and unstoppable. Honestly, I wish I could end this by giving you the ice bullet or the silver stake or the whatever so that you could get rid of those life-ruining expectations. I wish I could tell you to just picture the expectations in your granny’s old suit and oversized hat and laugh them away out of existence just because you're finally able to recognize how stupid they truly are (ps. major brownie points if you can catch this subtle reference).

            But of course, there are no tricks that I have found to stop myself from dreaming my life away into a constant stream of shattered facades and crumbling motion picture endings (but like, if you have some please share!) Nope, we can’t seem to stop my mind from filling in the holes that our eyes can’t see, can’t stop our imaginations from acting out the scenarios our bodies have yet to experience. Instead, to try and cope, we live a life that is contained to our brains, a life that can never be matched in the outside world, and so we continue to retreat into the solace of the perfect world we have created and hope that someday, something may actually come true.

            XOXO

                        E 

On Your Mark. Get Set. "The Game"

           We all play it. Even those of us who pretend we aren’t playing or swear that we are done playing are still playing because attempting not to play is just as much playing as actually playing is! Yeah, confusing (and a lot of the word playing) but overall, basic sentiment here is WE ARE ALL SCREWED!!!

            Okay, okay, it’s not all that bad. I mean, people have been playing since the days of the cave (homo erectus style) and humanity has seemed to survive it so far. Sure, we all hate “the game,” wish we could just quit, but, unlike high school P.E, “women troubles” aren’t enough to get us a free pass. Hell! Like it or not, we’re trapped in “the game” and it’s full-tackle, brutal, and the rules don’t always make sense.

            Of course, as with any game, some people are better at playing “the game” than others. Like, some people wind up living pretty with hotels on the Boardwalk while the rest of us are doomed to collect our $2 rent every 10 rounds or so on one of those lowly purple properties. Seriously, half the time we don’t even wanna roll the dice anymore for fear of what we may mistakenly land on. But anyway, seems like some people go around the board constantly hitting that triple word score or always taking the ladders as the rest of us are just happy to get something on the board at all.

            Alright, so  “the game” doesn’t exactly have a board; you know, brightly colored squares that we can follow to an end, a limited amount of possible outcomes, little metal game pieces to put in our place. Guess the fact of the matter is, we’re the ones stuck playing this stupid game on a “board” as big as a planet, (literally) and unlike little chance cards, absolutely anything (and I totally mean ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING) is possible. As if that wasn’t bad enough, “the game” doesn’t even have a rulebook or a Scrabble dictionary to make sure that everyone knows what the hell is going on. I mean, in theory we’re all playing the same game but with so many freaking amended rules and strategies to outsmart each other we might as well be attempting to play Candyland on the Battleship board while using the rules of Pictionary.

            Truth is, all of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to figure out who is playing what version of “the game” and whether or not we are playing “the game” correctly. You know what I mean; resisting the urge to text “that guy” because you want him to text you first, flirting with every guy except “that guy” so you seem unattainable and not so obviously desperate and obsessed with him.

            Yep, all of us are playing “the game” in our own little way and in the meantime everyone else is totally confused as to what the hell we are actually trying to achieve. Of course, as previously explained, we are incapable of ending the game because the truth is it’s the way we relate to each other, the way we feebly attempt to ensure that our own glass house of emotion isn’t destroyed by someone else’s bulldozer (or something like that.) The truth is, we each play “the game” to try and protect ourselves, act like we don’t spend hours thinking about the people we are hopelessly infatuated with, pretend that we aren’t hurt by constant unrequited love, hide the fact that our hearts flutter like mini butterflies every time we see “that guy” or he touches our hand, mask the painful surge of blackness that burns every time we see “that guy” with someone else.

            At the end of the day, “the game” is our defense. Since we don’t understand how to play, we can’t lose. Since we don't play by specific rules, we can’t show someone else our hand. Instead, we are allowed to use “the game” to shelter ourselves from the torrential storm of love, all the while insisting that it’s actually “the game” that is using us.

                       

            XOXO

                        E

The Nobody Chronicles: Chapter One (part two)

             Now, let me explain something very important, nobody EVER texts me first. Sure, I talk to people via text when I’m bored in class or something and I text my mom constantly asking her to just pick me up already, but I always have to start those conversations. I’m like one of those optical illusions, ya know, you don’t see me unless I get pointed out. Well, I hear my phone buzz and suddenly my heart starts racing and my mind starts whirring and I couldn’t tell you which way is up. I mean, this meant someone wanted to talk to me.

            After a brief feeling of sadness at how depressing my life must be if the vibrating of a text was enough to get me all excited, I rushed over to grab the phone. No sooner had I touched it, however, that I drew back. See, the thing is, I didn’t wanna seem to eager to get to the phone. Rather, I needed to seem like I was all busy doing something ridiculously cool and important, and then happen to check my phone and politely respond to whoever was on the other end. Of course, after having this little internal dialogue with myself, I realized that my human contact was a text message, meaning there was no actual other person on the other end to know if I reached for the phone eagerly or not. As this exchange had cost me about a minute or so anyway, however, it became moot point, and with a sigh at my own patheticness, I opened the phone.

            You know when you are waiting for a birthday or Hannukah present, and you’ve asked you’re parents for just one really awesome thing that you want and then the day comes, and the box they hand you is the right size, the right weight, the right everything, but then you open it up and its some ugly ass sweater they found on sale at a Wal-Mart. Yeah, that was the feeling I had when I finally opened my phone.

            Now, I obviously should have known better than to expect anything much, I mean, unlike the movies, real life does not consist of mysterious hot secret admirers or stalkers, but what can I say, I’m a dreamer.

            So, naturally the message was not some strange boy sweeping me off my feet and making all my dreams comes true, but rather my 14-year-old sister Noa, asking me if we could pick up her newest boyfriend on our way to school. My heart constricted a little and my breath caught up in my throat. I couldn’t help myself, it was one of those texts that puts you in an awful mood right off the bat, and then of course you get mad at yourself for letting it bother you so much, which ultimately only succeeds in making you feel more awful. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister to death and everything, but I’ve always felt like she’s the older one, experiencing life, and I’m the little girl watching her life like some CW special and wishing someday I could be like her.

            It’s all my parents fault though, if you ask me. I mean, it seems to me like by take two they sorta had this parenting thing down and didn’t screw her up quite as badly. Personally, I attribute it to the name, like seriously, Noa, is like some epic dude in the Bible who saves all the animals from a flood and is the only righteous guy in the whole world. Miriam, on the other hand, is the dowdy single sister of Moses, who follows her two brothers around through the freaking desert dancing like some crackpot with her timbrel or something like that. 

            Moving on though, I of course told Noa we could pick up her boyfriend, since it wasn’t worth arguing with her, and then proceeded to change my outfit, almost like the dismay of the failed text message had left something icky and depressing on the original one. Once changed, and starting to feel a tad bit better about myself, I headed into the kitchen for breakfast.

The Nobody Chronicles: Chapter One (part one)

            Today began like every other day:  my alarm went off way too early (interrupting the best part of my dream), I sat up looked at myself in the mirror, thought “umm…yeah, no” and lay back down.

            As I burrowed back into my covers, cursing the Taylor Swift song that had roused me (and was now running on repeat in my head), I tried to come up with some reasonable excuse for why I needed to miss school. Not that school is all that bad, in fact I actually kind of like learning and everything, I just mostly hate people. Well, not all people. I guess it sorta comes down to the fact that I just get all nervous when I have to go out in public, like I gotta impress everyone and stuff, and then its like, a total stress fest, and I end up acting like some total dorked out loser, and I feel like everyone is laughing at me, and it just basically, totally sucks.

            But anyway, after realizing that I had no hope of convincing my mother to let me miss school again, especially since I had just asked yesterday to stay home, I dragged myself out of bed.

            Now, like most teenage girls (and I do apologize for being such a cliché) the way I look is of critical importance to me. The sad thing is, I’m actually quite well-off, since my dad invented some sort of computer organization system that all of the big corporations are just dying to have, but my mother is relentlessly anti-designer labels or, as I say, anti-my future wellbeing.

            This said, my morning routine has become somewhat of a tribal ritual, like sacrificing a goat or a virgin, although definitely less graphic and bloody. Basically, I have to do everything in its order and it all has to work out perfectly, or else I might as well be a freaking gorgon with snake hair and scale face. Since I can’t tote a $2500 Michael Kors handbag or strut the streets in a new pair of $800 Jimmy Choo’s, I take a lot of time to make my “economically prudent” wardrobe look like it could just possibly make it on the pages of Seventeen magazines bargain hunting section.

            Okay, so that is a little snobbish and whatever, but don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I have a bad life or anything. I mean, compared to most, my life is pretty damn good. I’m not homeless, or starving, or neglected or anything you would expect to see on the 10 o’clock news. I’m actually quite well-off, or however people are saying it now.  Like, I swear I’m totally not one of those vapid rich girls you see on “reality tv”, it’s just that surviving in my world requires a little bit of “upper-class” vanity. Seriously, my attitude is merely my life-jacket to keep myself from being drowned in a sea of thousand dollar bags and other such accessories. 
            Let me explain. Basically, I come from a rich suburban neighborhood called Lincoln Lodge. You know the type, a bunch of cookie-cutter houses all in a row behind some menacing looking gate all decked out with similarly hideous patio furniture upon perfectly manicured lawn. I mean, you would think that with all this money the residents would at least attempt to have some sort of style but of course, the parents are notoriously cheap. Seriously, they wouldn’t even shell it out for their darling children’s educations. Like they were all up in arms about the idea of spending $30,000 a year on some hotshot private school in the city but of course most of them will spend twice that or more on their kid’s first car (seriously, priorities in this town are whack!) But whatever, in the end the parents all petitioned the school board to build them their own high school and just like that the High School for the Elite: Lincoln Lodge was born.

            That’s right, H.E.L.L! Honestly, I bet the parents never even realized it when they made the dumb ass name, all they cared about was getting their way. But like, you can totally see what I mean by being overly snobby. I mean, even the name has the word elite in it!

            Whatever though, back to getting dressed, I suppose some people would call my obsessive compulsion to look perfect on a daily basis OCD or something, but personally, I have a different diagnosis. It’s called TTBP, “trying to be popular,” and basically every person enrolled in a high school falls victim to it.

            Not that I’m obsessed with being popular or anything. Heck! I’d settle just to not be invisible anymore. I mean, I’m totally just that girl who isn’t a nerd but isn’t popular either and doesn’t really fit in nicely to the high school caste system so sorta just orbits around outside of it. You know the type, average. The ones that Disney doesn’t make movies about and you’d never catch on a Girls Gone Wild video or some reality show. Yep, I’m just plain-old jane or whatever the saying is. I don’t get my prince charming and I don’t get my perfect "happily ever after" fairytale ending. I guess the best I can hope for is to get something just close enough. But seriously, if I could just have one cute guy to tote around with me, my life would be 100% a-okay. It’s kinda like that Moulin Rouge quote, something about all you need is to love and be loved in return. That’s sorta my mantra for life. Probably why I get into trouble all the freaking time when it comes to guys. I mean, let’s be honest, most 17-year-old boys aren’t really interested in falling in love, unless it’s a three-letter word and it can be over in less then 30 minutes. 

            Okay, so that may not be entirely fair, I guess I’m just a bit bitter because of all my failed (aka nonexistent) love affairs over the years. Anyway, I had just finished putting on my outfit: a short, tutu style black skirt with a ruffled blue polka dot top, tucked in, and lacy black thigh highs (super adorable, if I do say so myself) when I heard this bizarrely unfamiliar sound of my phone buzzing on my desk. 

That @*#$%&! Abnormal Pot

            Okay, so you know when you’re little and you get your heart broken for the first time and every adult from here til China feels the need to use some random, metaphoric image in an attempt to try and convince you of some naively, optimistic worldview in the most patronizing way humanly possible? Yeah, now remember when you used to believe it without any doubt as to the validity of their words and held fast to the prospects of pure joy they seemed to ensure were coming your way?

            The truth is, when we’re younger the promise that “there is a lid for every pot” is reassuring. As if, being comparable to cold, black metal is somehow a remedy for the feelings of inadequacy that inevitably accompany that cold, hard rejection. I guess, in our childish minds, we are still capable of believing in that mythical, alternate reality, in which everything works out just perfectly and fairytale endings happen on a daily basis.

            Of course, when we get older, we are no longer privileged enough to take solace in these sorts of fantasies and instead find ourselves staring into the face of a reality that is wrought with countless flaws and disappointments that seem to stem off of the empty promises of youth. I mean, seriously, it’s almost comical to remember that eager little girl who picked out wedding dresses and horse drawn carriages with a heart brimming with hope that a soul mate was just waiting in the distance to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away into the sunset.

            Alright, so I’m not saying that I’m totally against the idea of there being a match for everyone (I mean, get real, I am a romantic after all). Sure, it may very well be that every pot has a lid somewhere out there, my problem lies in the fact that there are some pots that seem able to make ANY lid fit and others that are so damn abnormal they can’t find a lid that even appears like a match.

            You know what I mean. Like, that one pot, that you continuously start cooking in, only to discover that when it comes time to put a lid on, you tear through the drawers until you are forced to accept the fact that there is not a single lid that will work and the contents of the meal are burned to a crisp or boiled away or something else that leave a total and utter mess. Hell! What are we supposed to do with those pots?

            I mean, in all actuality, a pot like that ends up with other junk, on its way to a garbage dump or, if it’s lucky, a garage sale (where, of course, in the Disney/Pixar version it will inevitably meet the lid of its dreams and live happily ever after in romantic heaven). However, if you haven’t caught on, this isn’t just about actual pots, and the unmatched people of the world can’t simply be carted off into oblivion (even if it often seems as if we are) Nope, those of us pots who have yet to find even a potential lid, one that doesn’t constantly fall inside the pot or looks like a freaking culinary circus tent, are instead subjected to watch our insides boil away as we wait wistfully for the chef to find the right lid before we have absolutely nothing left.

            Dismal, yes, but I suppose it isn’t hopeless. Seriously, I guess when it comes down to it, those stupid sayings we reflect on and tear apart are still ingrained inside of us. True, we don’t want to believe in the silly ideals that were spoon-fed to us as children, when we looked out into the world and saw a place of magic and wonder and possibilities. But, time after time, even in the darkest of days, we still draw upon that childish hope and rely on it heavily. In the end, even those of us @*#$%&! abnormal pots want to believe that there is a lid out there waiting for us, and refuse to give up on that childhood image of perfect pairs and happy endings. 

                        XOXO

                                    E

The Nobody Chronicles: Prologue

Introduction to a Nobody

            I guess I shoulda expected it, ya know? I mean, it always ends up like this. I get a little over excited and the next thing I know they’re running away so fast they leave a cartoon smoke cloud behind. Looks like my sister was right, guess I really am the “ugly one”.

            The trouble with that theory though is, I don’t really believe it. Now, I don’t wanna sound conceited or anything, but there I was, letting myself lose it over yet another “almost” guy, when I realized that I really wasn’t being fair to myself. Like seriously, I looked back at my own reflection in the mirror (conveniently located across from my bed) and thought to myself “Wait a minute! I am way too smart and pretty for this. Really, he is sooooo not worth it”

            Of course, this astounding revelation didn’t prevent me from spending the remainder of the day crying in my room and refusing to talk to anyone. In fact, it probably won’t even stop me from letting the next guy do the exact same thing to me in about a week or so. But, for that fleeting moment it was kinda nice. It was like, for just one moment, I was worthy and confident, you know, rather then a blubbering, love struck teenager.

            But, really, I’m getting way ahead of myself though now aren’t I. Goodness, I do tend to get a little carried away with things. I mean, here I am pouring out my heart and soul to you like some sort of mental patient and you don’t even know my name.

                        Miriam Finkelstein

            Yeah, definitely could have done without the buildup. Totally one of those moments when you open up a pack of Pokemon cards and you wind up with your 700th Pikachu and perhaps a Jigglypuff or two, super disappointing. I know it doesn’t really deserve the presentation (or the explanation for that matter) but there you have it. My parent’s seem to think it's the perfect name for me. I guess that's their way of telling me they think I'm an overall unappealing person, even if they won’t admit it. They insist my name suits me just perfectly because it's a nice little Jewish name for a nice little Jewish girl.

            Oy! I mean really, just what every teenage girl wants, to be that nice little Jewish girl. Okay, so the truth is, if it meant being known at all I doubt that I would really begrudge being that nice little Jewish girl. But, of course, so as to be perfectly unoriginal, my school is chalk full of nice little Jewish girls, and most of them happen to be a lot nicer then me.

            I’m not mean or anything, that wasn’t what I meant about them being nicer. It’s just that the rest of them seem to have something that I have just a little bit better. The truth is, I am a nobody. Now, I don’t say that to get sympathy (of course it wouldn’t be discouraged) or because I am one of those insecure popular girls that needs validation, I really am nobody. Like, I’ve gone to school with the same kids since kindergarten and still most of them couldn’t tell you my name.

            It’s not from lack of trying either. I mean, it’s not like I just sit around in the corner and don’t talk to anyone (usually at least). I really, really try, but there is just something unremarkable about me. Nobody wants to beat me up or anything, but nobody is begging to be me either. I just kinda disappear into the scenery, I just kinda exist. I’m not a loner though. Like, I do have my group of friends, my “clique”, but that’s about it, beyond that nobody really cares about me and I care about everyone way too much.

            I wish I could say that I’m happy with my life, but I just can’t. I can’t really say that I’m unhappy either though. I just am, you know? I live each day and some days are good and others totally suck.

            I’m what you call average. I don’t get my prince charming and I don’t get my perfect "happily ever after" fairytale ending. I guess the best I can hope for is to get something just close enough. Hell, I’m a realist. I live in the real world, and in the real world, the truth is nobody really cares.

blah blah "THAT GUY" blah

            Everybody has him. You know, “that guy”. “That guy” who remarkably fulfills all the criteria on your unrealistic list. “That guy” who you word vomit about to your friends like you're suffering from some sort of infection. “That guy” who, although you attempt to deny it, continues to be without a doubt, the one you are 100%, head over heels, writing out the script to a romantic comedy, in love with. Yeah, “that guy.”

            For me, “that guy” has been a constant guest star in the honest-to-goodness reality show that is my daily life. Of course (in the vein of Three’s Company) the face continues to change, but the overlying character remains the same. I mean, seriously, you would think by now I would be able to recognize “that guy” from a mile away and keep myself at a safe difference but, since my head has little control over my heart, I consequently never do.

            The thing about “that guy” is he’s always the guy you don’t expect. You know the type, the one who is too good of a friend to take the risk or too annoying to believe it's even possible. “That guy” is always the one that orbits right outside the romantic center of your life, close enough to wake up that part inside of you, but too far away to give it the nourishing it needs. Honestly, it’s like being some sort of jack-in-the-box. Everybody knows how to open it, and yet nobody seems eager to do the work of cranking the wheel or is too afraid of what might pop out at them if they do. Shit! For goodness sakes, sometimes I think it would be better to be placed away in some sort of attic, rather than constantly ignored in plain sight.

            Dark, I know, and I do apologize. It’s just, sometimes it’s hard to be lonely, to feel like something that isn’t quite forgotten but, almost worse, nobody even remembers to forget. You know what I mean, that stabbing pain in the back of your mind and heart that constantly questions the validity of your standing in the eyes of those around you. That feeling of constant concern over whether or not the people you are with actually care to be with you or if they are just too polite to cast you aside completely. It’s like, you’re standing in a crowded room at a party and, although everyone can see you, they feel no desire to approach you. This isn’t to say they won’t talk back to you if you asked them a question or laughed at a joke. No, they aren’t cruel towards you, rather they’re indifferent, as if you’re nothing more important than a chair in the corner that nobody feels like sitting in just yet. So is the life of a nobody.

            It’s funny, but no matter how hard I try to rid myself of this overwhelming compulsion towards falling in love, I seem to only fall harder and more frequently. Of course, the falling wouldn’t have to be so bad, if only there was someone there to catch me, but alas, time after time, I find myself jumping from the trapeze and just narrowly missing the arms of the man flying towards me. Sure, there’s always the net that keeps you from shattering into a million pieces, you know friends, family, your favorite characters, but the feel of the scratchy rope is an unsatisfying alternative to the once very real prospect of a lover’s arms.

            Okay, so that was a bit of an overreaching, metaphoric, circus image, but I think you sorta get the point. I’m damn lonely and constantly pining over one “that guy” after another, unlike the alleged “realistic” counterparts that flit across the silver screen or the pages of a well-thought out books.

            Truth is, it’s probably the media’s fault that any girl (or perhaps slightly effeminate boy) finds herself in this whirlpool of romantic devastation and disappointment. I mean, where the hell did these people get this shit where guys fall madly in love with a girl at first sight and instantly want a relationship. Newsflash, that feeling at first sight isn’t love, it’s called lust, and it doesn’t necessarily end with a princess wedding. Honestly, you have to wonder where these romantic story lines come from, because, looking out on the streets of the real world, it doesn’t really seem to match up. In fact, if the guy is as perfect as the movies make him seem, then he usually isn’t going to end up whisking you away in some horse-drawn carriage and kiss you softly as you disappear into the sunset. Rather, he will turn out to be the next “that guy” on your long list of perfect men that perfectly broke your heart in two.

            Needless to say, I wish that I could protect myself from the impending threat of the next “that guy” or at least help protect some of you, but, I am a realist, and the sad truth is, it is in our nature to hunt the “that guy” just as much as it is in his nature to only narrowly escape. Sure, when we first meet “that guy” we convince ourselves that he could never be “that guy” for a long list of reasons and insist that we are only going to be friends. Then, inevitably, that friendship leads our minds down a path of romantic comedy infused, fairytale bullshit until we are writing our wedding vows while we sit across from him sipping coffee. It seems uncanny, our brain's ability to create the perfect romantic plotline out of absolutely nothing, yet, it constantly does it. While we live our lives, our brain begins to script out the details of a  fairytale with “that guy” until we’re no longer sure which reality is actually the one we are living in and, eventually, we’re left with an overwhelming feeling that we have lost something which we indeed never had. 

         That is the saga of the “that guy,” but more importantly, that is the saga of the nobody. The nobody is not the person who is alone in the world. No, those people often find something extraordinary laying in wait for them. The nobody is instead the person who has the almost, the person who can see the happy ending but cannot reach it, the person who can live in perfect moments but not save them. The nobody is the person that is left in the jack in the box, but nobody will turn the crank and that lonely chair in the corner when everybody has just decided to stand.

           

                        XOXO

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First Impressions

            I guess I probably should have found some way to start this thing off by being overwhelmingly profound or witty or something else relatively exciting, but its too late to worry about that now. The truth is, this strikingly un-extraordinary way of introducing myself is exactly the sort of stylistic choice that, when looking back on it, appears exceptionally perfect and clever. In fact, years from now, when I’m inevitably famous (joke!) scholars will reflect on this Blog, infusing it with off-base metaphors in the hopes of drudging up some hidden symbolisms that will inadvertently cloud the true meaning in a shroud of some vastly more intelligent one. Not that I wouldn’t love for everyone who reads this to instantly pass it on to their 800 Facebook “friends” with taglines that glorify me vastly beyond my capabilities (you know a total Stephanie Meyer reality) but, this is not a Blog about the fantastical (or the incredibly stupid). Instead, I seek only to engage those of you who feel unseen in a world full of too many faces, who feel stranded on an island in the midst of a great city, who feel forgotten amongst the blurred outlines of a reality that has fallen short of fantasy one too many times, or who feel sick and tired of feeling so damn pathetic every time they flip on the TV or open a book.

            From here on out, I will transcribe the comings and goings of a life, whether mine or someone else’s I cannot say for certain, however, the honesty of the story is truly inconsequential. This story, whether true or fictional or a tiny sliver of both, will seek to examine the life of a girl, who, is in all ways nothing special. This is not some Disney Channel movie, where the blissfully innocent, and yet breathtakingly gorgeous, awkward girl falls for the popular and handsome star quarterback. Rather, this is a glimpse at real life, at real people, in essence, at reality, or at least at some shade of reality that is far less bright than the one depicted in movies and television shows.

            Now, it is completely fair of you (my soon to be devoted audience) to have some doubts about my presumed ability to illuminate the mundane instances of life in such a way that will remind you just how mundane and yet perfect those moments are. Truth be told, I too share your doubts. However, it is those doubts that provide the inspiration, which guides my pen (well actually my well-placed fingers on the home keys) to spell out the world according to me, just another nobody.

           

                        XOXO

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