Distance

I wonder if things get better for me. I wonder if it turns out alright, and when. I wonder like I'm watching a movie--waiting, suspensed, frustrated slightly. I wonder if he gets that girl in the end -- though, with clear eyes and a couple of clearing shakes of the head, I realize he won't. That girl with a boyfriend and all that time spent together as friends at school.I wonder what he'll decide to do after school ends in the spring. will he finally overcome his anxious fear of the workforce? will he ultimately apply for internships like he knows he should? will he move out of his parents house for good with a full-time career (or job; or whatever;) by the time he's 30, like he so desperately wants to? will he eventually lower the minimum age to motivate (re: push) him to try more, because trying is all that one requires for success--even though one must also fail, right? because success is failing a lot of the time, but eventually you come out alright in the end, even if it's not what he expects, but it's still good because he at least now has a promising future and finally moves out on his own, right? i mean, failure is never really failure, right? it's just a lack of success until he does succeed, and then it's a success, right?

I wonder what he'll do after graduation. i wonder if he'll ever give up hope on that girl at school with a boyfriend. i wonder if -- if not her -- he'll eventually meet someone he can at least get along with -- because at this point compromise is crucial for not dying alone, like it always has been, but never been taught. Why did they lie to him so much? why did relationships, marriage, money, jobs, matter so much to his parents, that they told him lies? were they meant to protect, or delay the inevitable realization? i wonder if when he finds and marries a pretty someone, a smart someone, a funny someone, a someone who as far as someones go, is a remarkable someone, will he realize that someones don't ensure happiness; only the reverse is the case (as far as he knows): that the wrong someone will make him unhappy, but a good someone won't necessarily --- by force; by pressure; by a cosmic touch -- cure a someoneless lonely existence; and even if he ends up with that girl, by miracle or by inevitable, she's not his perfect someone or even really close just pretty close match because no one is and no one should treat another so meanly as to burden them in wishes and futures so desperately clung to in the remaining bits of misinformation?

I wonder if he'll be okay. that girl takes up a lot of the space in his head. she'll be last seen in the spring, he thinks. he believes he and she will part without ever seeing each other again sometime in June, and as far as he's concerned, that's alright by him, even though he implicitly promised to be her friend by explicitly friending her in real life. but because he likes her, yet she's unavailable, and even if available there'd be no guaranteeing she'd want him, he can't stand it, and must leave/feels compelled to abandon their friendship. does that make him a shitty person? he thinks so, but he doesn't scold himself; he simply accepts it. No, not just that though: he tries to change, but secretly he believes he'll never change. just being friends with someone he likes and sees constantly isn't possible for him. he's believed the lies for too long and knows their curves too well to ever fully abandon them. if there's one thing he does well, it's remain loyal to the myths, the lies, the falsehoods, the ghosts, the misconceptions, the errings from truth, the subtle differences inherent in all meaning blurred too much, to keep him safe in a make-shift womb on earth.

sometimes he wonders if it matter if the stories are true or not? he realizes he doesn't know how to answer.

I don't like dating

I have a friend in my Spanish class named Adriana. (She'll never read this.) She's nineteen and wants to be a math teacher. She works at in-n-out, and recently she bought a 1300 macbook. Her wallpaper on her computer is a picture of her and her boyfriend sharing a kiss, in a heart.

i make friends alright. i treat people as independent beings. I don't push too hard. I make my kind of jokes, and if we sorta click on that front we're okay. I've yet to meet more than a handful of people who share my sense of humor. I think that person will be my first relationship and really good friend.

Dating is forced friendship to me. If friendships were arranged like dates are, less people would be interested. Meet at this time, to talk to someone you don't know, and see if you want to be friends with them. What are the chances of that happening?

I don't want to become "a guy" in someone's mind. I don't want to be grouped with other "guys". I'm me. I'm not a dot on a checklist.

But maybe that's my unwillingness to succumb to the mob and lose my individuality. After all, everyone's such a special snowflake--including me. Right?

I'm not a gentleman. I don't like that word. To me, it's role an actor plays; an outdated, outmoded, narrow assertion of identity. I don't like what it represents: a 1950s, misogynistic, boy and girl, wholesome gee-whiz road to propriety and a church wedding. Not that I'm necessarily against religious rituals; I'm just not so strongly for them. And I don't think that kind of courtship necessarily represents honor or respect for another person, either. Anyone can be a gentleman if they pretend hard enough--and really want something.

I don't like pointless rituals. I believe in questioning behavior and acting with a purpose. If the purpose is dumb, I dislike the action. If I believe the purpose is cruel, misleads, or cheats, I dislike the action. Dating is dumb. I dislike going on dates.

What if it was called something else? Hanging out with a friend, for instance.

I don't want to be "a guy." I want to be a friend. My friend and I are in a relationship. We're hanging out tonight. The rules are different.

If I were to ever be in a relationship, it must be with someone I'm pretty comfortable with. It must be with someone I've spoken to for a while, someone whom I'm friends with, who shares certain attitudes and senses of humor with me. There's this girl at my school, Ana, right? ... anyway.

I've always half-jokingly said that my first real, solid relationship will be with be with someone I work with, because in that scenario I'll see them everyday and we can talk everyday. Otherwise, because I don't like to intrude on people's lives, bother them, make unfair statements or revelations, I try to stick by myself.

I don't like the dating rules. They don't promote friendship or sincerity. They're dance steps; they're not spontaneous; they're a game already played. they're trite, too specific, too constrained by White Western, ideal middle-class culture, to expand and include the myriad range of human expression in mating and hanging out. the rules of dating demand precision, not comfort.

maybe i haven't met someone I want to dance with yet. maybe, but what if I hate dancing? what if I want to just go watch a movie?

What if, unknowingly, I can't even escape the confines of dating at all?

Busy Christmas 2014

i woke up around 11 am. i spent the entire day watching movies with my brother and sister. we watched wreck-it ralph and skyfall. then my family ate dinner--just ourselves in our house. my dad recorded us on his phone, then made us watch the video during dinner. we ate turkey with stuffing, red and white rice, avocados split in half, salad with radish and carrot; for desert we had flan and peach pie. i drank the sweetest red grape drink ever.

after dinner we exchanged gifts for secret santa. i bought my dad the 3 film collection of lord of the rings because for some reason, even though he absolutely does not watch movies, he likes those movies. we put it on and the whole family watched the fellowship of the ring. my brother went off to go sleep halfway through; my sister went to see her friend a little after that. i enjoyed the movie -- being the first time I've ever seen it and paid attention.

now i'm typing this in my room, waiting until tomorrow when my friends are doing a white elephant gift exchange. i bought 3 dvds at best buy for $9. the gift exchange is at 7pm at my friend sandi's house.

 then, after that, it's on to new years. after new years, school will begin again (on the 6th, i think). after that, it's weekday classes and studying and driving to and from school, and not much else. in the spring, i'll graduate. if all goes to the current plan, and if i'm lucky, a few months after graduation comes grad school at the same college. then the cycle repeats, and so on.

phew. it just keeps going.

I confess

the truth is that i'm just incapable of loving as deeply as some people. i don't care enough, nor do i have the capacity to do so. i'm too selfish. i was too coddled growing up. i'm spoiled. i can't enter people's heads and hearts.

no, not true. i can enter people's heads easily enough; i can study their character and their motivations, too. but to enter their hearts, where the soul finds a home? that i cannot achieve. that fails for me. i'm barred from entering not by a lock on the door, but from the fear to turn the knob. i'm stuck outside, shivering in the cold. it's my own heart that's locked.

I guess

Introspective night. Watched the Michael Buble special tonight. Really talented person. Ate crispy chocolate chip cookies my sister made. had milk. Wonder if I'll ever overcome my anxiety and apply for a job. There's an offer for an internship at metro that my uncle told me about. pays not great, about 12.50, but it's an opportunity. with graduation upcoming, i must expect the inevitable rush and then blankness of my life unplanned. the strongest yearning for grad school is to delay the workforce for another two years. is that so? it's also to stay competitive in whatever field i enter. i know I'm capable of doing good work; i'm not the hardest worker, but given the right mood I can be. i don't wish to be a workaholic or anything; read poetry and work hard should be my motto. and i don't mean just poetry, but literature and film and tv shows too. you know: art. i study english literature for the past five and a half years, and i've only recently realized how lucky i am. i'm a student of not only rhetoric and composition, but of art and history, psychology and character development, anthropology and the finer points of thinking for one's self. so many assumptions put into our brains by heavy-handed media, how to sift, how to sift? watching ariana grande in the christmas special, an attractive young woman packaged to sell. sex and grace; a virgin yet chaste and sexy. what's the label say? it's funny that this entertainment is manufactured, while i assume it's natural. what is natural? what the philosophers try to figure out, i guess. i guess, i guess. "And though no more in folds of pleasure, / Kiss follows kiss in countless measure". read that today and thought, woah! nice. lord byron was a pervert anyway. where am i getting at in this post? it feels good to share my boredom and thoughts. it's only a a temporary relief though.

I wish

She wore sunglasses and a white t-shirt. I didn't spot her until she said hello. We stopped and talked for a bit. Talked about professors and classes. She almost said the bell's about to ring when she left. Like in high school.

I hope

I want so much more, you know? But that's bad. I know to want is bad. But I can't dissolve it away.

Some guy honked at me in the school parking lot. I was walking to my car when he pulled up alongside me. I turned and smiled at the girl in the passenger seat. When I turned back around a car horn startled me. I turned around. The girl was laughing, pointing at the guy driving. I stared at her and him, even though I couldn't see him because of the glare from the sun.

"Why?" I asked myself. "Why?"

 The girl got self-conscious and played with her hair as I stared for five or six more seconds. I raised my hand--you know, palm down, facing toward them -- to end my staring. I thought about not leaving, just so that guy wouldn't get my parking space. Then I reconsidered. As I pulled away, all I thought was, "Please, get out of my life. I don't want people like you in it. I struggle enough without people like you in it. Don't exist with me."

Because fuck vengeance and getting angry. It's the guys problem, his own insecurity. For what? Smiling at his girlfriend? That guy's living his own life and I'm just a character in it. He's got problems too. Why get angry at him for suffering like me?