the children we are

we’re grown-ups without a clue. maturity? sure, we can fake it at job interviews, first dates, or family reunions. we can talk intelligently about politics and religion. we can exclaim over the childish or just plain mean things others do, as if we’re above that.

reality is, most of us are no better than kids. when we’re stressed, when someone irritates or hurts us, our high morals fly out the door. we see red. we lash out like we did when we were six.

example: my roommate is…interesting. she’s incredibly loud and just a little too much all the time. i don’t think she has insight on the kind of impression she makes on others. she thinks she’s being confident, and that others are sometimes intimidated by her. we’re not. most people who meet her just don’t know what to say. they think she’s weird.

i have a lot in common with her, strangely enough. we’re both incredibly insecure. the difference is that i wear my insecurity for anyone to see. i’m a mess, and you have to deal with me the way i am. some, but not many, people do. they are my friends. my roommate on the other hand pretends. or maybe she just has a complete lack of personal insight, i’m not really sure. she act so confident, she’s smart, she’s this, she’s that. she has great style, she has so much talent in decorating, she’s so organized, she’s so EVERYTHING. i think she lies a lot too because some of the stories she tells, usually about she’s so <fill in the blank> just seem out there.

she talks too much, using all this extra description that no one finds interesting. you can literally see people’s eyes glaze over. a boy asked for her number the other day and so my innocent question is, “so how’d you guys meet?”. i get, no exaggeration, a twenty minute explanation. seriously, a blow-by-blow description of how they met in photo class and they were moving such and such object and the teacher said this and she left her coat and had to go back and the syllabus for the class is really too much work and the guy said her camera wouldn’t be sufficient and he was saying this and doing this and then they talked about this and she explained about such and such thing that he didn’t do (she then tangents off to explain this thing that he didn’t know that she did) and finally he asks her to tell him her craziest drunk story and she says she’s that fun kinda girl who doesn’t care and will strip in place of her friends during strip poker so that they won’t be embarassed because she doesn’t care.

um, ok. great thing to shout out the first time you meet a guy. he’s not thinking about getting you naked at all…although i will admit the guy seemed decent and may have genuinely been interested in her. but she just as easily could have met a jerk.

other irritating things she does: randomly yells in her room. eats GINORMOUS amounts of food. i’ll be the first to tell you i binge eat all the time. all the time. i will tell anyone i do that because it’s what i do. she has concocted a different story for herself though. her “body is not used to only having periods four times a year” since she’s on Seasonal, and it’s affecting her hormones, apparently causing her to eat an entire pizza and three orders of bbq wings from domino’s all in one sitting. she’s a very pretty girl, that irish skin, beautiful blue eyes. i think she’s pretty as she is and would be extremely attractive if she lost the fifty-odd pounds she’s packing on extra. pounds which she has had long before seasonal. why not just be honest? why does she make so many stories up for why some external factor is making her eat and gain weight? don’t these excuses sound as fake to her as they sound to everyone else? in general, she has excuses for everything.

and what does this ode to my roommate have to do with my original “we’re children” motif? because when we feel hurt, this is what we do. we think of every mean, spiteful thing to say about a person, somehow overlooking the good things too.

the truth is that my roommate does do everything i so glowingly outlined. but she also makes me cookies, tries to make me feel better (albeit with horribly long and usually irrelevant anecdotes), helps me out when i have a problem, and frequently tells me she loves me. because of this, i’m very ambivalent towards her. sometimes i think she’s great, obviously with problems, but hey, look at me. i don’t know if i respect her, but the bottom line is that when she pisses me off or does something to put me on the defensive, i bad-mouth her to our other mutual friends. not too respectable either. to continue the childish cycle, she, outraged by my behavior, lashes back with her own angry outpourings to said friends.

you know it’s strange, i’ve always been a thinker. even as young as middle school, instead of concerning myself with boys and clothes, i was asking questions about why we’re here, if there’s a god, how people can do such evil things. i read a lot about the holocaust.  years later, when graduating high school, i thought i had a good sense of who i was. i thought i was moral. i thought i was mature. i thought that in situations that test our innate nature, i would come out on top because i had read so much that i knew what was right and what was wrong, and that would be enough to allow me to act like a grown-up.

it’s not. and it’s not just me. i see it everywhere. i see people cheat on their partner, on tests. people lie, gossip maliciously, key cars. these are just normal people. i’m guessing if it was possible to quantify goodness, they would score in the 65% “normal” range. it seems that at the behavioral finish line, heated emotions easily beat out our conscience, whether it’s sleeping with that oh-so-hot chick/dick while our partner ignorantly waits at home or vomiting up the secrets we kept for an ex-friend. these are adults, these are college kids, these are rich, these are poor, these are smart, and these are stupid; these are people granted rights like drinking and smoking, but whose visceral response is still that of a child’s.

on a positive note, i don’t think this is everyone. some people manage to act morally. they don’t have the weakness of character that i and others seem to have. they behave the way they believe. i guess all the rest of us can do is be so conscious of our emotional flaws that maybe next time we’ll catch ourselves. or at least apologize?

try, try again?

status update:

NEGATIVES

• gained two pounds back
• pissed off roommate, she’s so obnoxious and just TOO MUCH sometimes, yet somehow out of all of us girls, i’m the only one who can’t keep my annoyance on the inside
• got (easily) pulled into drinking too much last night
• became drunken slut who hit on very hot boy, only just had enough presence of mind to not continue to embarass myself further (although damage was already done)
• ignored one of my best guy friends because was hitting on hot boy
• have cut on side of my head from when my friend decided to tackle me, caused me to slip on ice and fall into a cement wall
• exhausted from not sleeping well
• didn’t get into fordham law
• didn’t go to work on thursday
• missed the first class of the semester for two different courses. sort of not my fault. my only consolation is that i skipped the hell out of stuff last semester and got a 4.0. i have decent, if not brilliant, brains (although i’m sure tequila will finish all my little grey cells off if i don’t stop binge-drinking soon)
• again hurting my already low bank account by getting overly generous with buying drinks/food for others at the bar
• friend had brought two good books on politics to the bar for me and i may have left them somewhere; i’m hoping it was just in our DD’s car

POSITIVES

• started my new exercise routine
• got into university of miami law as well as UMD
• took care of my (if imaginable) even more drunken girl friend last night, possibly kept her from hooking up with a friend visiting her from home
• made it home alive and don’t have a hangover? (not that i ever get one…weird)
• haven’t talked to dream boy for over a week since i told him we should probably stop trying to make a friendship work (of course, if he ims me again, i’ll be in trouble)

i’m stretching on some of those positives. and there are a lot more negatives.

starting to think that my life is like my dieting: just when i’m doing really well, down ten pounds, THAT’S when i lose it. it’s as if i’m so worried about gaining the weight back that i go the reverse route and eat everything in sight! i was 118 pounds and now i’m 120. i’d been really good all last week with the drinking and the boys and the exercising and being nice and then in one night i fuck it all up. three slices of pizza, two shots of tequila with assorted drinks, flirtation with 90% of the male population, and lip brush against Hot Boy (friend of a friend so i might see him again, oh god). i looked the fool.

try, try again?

random hate

my day is precariously balanced by the forces of goodness and hatred. i get on the rta tram and realize, after the train starts moving, that my student pass expired yesterday. daughter of the plastic age, i have no cash on me. fare is about $1.50. would you ruin someone’s morning for a $1.50? rta conductor-woman damn well tried.

she has to know, working the route she’s on, that students at our university get a new pass every semester. whether i had the new one in my hand or not, it exists. chill lady. it’s not as if i was TRYING to cheat the city transportation system out of a whole buck-fifty, oh my. all i’m trying to do is get to work.

i ask her what she wants me to do since we’re already moving, and she just keeps repeating “it’s expired, it’s expired” as if i didn’t hear her the first ten times.

and let me tell you about the attitude. i’m sorry if your life isn’t going as you planned. i’m sorry that you run a goddamn train up and down the same fifteen stops day in and day out in what must be one of the top five most depressing U.S. cities. i really am, it sounds intolerable. but at the same time, WHAT have i ever done to you? i was polite, i was apologetic. you don’t know me, and yet i can feel the venom. you think you’re better than me? smarter than me? what is this about exactly? a power-trip? embarassing people in front of others somehow makes you feel better about your place in life? doesn’t change the fact that you’re still sitting there in the same cheap uniform, your only power being the starting or stopping and opening or closing of doors on a graffiti-covered tram car whose top speed is 35 mph. that’s it. rolling your eyes at me, turning your back while i’m still talking, making me get off at the next stop—that doesn’t change things.

this random hate, it only spreads. negativity breeds negativity. she puts me in a bad mood, i glare at the old guy eye-balling me around the corner. i stomp the twenty minute walk back to campus because the city is so ghetto that no place takes credit card. i hiss expletives at the bone-chilling wind.

however, i at least cooled down. i have no desire to make another human miserable just for the hell of it when they’ve done nothing to earn such wrath.

my day is off-kilter until, much later, a librarian restores balance. she is wonderfully kind and helpful. i’m cheered. it’s a small thing, but kindness adds a bounce to my step. such small things, really, and yet so powerful. that boy who doesn’t know you and won’t ever see you again opens a door while you’re sweating and struggling with heavy bags, so tired you could screech. a kind woman who lets you go before her in line because you look harassed. a man who is concerned about young girls stranded downtown and hands them cab fare, no strings attached. someone who sees you drop a twenty dollar bill and instead of pocketing it, runs after you. i love all of this. there’s enough sadness and negative energy in the world without adding more. it’s only $1.50. let it go.

insomnia’s a bitch

it’s currently 3:11 a.m. and as usual i can’t sleep. i’ve tried every sleeping position, i’ve tried thinking up happy dreams, i’ve tried counting. i made it to 709 before i decided i was more awake than when i started. i’ve tried over the counter sleep aids. i’ve tried ear plugs. i’ve tried weird smelly green indian goo that you rub on your forehead to relax your body. i’ve tried turning on the tv and falling asleep to that. i’ve tried listening to music. i’ve tried reading a boring textbook. i’ve even tried getting myself off (although i seem to be broken in this respect too because it never happens).

in conclusion, sleep ain’t happening. this is of course very annoying as i have a very long day tomorrow. today. argh. basically, i will be making my first appearance back to work and school as a zombie. it’ll be hot in that puffy-eyed, comatose personality way. i know that’s real in.

my brain just never wants to turn off. sure, i have stuff on my mind, but i’m not even thinking about those things right now. i am honestly not contemplating law school at 3:30, nor am i going over the gruesome night from two weekends ago. i’m not in a bad mood; in fact i’ve had a relaxing day following a wonderful weekend. and yet, i STILL can’t sleep. i’m at a loss.

my mom’s signing me up for acupuncture, hopefully this week. i’m actually strangely fascinated by the concept of having dozens of tiny pins stuck all over me. will it tingle? will it leave little pinpricks everywhere? do they put them in your head too? and most importantly, WILL IT WORK?!

sometimes i feel like the only reason i have so many issues is because of my sleeping problem. it’s been over three years now of tossing and turning, giving up and getting up. i don’t get that deep REM sleep because even when i do fall asleep, i wake up after only a little while. i’ve become such a light sleeper that VIBRATIONS wake me up. maybe the real me isn’t irritable. maybe she does have a high attention span. maybe she’s not emotionally all over the place. maybe she doesn’t start crying at the slightest provocation. could that all just be lack of sleep?

before my sleep issues, i like to think i was not nearly as bad. i know i didn’t cry all the time. with everything else, it’s hard to say because of hindsight bias. i do feel like i had more energy to get through the day back in the good old days when i slept like the dead. i mean a tornado, earthquake, and huge thunderstorm could have coincided at the exact same instant outside of my bedroom and i would have peacefully slept through.

maybe the therapist would be good for one thing—prescribing me sleeping pills. hopefully he will. i don’t want to rely on them forever, but until i figure out something better, i need to get some damned sleep.

well, i guess i’ll go lay down again.

and although i am deeply envious, sweetest of dreams to the rest of you.

i’ve got mail

every day, the mail man no sooner get here that i attack my mailbox. it’s been just over a month since i turned in my applications for law school and i’m going bananas waiting for replies.

yesterday, i open my box, and lo and behold, i’ve got mail.

my heart drops somewhere in the vicinity of my big toe as i pull this thing out.

hehehe, it says CONGRATULATIONS in bold print on the front of the envelope 🙂

after staging a happy dance in the middle of the dorm lounge, i called my mommy 🙂

until you get that very first, we want YOU, it’s hard to relax. i admit, it’s only one of my safe schools (university of maryland), but i’m going to say that this is a good karma for the rest of my replies. plus, check it out, THIS GIRL IS GOING TO LAW SCHOOL, it’s official!!!

that plus having a perfectly lovely evening with my wonderful girls made last night pretty great. for all my complaining and all my problems, i have some damn good, funny, great-hearted girls to call my friends.

i’ll be better, i can be better, and i will make last weekend a distant and unrepeated memory. i will also try my hardest to stop thinking about sex, food, and tequila. and stay off AIM. and start reading again. yes. i will.

yeah i’m lying. but i won’t seduce more unsuspecting boys 🙂

a whore in another life

in another life, i must have been a whore.

honestly, i have an obsession. or maybe it’s normal to think about sex oh, EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY?!

example:

RANDOM PERSON <sees me walk up the sidewalk>: hey

ME: (argh) hey, how are you?

RANDOM PERSON <taking my question literally>: ohmigod, i feel like shit. i got like wasted last night. i frigging haven’t stopped puking since like six in the morning. i am so not drinking every again, seriously. i mean you will not believe how much i drank…

ME: mmmhmmm

RANDOM PERSON:…and then this guy was like, take a shot with me. so whatever, i was like, one shot, big deal. it was moonshine! like, do you know like how potent that is? it’s like 200 proof. so i <insert blah blah blah>.

ME (eyes start to glaze): yeah that really sucks.

RANDOM PERSON: i know, right? like i really need to stop drinking, it’s like just dumb. but i’m not nearly as bad as this other girl i go out with, she’s frigging ridiculous. she’s just so out of control i can’t even explain. like, last weekend…

ME <off daydreaming>: (he shoves her against the wall, hard, grabbing both her hands in one of his large ones and pinning them above her head, all while thrusting his tongue into her mouth. he continues to roam to her neck, tongue and lips sucking at her sensitive skin, half-smiling at her mewls. impatiently, he parts her legs with his knee, rhythmically stroking her soft parts with a thickly muscled thigh…) yeah, that’s crazy.

RANDOM PERSON: god, i know. but you know the worst part about last night? my boyfriend just drove me up the wall, i mean he’s seriously driving me crazy. i’m like his girlfriend, not his belongings or something. you know what i mean? he totally went nuts about <insert blabbity blah blah>

ME: (he bent her over the side of the bed, pushing her skirt up to expose her ass. grinding himself against her, he slid his hand down the front of her to–) wait, what? sorry i, uh, missed that.

RANDOM PERSON: oh i was just wondering what you were doing friday.

ME: nothing really.

RANDOM PERSON: we should totally get wasted!

ok, i admit that i need a little work narrating my porn sequences, but i assure you, the actual clips in my brain are hot. and they’re all from the imagination of yours truly. no porn for this girl. actually porn disgusts me.

but back to the original subject—i really am having issues here. i have no idea if this is normal or what. i have some friends who i can’t imagine having a sexual bone in their body. meanwhile, i write that and “bone” sets me off on another little tangent. i’m fascinated by a blog i stumbled upon about a prostitute. certain descriptions actually turn me on even though the idea of actually having sex with hundreds of faceless men—skinny, fat, young, old, ugly, decent—does not. girls turn me on, guys turn me much much much onner, and when at my parents’ house, i on occasion cruise late-night HBO for racy flicks featuring hot people and lousy acting. three-somes, handcuffs, strip clubs (although i’ve never been); they all fascinate me. a biography on the dark side of bombay (india) describes the life of bar dancers and i read the entire novel in one sitting.

i want to insert here that i grew up in a VERY suburban, sheltered city under conservative indian parents. lets put it this way—my mom prides herself on having never seen an X-rated movie. boy-crazy is something alien to her and i don’t think i’m trying to be kind to my imagination when i say that my parents have probably had sex only a few dozen times (never, ever having an arranged marriage!). i never dated in high school, in fact i think i was invisible because i’d be walking right behind a boy and a few girls and he’d hold the door open for them and kindly slam it shut for me. gotta love white prep boys. i was never out past 11 pm. never partied, never drank, never smoked, barely swore. snuck into a few movies and thought i was a bad ass. my point is, DON’T shelter your kids, they will turn into ME. all sorts of repressed urges will tsunami any sort of moral sense you think you instilled in them.

nor is alcohol the reason for all-consuming horniness. i’m raring to go beforehand but every now and then a few drinks are all i need to persuade myself that such-and-such guy will be my cure. some are for a little while, but i’m always left wanting more since i never go all the way. why not? because somewhere in my confused, sex-crazed mind is a good angel doggedly advocating “caring and commitment” before penetrating that last blockade.

stupid angel.

nicely anticlimactic

today was better.

kryptonite answered the apology email i sent him the morning after the terrible deed:

That was some pretty screwed up stuff… but at the same time I’ve
made far more than my fair share of drunken mistakes, so I
understand. Don’t worry about it (although you’re right about laying
off the booze for a bit, that might be a good idea).

it’s not much, but a huge wave of relief washed over me after reading this. i feel better, even if maybe i shouldn’t. regardless, apparently i’m lucky for launching my manipulative scheme on a pretty decent guy. i think he’ll be close-mouthed about it, and i won’t have to go buy a big floppy hat and dark sunglasses to slink around campus in. right?

meanwhile, i’m trying to get to the root of my twistedness so that i don’t do this to someone else. i went and saw a therapist today. it was just….ok. the guy wasn’t very impressive. i didn’t want a guy, considering a lot of my major issues have to do with men, but he’s all that’s currently available. i guess something is better than nothing. he seemed quite nice. thirty-ish. not nearly as engaging as i believed a therapist should be. unfortunately, he felt the need to explain things to me simplistically, for example the definition of alcoholism. i’m a smart girl, so i was part bored, part annoyed. i’m not there because i don’t know what my problems are, or if i even have any; i already know what my issues are and i want him to give me insight on how to fix them.

the session was an anticlimax in that i didn’t end up telling him about sunday night. here we are sitting in his cramped cubicle with ugly brown carpeting and dingy walls. he’s doggedly scribbling down everything i say in his little notepad, and i’m very ladylike, crossing my legs, clasping my hands together. it seemed ludicrous to tell him i had seduced some poor boy half against his will just a few days previously. absolutely ludicrous. i don’t know, maybe i should dress and look the part, would that help me tell him?

nor did i mention the pill-taking episode that landed me in the hospital with kidney-failure. he specifically asked about any medical conditions i’ve had, and near the end of the session, if anyone in my family had tried or succeeded in committing suicide. my aunt tried. i told him that.

i was honest about everything else, and tried to steer him to a full picture of who i am. it just wasn’t exactly how i expected it to be.

on the other hand, here’s a guy who has to listen to me talk for a whole hour every week, can’t tell anyone about it, and best of all, does it for free!

i’ll take it 🙂

aftershocks

in response to tim’s comments (comment 1 & 2) about my previous post:

first of all, i had to laugh when you said i’m courageous. i didn’t think it was possible to squeeze a compliment from anything i wrote, but you showed that you were trying and i thank you for that. in general, i truly treasure your readership because it makes me feel like i’m not just writing for an uncaring cyber void. i need that. i am worried that you’re completely disgusted with me, but i guess at the same time, strong emotions (even repulsion) guarantees interest in reading what i have to say?

on whether my brother can find my blog again. well i deleted my old one and if he asks, i’m going to say that i decided to go with a private diary rather than a blog because it’s too much work and i don’t know if i want people reading everything. also, i don’t come anywhere on a google search for “bittersweet” or “life”, at least yet. nor is he a particularly determined person. i think he’ll believe me and leave it. if not, i’m in huge trouble with my past post. and hey, if i change the title to “life and times of a psycho bitch” (my new pick), then i doubt he’ll ever click on the link.

second of all, as much as i’ve always wanted to believe in god, i cannot. i wish i could. i want that comfort and belief that there is something out there, but i can’t make my heart and head heed something it just doesn’t believe in. i’m happy that you can find comfort and the ability to motivate yourself to be a better person from your spirituality, whatever i think or don’t think about god. i, however, can’t use that path to become better.

so do you or anyone else have any other suggestions? lol. <sigh>

you do things like this and they’ll always be there. you can’t undo them. and unlike a one night stand or something like that, this doesn’t call into question my self-control so much as my heart. i want someone to love me but i kinda wonder if that’s possible with this kind of thing in my history. i’m so cynical and so manipulative and i’m only 21. really makes me want to give up.

something else i wonder is how truthful do i be with a guy i may meet and go out with. is this something i need to tell him? i know with my first, i was extremely honest. i didn’t want to “fool” him. i told him everything, things from how hairy i am (being brown sucks, you brunettes know what i’m talking about) to confessing how absolutely unconfident i am in so many areas of my life. maybe this is the wrong way to go. maybe i need to keep the dark stuff inside, even if i feel like i’m lying. i don’t know. i really don’t know.

and i did send kryptonite an apology as soon as i woke up the next morning. i was thinking about apologizing to him over the phone, but i kinda didn’t want to subject myself or him to such an obviously uncomfortable conversation. so i did an email, hopefully he checks it. i didn’t want to go overboard and make him think i’m even MORE psycho than he always does, so i did something short. here it is:

i dunno if who we are when we’re drunk is a reflection of our true selves. if so, i’m the postergirl for crazy psycho bitch. all guys should carry a picture of me in their wallets just to check when they’re drunk and meeting strange girls that i’m not the one they’re hitting on.

anyway, i highly doubt that you want to start out your week reading an emotional volume of an apology, so i’ll wrap this up. apparently, last night has proven that i’m a horrible person. i’m so sorry. i dunno what i can do about that, but not drinking is a start. meanwhile, i hope you’re as decent as you seemed and don’t ruin my reputation. i am so ashamed that i hope to god i don’t run into you on campus, or worse yet, go to fordham. regardless, i still have enough memory to loathe waking up this morning.

and no, you don’t have to feel bad about not replying to this email. sorry, and i hope you have a good week.

he didn’t reply, which of course panics me into wondering if he ever got this. and, looking at it now, i don’t think it’s a very good apology anyways. i think it seems more like i’m very concerned that he’s going to tell a lot of people. i am, don’t get me wrong. i feel like if this gets out, i won’t have any friends left. i need my friends. i am very sorry though. he didn’t do a good thing by coming to my place, but i far overshot him by preying on him the way i did. is there anything else i can do? i just don’t know.

the last two days i’ve acted normally on the outside. but i went shopping with a friend today, and just in the middle of normal conversations, of weeding through bins of clearance clothing, i think of what i did sunday night and i just want to cry. it’s as if my goodness is a scale and right now it’s weighed down on one end, on the dark side. i do bad things every day; how am i ever going to even it out again?

tomorrow i see the counselor/therapist/crazy doctor. i’m very nervous. i’m sure the guy’s not going to tell me i’m nuts to my face, but i’ll be able to see the change in his eyes. i’m a great interviewer. i have a nice smile and people think i’m sweet and attractive. he’ll think, poor confused girl and genuinely want to help me. then i’ll tell him about sunday, if i have the guts, and everything will go down hill. you know, i want my therapist to like me.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. that’s the refrain in my head right now. it doesn’t stop.

the TERRIBLY horribly twisted girl that i am

i moved my blog from a previous URL today. very tedious process. why’d i do it? as i’ve said before, i’m striving for honesty. which means i don’t want to jilt you guys on the many times ugly details of my life. unfortunately, my brother found my previous blog address and i felt like i had to write a PG-13 version of my life in case he read it. last night throws PG-13 out the door. this entry’s going to be long because i don’t really want to get to the point. i also think that maybe i should change this blog’s title to “diary of a mad brown woman” or “life as a crazy psycho bitch”. at the very least, i should take out the “sweet” and leave only the bitter. there was sweet. in those three months i went AWOL, there was sweet.

last night was so great that i scheduled my first ever therapy session for this wednesday.

i messed up. i’m not doing ok. i far surpass the stupidity, the drama, the meanness of reality tv. i think i’m still in shock. this wasn’t my usual impulsiveness where i end up hooking up with a guy because of the intense combo of loneliness and raging hormones. oh no, this was much worse. i don’t know if it’s pathetic or just evil.

earlier yesterday, i was having a conversation with my mother. she always wonders at my extreme insecurity, especially in terms of appearance. she tells me that looks aren’t everything, that personality is what a person really needs. i know that. i really do. but see, here’s the thing–i don’t have a good personality! i’m utterly lacking in that area. of course i wish i was gorgeous because someone will always love you and want to be with you if you’re beautiful. meanwhile, if you’re cute but you’re just a bad person or a depressing person, well then it’s going to be a long, lonely life.

she’s my mother. of course she thinks i’m the funniest, cutest, smartest thing out there. and honestly, i feel like when i’m home with my family, i am the very best that i can be. i’m goofy and happy and cute. i say funny things and do jigs around the kitchen. i’m fun. i’m nice. i’m ok.

this all goes to hell when i go out into the real world. then i’m bitchy. i gossip. i complain. i get so angry at people and life. most of all, i’m unbearably lonely. i want somebody to just be myself with. i’ve never had it and i just want to stop looking. i don’t want the hottest boy out there or anything of the kind. i just want mine. the first boy i had anything with, the one i fell in love with, he ruined my fairy tale. i thought when i was younger that it wasn’t that hard. you like someone, they like you, you go out and just be together. what i missed was all the gray area. i didn’t know about things like “friends with benefits”, “open relationships”, and other devious ways to worm out of commitment.

and yeah i know girls do all these things too, but boys, god boys are the worst. all guys want is ass. even the nice guys can’t resist. i’ve seen it over and over. guys with great and crappy girlfriends alike still cheat. they still flirt. they know what they’re doing and they still do it. it makes me so angry. i really hate men, like the way nazi-feminists hate men. i hate them and i can’t stay away from them.

so far so good, you’re thinking. she’s just exaggerating over how bad she is. she’s just a poor, heart-broken girl. i am, but think again. there’s something wrong inside me. you don’t believe it? here’s last night:

so i meet up with my girl friend and a bunch of her guy friends and we drink and joke all in good fun. everything always starts out innocently enough. one guy in particular catches my attention. let’s call him kryptonite because he’s the type of situation that sets me off.

anyway, kryptonite is cute and very taken with me. he laughs at all my jokes, sits by me, wants me to play pool, and in general i can feel his eyes on me all night. not leering, but interested. this is a quote “nice guy”. another trait kryptonite has is that he’s taken. he has a girlfriend so in the beginning i don’t flirt with him. i do flirt very obviously with the cute bartender who’s very aware of his good looks. eventually, we go back to the friend’s place and drink more, all of these boys plus the bartender coming along. so i’m dividing my energy between krytonite and bartending hottie. eventually, my girl friend falls asleep, and a few others retire. meanwhile, me and three boys are still awake and i’m flirting like men are going extinct tomorrow. i have no idea if my flirting is desperate-seeming or not. possibly. yet as drunk as i am by this point, in the back of my head i’m still calculating. look at them wanting to get me drunk so they can pounce on me.

we decide to adjourn to my apartment since we wouldn’t wake anyone up and i have more liquor. i don’t want the one guy to come over, but he’s friends with the bartender. however, the bartender decides to ditch out last minute and the friend shows up on my doorstep alone, to my displeasure. he’s indian and annoying to my senses. he’s even annoying in his so obvious interest in me. how can i be like this? how can i have this ugly superiority complex towards guys who follow me around like a puppy-dog?

so here i have two boys, one of which i want to GET OUT, and the other one obviously interested (even though he has no right to be). we get drunker, i get more annoyed with the indian kid. at some point i tell this kid off. yes, i do. i tell him i want him to go, not in a nice way, but in a horrible, mean, bad way. this is me. god.

so i’m left with kryptonite. let me mention that although he’s cute, i’m not even that into him. in fact, i’m being turned on by something unsexual. i’m being turned on by the feeling of power. i know what he wants, and he knows what he wants and i very obviously seduce him. but this is no ordinary seduction, no. again, i’m still calculating although i’d say i’m wasted at this point. it’s hard to tell how drunk i am, so he might not realize.

but back to the calculation. i’m a girl. i’m not beautiful, but i have a sexuality that guys notice right off. i’m very sure of myself in this kind of situation. so i sit there and whisper in his ear, i rub my lips against his neck, i sit on his lap, i shove him against the wall and rub up against him. i’m in complete whore mode. and the entire time i’m TAUNTING him. what’s your girlfriend’s name? do you love her? yes? then why are you here? you can’t stop yourself, can you? this would hurt her, you know, if she knew. etc, etc. do you see how sick i am?! jesus.

without prompting or further ado, i strip to my thong. i straddle him and he’s not doing so well in terms of staying calm and composed. he also keeps saying things like jesus, you’re a bitch, why are you doing this, WHO does this? as of course his hands are on my tits. so picture me straddling a half-horrified, half-mesmerized kryptonite and him asking how often i not only fuck, but fuck with guys’ heads.

well see that’s the entertaining part. i’m a virgin. haha. i think that made it more twisted to him. he’s sitting there shocked and upset and turned on, just saying over and over you can’t be a virgin, they don’t do this, they’re not like this. i actually ask him if he wants to check.

eventually things go to shit. i am wasted. he’s wasted but he knows i’m bad news and realizes he better get out of here because he does love his girlfriend. i think at one point he realizes that i’m emotionally fucked up (if he couldn’t tell by everything else) and asks me why. i actually say something about the boy i was in love with and how guys make me sick because they cannot stop themselves from being sex pigs. i also call first love and leave him an incoherent im. i end the night lying on top of my sheets just feeling frozen inside.

have i succeeded in digusting you yet?

and so that’s what i did with my sunday night. i acted the whore and fucked with some guy’s head and relationship on a day when others go to church to pray for their souls. i did it because i’m so twisted from how i’ve been used and what i’ve seen all guys do for sex that i wanted to prove to just one of them how weak and bad they are. except that i turned into something uglier and made myself into the other woman. i’ve never felt this dirty.

funny tangent: you know i never actually kissed him on the lips? haha, is this considered cheating for him?

i’m so scared now. i’m scared of myself and these ugly things that i find inside me. most of the time i’m fine and people would never know. i smile a lot, i laugh a lot. you wouldn’t know most of the time from looking at me that i downed an entire bottle of excedrin pm one semester and ended up in the hospital for kidney failure. you wouldn’t know any of these things. but they’re all there and i’m the only one who knows, although every now and then, i open the door and let someone else see a little of the ugly. i’m so scared he’ll tell my girl friend, or other people on campus. everyone knows everyone here. i don’t think i can deal with knowing that there are guys out there calling me a crazy psycho bitch. i don’t want my digusting self out there for everyone to see. i don’t even want to see.

what’s wrong with me? i’m so broken and i don’t know why. i want to be good and i just can’t seem to be. i just don’t know what to do or how to do it.

why we (or i?) love reality tv

i like to view myself as a fairly intelligent person, pompously “above” some forms of entertainment (ie. Borat, Dumb and Dumber). Meanwhile, my addiction to reality tv has reached dangerous levels.

some aren’t so bad (project runway). others straddle the middle (america’s next top model). and finally, there are the rEdiculous amount of brain cells i’m murdering over the absolute crap on mtv. i hate mtv. i really, really, really loathe it. i loathe it so much that i’m averaging three hours every day this week of shit’s shit like parental control, the real world, next, exposed, sweet sixteen and whatever other junk they think up (and i eat up).

so why submit myself to watching very UNREAL reality tv? these are shows with the corniest lines imaginable, with guys and girls pretending they know about love and date for personality. these are shows with heiresses whose biggest problem in life is that they flew allllll the way to paris and STILL couldn’t find a dress. these are shows where PARENTS act in ways i cannot even fathom (ie, choosing a girl for their son based on her ass-jiggle performance). these shows make me want to weep for america’s future.

but while i’m weeping for america, i’m smiling for me. do you know what a self-esteem boost it is to see the girls on real world-denver declare a mere 48 hours into the season that their friendship is worth more than any guy, that they’re going to be at each other’s weddings after one sleeps with the guy the other is crushing on? that drama, that obvious hypocrisy, makes me want to jump for joy that i am who i am. my life’s not this pathetic, I’M not this pathetic. i do have goals in my life. i am intelligent. i do work hard. i do have qualities to respect.

it bothers me that i can only find self-worth by witnessing the shallowness of others. it’s as if i watch these shows to tell myself you’re doing ok. i wonder if other people need this type of reassurance <sigh>.