The other day I was at my friend Lee's house watching "Snatch" with his fiancée, who suddenly asked "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" I faltered, initially finding it intrusive and countering my efforts to watch the film at hand. My hesitation earned a follow-up "... or boyfriend?" which I appreciated, considering fairness and courtesy, regardless of its base in suspicion. I then speculated that the people I meet in Knoxville generally do not impress me, and that the ones that do impress me usually have their heads too far up their own ass; or, they intimidate me and, thus, I do not impress myself. She assured me she did not include herself in the general Knoxville rabble and we left it at that.
But I ran over it again in my head: wait, why didn't I have a girlfriend? Why have I ignored this pervasive suggestion of my society? Was I too busy with school? Somehow, I always found time to get spun. Was I too fat? No, fat people have girlfriends. Wait, maybe I'm totally hideous? I considered this seriously, and concluded that she wouldn't have asked why I didn't have a girlfriend if the answer was literally written all over my face. So were my suspicions correct? Did I just not like the people around me? Perhaps I refuse to care.
Girlfriend, fiancée, wife; adored, adorned, and adulterated. The concepts seem tired, conjuring images of the traditional court, organized marriages, and large families; yet, I am reminded of my youth, and my own fleeing memories of love: first impressions, the chase, unity. And then the unmet expectations, unnavigable distance, and caustic despair. The stuff that twists your insides up real good. It's all so damn overwhelming. Not the least of which is picking apart your motivations, figuring out who the hell you are and why you're doing anything at all.
I have discovered in myself scattered components of excellence, and miles of self-disgust, but never a positive or negative image; simply, a complete lack thereof. No affirmations, no declarations. Just a bunch of guts and impressibility. And on these pretenses I find it difficult to entertain romance.
Oh well, at least I graduate college this week. At least that.
Fri, 05/09/2008 - 18:51
Recently, Connor Mason posted an interesting post on why he doesn't have a girlfriend. I think he's about two years younger than I am and decidely has his shit more together than I. I met him and his girlfriend at a party where I was the coolest kid on the porch after spending a summer in the Hamptons with celebrities and eating the table scraps of Jay-Z courtesy of Cynthia Sestito. At the time, they invited me to a three-some. There was something about Connor's attitude of pushing the envelope that many people find very exciting including myself.
There is a small handful of children that grew up refusing to deal with the hand they had been dealt. Constantly pushing boundaries by finding masks to wear and pretending to be someone else. As young adults some of them found themselves in an identity crisis. These are people like us. There is no single word that defines us, no possible motivator that will confine us, and nothing in this world that we have decided to concede to. One thing is true, at 25 we have no real identity because we haven't earned it. The majority of our actions have been self motivated, self-loathing, and self-centered. We have few accomplishments to speak of other than existential ones where we went space cadet on something and found new memes to pass on to friends.
None of us has had great luck with women in a real emotional way outside the bounds of what was our teens. The chase, illusory tactics to get into her pants, the time table for attack, the way our hormones worked as a machine in harmony with our body to make us unstoppable. Riding on cars at 90 miles per hour, having threesomes, eating mind altering substances, or wrecking Jeeps just so we could weld on them was something that we did for fun.
At this point we have mastered the art of fooling ourselves into not caring. We do enough to get us what we need without excelling at anything. I don't know that this will ever change. I suspect there is a limited number of times you can say you dont care before you and everyone around you begins to believe it. Most likely, a defense mechanism from appearing to try so hard I suspect that caring about something will become more and more important as we get older. As grown-ups we get to decide what that is. As for girls and why I dont have one? I have two reasons that may resemble Connor's. The girls I want are accomplished, thought-provoking, intelligent, quick witted, silver tongued beasts with a soft side for people. Without all the qualities of something I want within myself it will be unlikely to find. The second part is in truth, there are girls out there that actually care for us. From a stranger in California, the Finnish girl, to a kid in Maine, to a girl in Gainesville that you somehow just "get". It's not that we don't have girlfriends. It's that we have many and we are too hesitant of ruining a good relationship with the stuff that makes them singular.
http://essays.dayah.com/fractured-identity-disorders
As Connor graduates he will be presented with something much more valuable than he may imagine. Connor, with a diploma allows him to think more critically and gives him time to invest in something that women will want. I believe it will be his accomplishments. Good luck bro, happy graduation.