She has a boyfriend.
Months of hoping, wishing, and waiting for the right time to see if I could eventually ask her out and be taken a little bit more truthfully than the joker and "good friend" that I am… gone.
Not gone, but not like they were.
How life progresses for those of us whom are good to everything but ourselves is unkind itself. People don't flock our way. They don't look towards us thinking how nice it would be to talk to that person for more than the ten seconds it takes to find out what they need before buggering off. We get but a few people who take an honest interest and don't exist purely to take, take take.
I'm not thoroughly surprised, mind you. One of her friends had told me that I had no chance. She's my best friend but like the best friend in the 80's John Hughes movies, surely I can hope for more. Regardless of this, I love her. That's not going to change whether the love is of a "yearning for" nature or "loving like a best friend" nature.
If she reads this blog (which she probably won't since all of 9 people read this blog) then she'll know that I love her. I don't know how I love her. I can't explain "love", not really being exposed to it per se. I've never really been exposed to "love" with anyone outside of family. People don't normally give me that chance. Even if she reads this blog, I hope she doesn't let it change what we have, the friendship that none of her boyfriends — past or future — can really touch. She's a great girl.
Still, the bullshit that people like myself go through makes me wonder whether anything we choose to do makes a difference. I sit here with Live's "Freak" going on through my over-sized headphones staring at the tacky off-grey paint in the train cabin wondering if I can really do anything to help myself.
Is there anything that I can do to save myself from the bottom less lack of luck that I seem to have or am I just a child of circumstance?
It seems silly to ask — especially in knowing that 9 people are reading my blog — so just deal with me as I try to use the blog as a means of venting the frustration that builds up inside of me because really… there isn't any other way for me to release it.
I already act out of character from what most people expect from me. I have a dark sort of smile, facial hair, and I wear a hat. People probably expect me to be more shadowy and I've been accused of stalking before, but the reality is far from what people seem to think. I'm quiet unless provoked or I have something to say, and at the moment I write all day with my hands so speaking isn't exactly the first thing on my mind. I stand inside the cabin of the trains as they make their way home, headphones over my hat. I listen to the music of people with passion and love for a craft… and I listen to people who only exist to make money. It doesn't really matter in the end.
I'm zany. Insane. Eccentric. Fucked up. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who displays eccentricities like mine. That's my ego talking, and it rarely does. Talk that is. I give others room to talk.
And even with that, people don't seem to want to approach me. Sure, I have a few friends and they're good. She's a great friend. I hope it stays that way. It's been brilliant the past few months when she was single. It was like having a really close friend… something I haven't been able to really have for ages… I don't know why. Outside of my brother of course.
This isn't one of those pity stories. I don't want pity. I want friendship.
Regardless, I'll get down to the point of it.
No matter what I try to do, no matter who I seem to meet, who I seem to like, who I seem to be kind to, talk to, think about, and fall for… I can't seem to win. It's not a prize, though it is in a way. Machoism in men presents itself in nightclubs when guys go out with mates and they all try to head home with a girl. Those that don't are the losers. This is similar in this way. I'm not trying to go home with anyone, but in attempting to befriend someone, I tend to go home the loser.
And I don't feel sorry for myself. I'm so sick of random people telling me that you'll get people liking you if you stop feeling sorry for yourself. Those people need to pull their heads from their arses and come up with a slightly more interesting answer that doesn't reflect the only situation they've ever thought of. I don't feel sorry for myself. I more feel sorry for people who look at me expecting something that I'm not going to give them.
Still, in cases like the macho guys (who generally have about as much intellect as an M&M), they have people they can go out with. They're the guys who they can go to clubs with and talk to each other and try to pick up people, make friends, lovers, enemies, whatever.
I don't have that. I don't have friends that want to go out with me. Does this make me a child of circumstance? No matter what happens in my life, the events are circumstantial because every time I try to exert any force over them, nothing seems to take shape. Am I child of circumstance?
For the past few weeks, I've had a strange thought going through my head. While I've been waiting at Town Hall station for the train back to Bondi, it's always the same thought over and over again.
As the train approaches, I wonder: what would it be like to throw myself in front of it?
It's not so much suicidal as it is curiosity. I wonder what the freedom of free air underneath my body as I make the jump right before the tons of steel and glass smash into my body and shatter the bones like a sledgehammer to a majestic ice sculpture. The blood would spray against the windshield alarming the driver and spattering a few specks of red on the few passengers who choose to wait to sit in the emptiness of the front cabin. It's empty there in case the train crashes because people seem to fear death, but what if someone crashed into the train? The splash of red might give the dismal and miserable dark grey wall of Town Hall a nicer tinge.
It's a lot about the freedom, to know that for a split second before my death and right after I jump… I'd be free. I wouldn't have to think about being a child of circumstance nor would I have to worry about the world and all of its problems. There's a car bomb in England. A boat leaking oil in Newcastle. A family member's car has been broken into. All of it would go and for one second — maybe not even that much — I wouldn't even have to worry.
It's probably not worth thinking about. I should probably just go and get myself a few-month membership and RedHotPie and see if that helps the whole lack of friends and lovers thing. I just hope my curiosity doesn't get the best of me while I'm still working out if I'm a child of circumstance.
Must be one of those sort of nights. Full moon and all.
You know that moment of freedom – that split second – one of my favourite poems is about (amongst other things) that moment. Ode to a Nightingale, Keats. In the end, he decides that however ecstatic it may be, it still has this one unfortunate side-effect: death. And he realises that if he died he wouldn’t be able to hear the nightingale sing any more. Most people don’t get that it’s not a depressive poem; he’s considering a moment of exquisite sensation, and then the moment passes.
Anyway, I don’t pretend to know how the world works. Circumstances seem to oscillate between good and shit at random, but then your reactions are always choices, so you constantly intervene and, well, you know about the butterfly effect? There’s something romantic about that idea. I like to think that butterflies everywhere are wreaking havoc, spilling people’s drinks, blowing out people’s birthday candles and otherwise generally interfering when we least expect it. I hope the butterflies are kinder to you in the next little while.