You make me want to sing.
You make me want to learn the guitar, rock out, toss my hair, stamp my feet, and belt out a bluesy ditty of my own creation.
Unfortunately, I am no songbird – not like you. My voice is a watered down Julie Andrews while your voice is Joplin, Slick, and Plant.
I am green with envy, but oh so delighted by you!
No one is jealous of you – indeed everyone on your leaving wished you the best and wanted nothing more then for you to succeed. Alas, on your return you decided that your experiences in the big city somehow made you more important and dare I say BETTER then everyone you left behind. Everyone picked up on it; the arrogance, the pseudo boredom, the mean streak, the pretension. It was disgusting, but God knows I was much too in love to hold it against you.
But this letter is not about me and you and our dead in the water relationship. No, this letter is directed at your complete and utter lack (or loss) of perspective. It is directed at your arrogance, your presumption, your elitist, self righteous attitude that I suppose was ALWAYS there but has only been exacerbated in recent years.
Here’s the thing, here’s why people have their backs up when it comes to you.
You left home, spent a little bit of time in a fancy school, came home, and acted as if were better then everyone else! It’s as simple as that. You got insulted when people criticized your work (because you’ve been criticized by ‘the best’ and how dare we little people think your work anything less then genius), insulted those same people’s hard work, insulted people IN your work, and wondered why no one was ‘inspired’ by all you’ve accomplished, and why weren’t people asking for your opinion?
I often wondered whether you knew how cocky and pretentious you were. But you don’t see it as cocky and pretentious, do you? No, you genuinely see yourself as being better then other people though you may not want to call it that.
Well, call it whatever you want, but don’t call it jealousy. What you don’t seem to understand is people here don’t care that you’ve learned from ‘the best’. They don’t care who you’ve met or impressed. They do what they do because it is fun. Have you forgotten that concept? Do you think everyone is trying to be a super star? Most people are happy just where they are and doing what they do, and you have no right to insult anyone for anything!
Really – WHO do you THINK you are?
I do hope that one day you will pull your head out of your ass.
Dundas Square.
There were a million people walking this way and that; all business. Going, going, going – we were all cogs in the machine - Robots, performing our duties, mindless and non present.
And then you popped out from the crowd; walking against the flow of human traffic, moving slower then the others, looking around, pointing at the passers by, shouting “Jesus” at the top of your lungs. You wore a mask of tin foil to hide your face.
My friend led me across the street and away from your oncoming self. I suppose that was wise, as neither of us knew whether or not you were harmless. But from the other side of the street, I watched you still. You stood on a fire hydrant and preached the gospel. Maybe you were crazy, but you were not a robot. Not mindless. Completely present. Amongst all these automatons who would never understand real meaning, you were standing defiantly, unafraid to speak your truth no matter what anyone thought, no matter if it even made sense to anyone but yourself!
I had to respect that.
Some call you crazy. Some call you paranoid. Some call you mentally defective.
I call you inspiring.
I would I lived my life as honestly as you.
Last night was a surprise.
A shock even.
I never expected to have sex with you, and even when I laid myself down on your bed to go to sleep, I planned to do just that. Sleep. Does that sound a bit naïve? Maybe. Then, you put your arm around me, and…it was nice. It was comforting. It was the first time in months that a man did that, and I felt so comfortable. It was a slippery slope from there to fucking. Still, I must be honest and tell you that in the sober light of day I had my regrets about giving in to my impulses. Truth be told, I felt afterwards like how I can only assume one would feel after they got drunk and slept with their cousin! Like, no matter how good it felt, it was still wrong and you wouldn’t want anyone finding out about it. Granted I know that’s somewhat extreme as you are a friend not a relative, but still…you’re as close to me as family and thus there is something about experiencing such physical intimacy with you that makes me feel somewhat weird, and wrong. It’s just not something we should do.
Let me be very clear when I say what happened last night, while enjoyable, can never, Never, NEVER happen again. Friends cannot have sex with each other….well, they CAN but they shouldn’t if neither have the intent of pursuing a relationship, and I have no intentions of doing so. Trust me; I’ve been down this road many times. I’ve tried playing the ‘friends with benefits’ game and it always ends in a clusterfuck of confusion, and hard feelings.
You know it as well as I do.
Thus, I wish to keep my friends, friends.
Please do not be offended. It’s not that I don’t care for you, it’s quite the opposite. I respect you, even love you as family, but I am not in a position to be anyone’s girlfriend, and being a ‘fuck buddy’ is not an option.
I do not consider the title of ‘friend’ in any way to be a diminished position. Please know this. Please be my friend. You’re an incredible friend, and I love you dearly as such.
We’ll always have last night….
Is it wrong that I care what you think of me? You were only a mere blip on my radar; A few casual drunken meetings, a one night stand and a cup of coffee. There were a few electronic exchanges, but that’s it, and that’s all it ever will be. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will likely never see you again, although I hope I’m wrong. At the same time, I don’t know what I would even say to you if I saw you. Mostly because I fear I didn’t leave a good impression on you at the end. I have to admit, you kind of intimidated me. You seemed so smart, well traveled, experienced, and damn it you enjoyed studying genetics! I loved hearing you talk – both the content, and your voice (that subtle accent, it did it for me!). You were the embodiment of a ‘perfectly nice young man’, and I hadn’t met one of those in a long time. You had prospects and plans, and goals…You didn’t talk bullshit! You were interesting! I was thrilled that someone like you would even want to be near me.
ME.
I was such a mess. Seeing you in all your polished, practical glory I felt so naïve, and ignorant. Directionless. Stupid. Insecure. I wanted to dazzle you with brilliance, or make you laugh, or even just show you that I was a nice, normal girl. I wanted to get to know you. I didn’t want you to be my lover, but I wanted oh so badly for you to like me. To respect me.
That night. That one night we had…it was alcohol fueled, and awkward and somewhat embarrassing in retrospect. If I didn’t find it so crude I would have asked you for a ‘do over’ the next time we met (funny in a way), but somehow I didn’t feel right proposing such a thing to you. Maybe it was the fact we were in a coffee place surrounded by octogenarians and students, or maybe I just preferred the conversation we were having, or maybe I thought it crass and undignified to talk about awkward one nighters with a ‘perfectly nice young man’ - but asking if you were interested in such an arrangement was out of the question. Even if a second tryst may have proven somewhat more satisfying then the first.
I hope you don’t think ill of me. I know I can be awkward, and neurotic, but I am otherwise a good person. I hope that one day I’ll be able to re-deem myself, that is, if there is anything to re-deem. Until then I will have to accept the harsh possibility that you may think badly of me, or worse - that you don't think of me at all.....
1 is the number of times I’ve spoken to you in person, 2 is the number of times you winked hello, and 3 is the number of times we’ve spoken online thus far. All I have to say is that I am impressed with you. You’ve somewhat charmed me, and I find myself wondering (based on our internet exploits)if maybe I have had a similar effect on you. A girl can dream….
And I have been dreaming. Of you – of being in your presence again; flirting, looking boldly into your eyes, a smile welcoming me closer… feeling the electricity build till we can’t stand it.
I allow my mind to go back to the time when we ate sushi, and then shared a pitcher in that pub. I thought you were cute - you asked me questions and laughed at my jokes. When the time came for pictures you leaned close, put your arm around me. To keep myself from falling out of my chair I put my hand on your knee - I didn’t mean anything by it at the time - just trying to get in as close as I could so that all of us would fit in the picture. You hugged me when you left. I wanted more time.
Alas.
My word - this is no way for a jaded 20 something to act. I shouldn’t be dreaming, I shouldn’t be bold, and you do indeed inspire me to be bold! My mind tells me not to give in to this ridiculous crush, as crushes are by nature, ridiculous! I don’t really even know you. We don’t even live in the same town.
Thus is my Aries nature - both impulsive and logical. I feel free to fantasize, yet am fully aware of the reality of our situation. Right now I’m just a girl in your computer, speaking to you of distant things. We amuse each other, flirt a bit, we even somewhat bond over mutual experiences. Yet, I am here, and you there, and I know that in the time till we see each other again a million things could happen. You could get married and/or become a completely different person all together. I accept this. That’s life. Either way, I will still want to know you more whether as friends, or….something I don’t even want to put into print because it seems so utterly foolish right now.
I hope you don’t change too much till I get there, though. You’re fabulously interesting. And that, I suppose is the summation of my letter. That I am, in fact, interested.
