Here is an exercise in emotionality, and story telling with no purpose; and it was hard for me to write. Why write if not to persuade? Well, I can attest to the effectiveness of the exercise, if not to the success of this particular story. I'll warn whomever is reading this though, this story is not about you or anyone you know (including myself actually). It is totally made up, and draws on many areas of my life, including (unabashedly) my latest obsession with Sex and The City re-runs. So here is a little narrative morsel, à la Carrie Bradshaw...
I felt like I was falling, and like Alice in the Rabbit Hole, I had no sense of up or down. Until a few days ago I was supremely confident in my superiority, but as the event loomed I found my confidence wavering. I had spent a whole night obsessively studying her Facebook page, trying to get as much information about her as I could whilst maintaining a decidedly non-friend status. Between ordering clip-in hair extensions, and applying bronzer, I became privy to the fact that she works at Cowboys, and likes Akon and MAC makeup, the latter evident by the 2.7 tons of their product that she was sporting on her face.
The night came, and I spotted him alone at the bar with a beer in his hand right when I walked in. I was looking for him, of course, but I was sure that didn’t show in my face. He waved me over, and I concentrated so hard on looking sexy as I approached him that I almost ran into a table below my line of sight. I ordered a drink to give me an excuse to linger. “You look nice,” he said, and I waived away his compliment, and the four hours I spent getting ready, as if I hadn’t even noticed this was a black tie affair. I wanted to be the exact opposite of what she is, and she obviously tries too hard. I washed that irony down with a sip of scotch, and checked my hair in the mirror behind the bar, wondering who the girl is staring back at me.
As if on cue, in she walked in a white dress that plunged down to her navel. It was an insult to my favourite colour, and I had to make a point not to stare, lest she mistake it for adoring attention, but it was like trying to avert my eyes from a bloody murder scene. There was no sign of my beloved colour; not the crisp white of egyptian cotton, nor the antiqued white of belgian linen. Hell, it wasn't even the seductive pure white of silk, but rather the screaming white of a cheap polyester that you see in every bad wedding dress from the eighties. The white jumped out at me in a way that felt like the particles of pigment were trying to disassociate themselves from her tasteless attire. "We're not with her" they screamed. "I can relate" I thought back. Such a pure colour should never be contrasted with the stretched orange skin of an artificially tanned boob job. Again, I felt like I was falling, and like Alice in the Rabbit Hole, I had no sense of up or down.
She had that typical tilt to her speaking: a peak at the end of each sentence like she was in perpetual inquiry of her own statements. She was the stereotype of our generation; not educated enough to speak properly, but with enough media exposure to Nuevo-riche pop icons to think that money and class mirrored each other. The result was grotesque: another Paris Hilton-esque call girl with a Chanel clutch afforded by her shooter-girl side job. With both of her hands occupied (one with her quilted status symbol and the other in his familiar hand) I casually fantasized about strangling the silicone right out of her as she prattled on about her modeling career. A career that my Facebook search had revealed as a single Boudoir photo shoot that she likely commissioned herself. I wanted to grab him. Shake him. Demand that he tell me what he sees in her. I mean, come on! She listed ‘tanning’ as an interest! How could it be that easy for him to be with a girl with no depth of character, no substance to speak of? For every ridiculous statement she made, I wanted to throw back something compelling and intellectual. For every air-headed giggle that spilled out of her lips, I wanted to snarl with jaded intellectual Sinicism. I wanted so badly to prove how different I was, but was held back by a small shroud of dignity inside of me, while my reflection in the mirror looked back at me, begging me to be a bitch. Instead I smiled kindly and excused myself before I found myself being rude to a girl I didn’t even know.
In the bathroom I took a little time to regroup, and allowed myself a smile at the amount of effort I had put into tonight. I knew he was going to be here and I was hell bent on making him see what he was missing, while conveniently making his new girlfriend jealous. I didn’t like her out of principle, but as I stared at my own extension laden, fake eyelash-wearing, bronzed exterior, the judgment just didn’t stick. I realized it had less to do with her Barbie persona, and more to do with her Facebook status as girlfriend. I never got elevated to that rank, and after half a year of missed 'dates', Sports Net instead of movies, and his general apathy toward any activity for two that wasn’t horizontal, I had stormed out of his house with a shouted “Don’t ever call me again!” trailing behind me. The worst part was that during the whole fight, and as I was packing up my things, he didn’t even bother getting up from the edge of the bed. He just didn’t care. But then again, he didn’t care what was happening in the world unless in was going to affect his work, beer prices, or Sports Network. He went to the gym, played hockey, and got drunk with his buddies. I realized that he never bothered to ask about my interests because having a pretty girl around was, and still is, enough for him. He never had any interest in getting to know me. It’s not that he didn’t like who I was, it’s that he didn’t
care who I was. I also had the sneaking suspicion that he never let me into his life because he didn't know who he was either. I never got the impression that he stood for anything, or knew what was important to him. Despite the inferno of our sexual relationship, I chose to stop seeing him because I couldn’t deny that I was better than this. Yes, he was beautiful (and a caveman in the way that all women like, but most don't admit), but at best he was a lapse in judgment, not a missed opportunity. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get over him considering our terrible relationship. I always thought it meant he must have been really special. That night I realized that this gorgeous guy with the best smile in the world was
my status symbol, and I had been clutching on to him pretty tight, even though he didn’t match my outfit. I figured it had taken me this long to distinguish between real love and status symbol love, because I couldn’t hear the voice in my head over the incessant chiming of my ovaries that being around him produced. Still, I felt like I was falling, but this time I recognized the feeling. This is what it felt like to fall out of love.
