Hopeless Romantic
I’m not necessarily a hopeless romantic, but I do believe in shooting your shot. For instance, I send this newsletter to one new person every week. Not someone who I meet out in the wild and casually bring up the newsletter as if I don’t go out and meet people for the sole purpose of evangelizing them to the aforementioned letter which I ironically put so little effort towards I oftentimes miss deadlines, but random people. I just pick a name out of a proverbial hat and add her to the distribution list. And before you judge me (name redacted, referring to person who received this letter without asking), hear me out. You’re probably not going to be into this. I get it. It’s weird. It comes on a little strong. It’s aggressive. It’s not even like I have that great content in here (sometimes, though). But I believe in the process of elimination as strongly as I believe in shooting your shot, which is fairly strong for a person that rarely takes hard stances on anything except supposedly unimportant issues like getting dressed pants-first and saying “remote” instead of “clicker.” And my process of elimination doesn’t come from swiping through thousands of unattractive faces despite being more attractive than their standard faces. It doesn’t come from getting coffee with every young lass in the greater Manhattan area (unless I’m strapped for content). It comes from being unapologetically me on a day-to-day basis toward everyone with whom I come in contact. Not because I’m that proud of who I am (I’m pretty proud), but because I don’t have the energy to pretend to be anything else. I can’t put on a front to win people over (except for job interviews and new social situations and when I’m around someone more attractive than I am). Over the long run, anyone that you are around will eventually see your true colors (not necessarily true, you could be married for forty years to a con-artist that has a second family, and ultimately being alone is the only thing we will intimately experience, because no one truly knows anyone else, just the person they convey themselves to be based on the perception they assume is desired of them), create a new opinion regarding who you are and treat you accordingly. So, here I am, being myself, deterring those who don’t like who I am as aggressively as I am drawing those who do near. Being intentionally polarizing. Showing my true colors, one newsletter to those who know me and one person who doesn’t and probably never will at a time. One atrociously redundant, run-on, self-aggrandizing sentence followed by another. Here I am, (name redacted). Don’t be like the others. Respond to your email. Tell me you hated it and you’re calling the cops.*
*I’m kidding, Mom
**(I’m not kidding, everyone else)
Saturday Morning:
It’s Saturday morning and I’m enjoying the opportunity to remain in bed long enough to not hate every single thing once I step out. My millennial brain’s need for constant stimulation leads me to opening Instagram on my phone despite the Netflix show blaring in the front of me. II see some familiar faces. Some are familiar because they’re friends, some — I now realize — have only become familiar as faces on a screen that I see with regularity because of Instagram and nothing more. But what’s the difference these days; we’re all beings floating through the others’ consciousnesses. I order my mind to relax and continue my investigation into the lives of those not my own. A high school friend overcompensating for his strained relationship with a sappy caption praising his girlfriend’s loving nature. Classic. I was as confident that she’d both written the caption and demanded he post it as I was that their relationship would end before I could finish reading through that nonsense. On to the next. A girl who almost dated a friend who I don’t even keep up with anymore posting a picture captioned “about last night”. What about last night? You posed against a brick wall with an overpriced drink in your hand before spending the evening texting in the corner? Nice. Moving on. Ex-girlfriend I haven’t spoken to in years but still have to remain Instagram friends with just so I’m never taken by surprise when our mutual friends send me screenshots of whatever weird thing she’s posting about now. Moving on, and quicker than before. Now, what is this ad? Transition sunglasses? I don’t even wear glasses! What happened to a targeted ad experience? Zuckerberg doesn’t even know me like that, apparently. The next two ads prove me wrong as they are both items I have discussed with friends within a 24-hour period using the same mobile telephonic device I am currently operating to judge my friends, acquaintances and flings that never were. Haunting. My catch-up scroll is cut short as I receive a notification from Snapchat. My friend is typing. I open the app to see what he has to say. I wait. I wait. Nothing. False alarm. Disgusted, I set my phone down. What am I doing with my life. I should probably switch plans, go back to having a flip phone. Go off the grid. Maybe do yoga, maybe take a retreat or go for a hike. But then my phone lights up, and the dopamine inside my head explodes once more, bringing me more joy than disconnecting ever could.