tried to write about loneliness, motives, & community... but then was begged to get drunk.
Melody decided to let her body language express her desire for assistance; she might get lost painfully often, but she preserved her dignity by never explicitly asking for directions. She wrinkled her forhead, squinted her eyes slightly, parted her lips, and allowed just the right blend of frustration, vulnerability, and weariness to fill her eyes as she gazed desperately around the lobby.
Now, Melody thought to herself, someone will feel compelled to stop. Deciding to amuse herself by playing the drama-queen, she drew a deciptively helpful-looking map of the campus from her pocket and allowed it to drape her grasp, which she held at stomach-level. She complemented the look by sighing in an especially hopeless manner as out of her peripheral she noted a rather ordinary man with a briefcase walking in her direction. Aware of his assessment of her projected emotions, she drew the back of a hand to her forhead and closed her eyes. Darkness enveloped her, and she suddenly worried- as she always did when she shut her eyes while standing- if she would open them to discover she was no longer in a place she knew. Which, she reminded herself, might not be entirely bad in this situation.
"Excuse me, but do you need a hand?" asked the Good Samaritan in an unremarkable American accent.
Opening her eyes, she flooded them with gratitude and a residual weariness she wanted the man to believe she couldn't rid her manner of entirely. She let that weariness seep into the skin around her eyes. The man standing before her had brown eyes, short hair of an indistinguishable blond-brown shade, and no stubble. He was taller than her, but only by the average few inches.
"Oh, thank you so much. I can't seem to find my way to room 213. The map says it's on this floor." She gestured with the map exasperatedly.
He nodded kindly and reached out for the map. "I'll take a look at it for you."
As her guide bent his neck and studied the map, Melody wondered if the ordinary man knew she was affecting the desperation and helplessness that accented her voice, that she was choosing her words in order to arouse his protective instincts, that her body language was designed to elicit exact responses from him. Who, she mused, actually sounds so Little Red Riding-Hood? She wondered if anyone she played her little games with knew. She wondered if the man was playing his own game when he pretended to believe her pretense. She wondered if it was an inside joke between them, her and this seemingly ordinary man. She stopped her affectations. When he looked up at her again, his face conveyed success. "Got i-," he broke off. She was studying him obviously, her eyes intense and searching on his own. No longer appearing the vulnerable damsel in need of rescuing, the girl looked predatory. Predatory and hungry.
Melody watched as discomfort filled the man in front of her, wariness replacing helpfulness. He held the map out to her and stepped back. "Sorry," he muttered as he picked up his briefcase and hurried away.
Well that was a disapointment, she thought. It'd be nice to find someone like me. Someone who I don't have to fake with to get things done. People are so willing to do things for the angry, the crying, the desperate, the resentful and pissy. They'll placate the emotionally-afflicted, offering to fix things, buy things, do things; anything to bring the person back to center. When a person is emotional, people treat him or her with more deference and attention. We even treat those with the potential for significant emotion, like explosive fathers or abusive mothers, differently. We internalize that we have to behave more carefully around them, choose our words with more care. Their emotion being greater than our own permits them to set the boundaries. It allows them control.
She thought of her own family. Of her angry father, her sensitive mother, her hysterical sister and resentful little brother. In times of contention they're all at their peaks in the emotions they specialize in. Whereas I, she remembered, was always the whipping girl. No one was afraid of me because I wouldn't rise to an extreme they would be responsible for. They would be tenative around each other because they all had a matching emotional height, were you to convert the unit. Why yell at someone as angry as you are hurt and deal with their anger, not getting enough attention focused on your own pain, if you can force someone placid to bear the brunt of your emotion?
If you're in a car with two friends, and one of them is simmering in anger, you and the calm friend are not going to have the fun you would without the angry girl. You're not going to discuss what otherwise would be discussed. If your mother is angry, you are not going to push the boundaires you would normally push. Or, at least, most people won't. The insane and the totally self-absorbed are a different matter. Oh, to be totally self-absorbed, she thought longingly. How freeing in one sense, but how utterly captive in another. Enslaved in their own point-of-view. Enslaved to yourself. I imagine that's very hard to escape. I need someone to whom I can say "I want" and have that be enough. I don't want to have to fake getting worked up, lest my significant other not feel I truly desire.
She shook herself. "I am going to be late," she said aloud.
Now, Melody thought to herself, someone will feel compelled to stop. Deciding to amuse herself by playing the drama-queen, she drew a deciptively helpful-looking map of the campus from her pocket and allowed it to drape her grasp, which she held at stomach-level. She complemented the look by sighing in an especially hopeless manner as out of her peripheral she noted a rather ordinary man with a briefcase walking in her direction. Aware of his assessment of her projected emotions, she drew the back of a hand to her forhead and closed her eyes. Darkness enveloped her, and she suddenly worried- as she always did when she shut her eyes while standing- if she would open them to discover she was no longer in a place she knew. Which, she reminded herself, might not be entirely bad in this situation.
"Excuse me, but do you need a hand?" asked the Good Samaritan in an unremarkable American accent.
Opening her eyes, she flooded them with gratitude and a residual weariness she wanted the man to believe she couldn't rid her manner of entirely. She let that weariness seep into the skin around her eyes. The man standing before her had brown eyes, short hair of an indistinguishable blond-brown shade, and no stubble. He was taller than her, but only by the average few inches.
"Oh, thank you so much. I can't seem to find my way to room 213. The map says it's on this floor." She gestured with the map exasperatedly.
He nodded kindly and reached out for the map. "I'll take a look at it for you."
As her guide bent his neck and studied the map, Melody wondered if the ordinary man knew she was affecting the desperation and helplessness that accented her voice, that she was choosing her words in order to arouse his protective instincts, that her body language was designed to elicit exact responses from him. Who, she mused, actually sounds so Little Red Riding-Hood? She wondered if anyone she played her little games with knew. She wondered if the man was playing his own game when he pretended to believe her pretense. She wondered if it was an inside joke between them, her and this seemingly ordinary man. She stopped her affectations. When he looked up at her again, his face conveyed success. "Got i-," he broke off. She was studying him obviously, her eyes intense and searching on his own. No longer appearing the vulnerable damsel in need of rescuing, the girl looked predatory. Predatory and hungry.
Melody watched as discomfort filled the man in front of her, wariness replacing helpfulness. He held the map out to her and stepped back. "Sorry," he muttered as he picked up his briefcase and hurried away.
Well that was a disapointment, she thought. It'd be nice to find someone like me. Someone who I don't have to fake with to get things done. People are so willing to do things for the angry, the crying, the desperate, the resentful and pissy. They'll placate the emotionally-afflicted, offering to fix things, buy things, do things; anything to bring the person back to center. When a person is emotional, people treat him or her with more deference and attention. We even treat those with the potential for significant emotion, like explosive fathers or abusive mothers, differently. We internalize that we have to behave more carefully around them, choose our words with more care. Their emotion being greater than our own permits them to set the boundaries. It allows them control.
She thought of her own family. Of her angry father, her sensitive mother, her hysterical sister and resentful little brother. In times of contention they're all at their peaks in the emotions they specialize in. Whereas I, she remembered, was always the whipping girl. No one was afraid of me because I wouldn't rise to an extreme they would be responsible for. They would be tenative around each other because they all had a matching emotional height, were you to convert the unit. Why yell at someone as angry as you are hurt and deal with their anger, not getting enough attention focused on your own pain, if you can force someone placid to bear the brunt of your emotion?
If you're in a car with two friends, and one of them is simmering in anger, you and the calm friend are not going to have the fun you would without the angry girl. You're not going to discuss what otherwise would be discussed. If your mother is angry, you are not going to push the boundaires you would normally push. Or, at least, most people won't. The insane and the totally self-absorbed are a different matter. Oh, to be totally self-absorbed, she thought longingly. How freeing in one sense, but how utterly captive in another. Enslaved in their own point-of-view. Enslaved to yourself. I imagine that's very hard to escape. I need someone to whom I can say "I want" and have that be enough. I don't want to have to fake getting worked up, lest my significant other not feel I truly desire.
She shook herself. "I am going to be late," she said aloud.