[one life pretending to be the cow who got the cream]
First off: I am doing it again. I started this semester with 13 credits-- really not much at all, and pretty much all prereqs. Actually a little low on the "what you're expected to be doing" scale, but I'm planning to take several of my math-related prereqs this summer anyway, so.
And now it's a week into classes, and I have added something like five credits of music to my workload. BECAUSE THEY LET ME BACK INTO CHOIR AAAAAAAAAH I GET TO SING THIS SEMESTER AAAAAAAH.
This is going to be the semester of "not putting shit off." I told myself last semester, "I'll do choir next semester." I told myself earlier this week that I could do better in my academics with less music, and that I could always do choir next semester (never mind that I'm already planning to start Chinese next semester anyway, on top of picking up a second and as-yet-undetermined major). And then the Gay Singing Bookworm texted me from the first rehearsal to scream that they're doing Eric Whitacre's A Boy and a Girl. And I realized that I needed to be in this yesterday. And now I am. :D
ALSO: The Father of my Owls is going with me to see Streetlight Manifesto when they come to OKC in March. YOU ARE ALL SO JEALOUS.
Anyway. tl;dr incoming. Introspective and sappy and immature and melodramatic and arrogant and probably just a lot of repetition of things I have said before.
So I was thinking about The Very Shoujo Adventures of Sarah, and my slight infatuation with French Exchange Student, and my brief ridiculousness with Jonesy, and my general dating history, and I got to thinking about why I date the way I do, and I came to the conclusion that since starting college I have been unbelievably stupid about the whole thing and it needs to stop, or at the very least change.
I've been chasing after various menfolk since starting this whole college thing, and have even looked with passive longing at a lady or two before the inevitable realization that they are straight and/or taken. But my views on dating (which have already been tl;dr'ed about) have not changed. And so there is a disconnect - I know exactly what I'm looking for. I know exactly the feeling I want to associate with a relationship. I even, to some extent, understand what has to happen before I can experience that. But for whatever reason, I'm actively pursuing what I know I don't want.
Take French Exchange Student, for example. We've spoken once. We've had a single class period together. We did a little homework, chatted briefly, and ran into each other once on the stairs at the gym. What I feel for him I know to be pure fluttery awe at how insanely attractive he is; I feel no shame in stating that I could stare at this guy for several years and not get tired of the view.
But then I think about taking action. I think about asking him for coffee. I make idle plans somehow to win him, to get him to... what? Go out with me? No. I don't know enough about him to know if I'd want that. To talk at me? To hang out with me? ...Or to sleep with me. I even talk boldly about my intention to do this. I talk like I've never heard myself talk - and it's joking, of course, things like "Well, he's going back to France in August..." and I realize that when I say it, it doesn't mean We won't have much time together. It means He's leaving, so what I do doesn't have to mean anything.
And then I step away from the situation, examine my own feelings toward this person, and wonder what the hell I'm saying, because I don't want to do this.
And when did I gain this ability to pressure myself into these things? When did I shut myself off from myself to the point that this sounded like a good idea? Why the hell do I want this, if the planned end result is not in any way desirable to me at all?
Part of it, I suppose, is the novelty of it. I grew a set of social skills (yes, really) sometime between the beginning of senior year and now, and now I'm in a place where I have no reputation except the one I eke out for myself. I know how to talk to college boys, for the most part. I've gotten better at the whole flirting gambit. I'm inexperienced but innovative, a damn good imitator, just forthright enough to be approachable, just reserved enough to be interesting, when I choose to be. I've found a social mask that fits pretty damn well, and what I still lack in genuine ability to relate to people I make up for in volume and pretentiousness. It's new, the knowledge that if I wanted to ~win~ someone, I could probably do it. It is, in short, a power trip.
Because isn't there a certain thrill to getting someone to do what you want? Especially when it's someone you admire, someone you might once have called "out of your league," even for something as superficial as his looks or his pretty accent? It's a novelty and a mental challenge, this stupid game. I'm an ambitious bitch (ambitchous?), after all. I love connections, I love a challenge, I'm easily enticed by what I haven't tried yet. Seducing a foreign exchange student? There's a great story, a daring thing to do, something generally regarded as hella fun. He's going back to France in six months - there's not even any real risk involved! It's an experiment, which I keep being told is what I'm supposed to be doing in college anyway. So it's even the fulfillment of a societal obligation! What's not to love about this?
Except I've done this before. Twice. I've tried the physical-connection-with-no-real-emotional-attachment thing. The first time it lasted three days, and then I stopped that because it was, quite simply, no fun. The second time it lasted two weeks, and I was enjoying it up until the point that the lack of an emotional attachment was revealed to me, and at that point I realized that I could not have one without the other and got the fuck out.
How many times am I going to make the same damn mistake when I know exactly what I don't want?
I could plunge deep into my psyche and find a reason for all this. Societal pressure; maternal pressure; general insecurity; loneliness; a subconscious fear of being somehow left behind; maybe even a fear of remaining a child forever, or a strange Freudian terror of the running-out of my biological clock. But that doesn't matter. Reason, I think, doesn't come into this so much as the very real fact that it's not what I want.
"You don't want it, so don't fucking do it. I could have told you that without an hour's worth of tl;dr." Yeah, I know. I'm disappointed in myself for this. It's not like I got anywhere with French Exchange Student, or that I have anything to regret; but honesty is the most important thing in the world to me. Honesty has to start within myself, and I feel like I lied to myself about this. That bothers me.
So! Now I know. And I will finish my anthropology reading today (sob WHY TWO HUNDRED PAGES A WEEK OF DRY ACADEMIC RESEARCH WRITING WHY), and go to a dinner hosted by Christians on Campus and it'll be really awkward but my sight-singing partner will be there, and then on Monday I'll go to class and I will not put the moves on anyone. And it'll be fucking awesome.
And I'll work on getting to know the people I love here. And things will happen as they happen. And I will work on accomplishing my Shounen Life Dreams, and this also will be awesome.
And now it's a week into classes, and I have added something like five credits of music to my workload. BECAUSE THEY LET ME BACK INTO CHOIR AAAAAAAAAH I GET TO SING THIS SEMESTER AAAAAAAH.
This is going to be the semester of "not putting shit off." I told myself last semester, "I'll do choir next semester." I told myself earlier this week that I could do better in my academics with less music, and that I could always do choir next semester (never mind that I'm already planning to start Chinese next semester anyway, on top of picking up a second and as-yet-undetermined major). And then the Gay Singing Bookworm texted me from the first rehearsal to scream that they're doing Eric Whitacre's A Boy and a Girl. And I realized that I needed to be in this yesterday. And now I am. :D
ALSO: The Father of my Owls is going with me to see Streetlight Manifesto when they come to OKC in March. YOU ARE ALL SO JEALOUS.
Anyway. tl;dr incoming. Introspective and sappy and immature and melodramatic and arrogant and probably just a lot of repetition of things I have said before.
So I was thinking about The Very Shoujo Adventures of Sarah, and my slight infatuation with French Exchange Student, and my brief ridiculousness with Jonesy, and my general dating history, and I got to thinking about why I date the way I do, and I came to the conclusion that since starting college I have been unbelievably stupid about the whole thing and it needs to stop, or at the very least change.
I've been chasing after various menfolk since starting this whole college thing, and have even looked with passive longing at a lady or two before the inevitable realization that they are straight and/or taken. But my views on dating (which have already been tl;dr'ed about) have not changed. And so there is a disconnect - I know exactly what I'm looking for. I know exactly the feeling I want to associate with a relationship. I even, to some extent, understand what has to happen before I can experience that. But for whatever reason, I'm actively pursuing what I know I don't want.
Take French Exchange Student, for example. We've spoken once. We've had a single class period together. We did a little homework, chatted briefly, and ran into each other once on the stairs at the gym. What I feel for him I know to be pure fluttery awe at how insanely attractive he is; I feel no shame in stating that I could stare at this guy for several years and not get tired of the view.
But then I think about taking action. I think about asking him for coffee. I make idle plans somehow to win him, to get him to... what? Go out with me? No. I don't know enough about him to know if I'd want that. To talk at me? To hang out with me? ...Or to sleep with me. I even talk boldly about my intention to do this. I talk like I've never heard myself talk - and it's joking, of course, things like "Well, he's going back to France in August..." and I realize that when I say it, it doesn't mean We won't have much time together. It means He's leaving, so what I do doesn't have to mean anything.
And then I step away from the situation, examine my own feelings toward this person, and wonder what the hell I'm saying, because I don't want to do this.
And when did I gain this ability to pressure myself into these things? When did I shut myself off from myself to the point that this sounded like a good idea? Why the hell do I want this, if the planned end result is not in any way desirable to me at all?
Part of it, I suppose, is the novelty of it. I grew a set of social skills (yes, really) sometime between the beginning of senior year and now, and now I'm in a place where I have no reputation except the one I eke out for myself. I know how to talk to college boys, for the most part. I've gotten better at the whole flirting gambit. I'm inexperienced but innovative, a damn good imitator, just forthright enough to be approachable, just reserved enough to be interesting, when I choose to be. I've found a social mask that fits pretty damn well, and what I still lack in genuine ability to relate to people I make up for in volume and pretentiousness. It's new, the knowledge that if I wanted to ~win~ someone, I could probably do it. It is, in short, a power trip.
Because isn't there a certain thrill to getting someone to do what you want? Especially when it's someone you admire, someone you might once have called "out of your league," even for something as superficial as his looks or his pretty accent? It's a novelty and a mental challenge, this stupid game. I'm an ambitious bitch (ambitchous?), after all. I love connections, I love a challenge, I'm easily enticed by what I haven't tried yet. Seducing a foreign exchange student? There's a great story, a daring thing to do, something generally regarded as hella fun. He's going back to France in six months - there's not even any real risk involved! It's an experiment, which I keep being told is what I'm supposed to be doing in college anyway. So it's even the fulfillment of a societal obligation! What's not to love about this?
Except I've done this before. Twice. I've tried the physical-connection-with-no-real-emotional-attachment thing. The first time it lasted three days, and then I stopped that because it was, quite simply, no fun. The second time it lasted two weeks, and I was enjoying it up until the point that the lack of an emotional attachment was revealed to me, and at that point I realized that I could not have one without the other and got the fuck out.
How many times am I going to make the same damn mistake when I know exactly what I don't want?
I could plunge deep into my psyche and find a reason for all this. Societal pressure; maternal pressure; general insecurity; loneliness; a subconscious fear of being somehow left behind; maybe even a fear of remaining a child forever, or a strange Freudian terror of the running-out of my biological clock. But that doesn't matter. Reason, I think, doesn't come into this so much as the very real fact that it's not what I want.
"You don't want it, so don't fucking do it. I could have told you that without an hour's worth of tl;dr." Yeah, I know. I'm disappointed in myself for this. It's not like I got anywhere with French Exchange Student, or that I have anything to regret; but honesty is the most important thing in the world to me. Honesty has to start within myself, and I feel like I lied to myself about this. That bothers me.
So! Now I know. And I will finish my anthropology reading today (sob WHY TWO HUNDRED PAGES A WEEK OF DRY ACADEMIC RESEARCH WRITING WHY), and go to a dinner hosted by Christians on Campus and it'll be really awkward but my sight-singing partner will be there, and then on Monday I'll go to class and I will not put the moves on anyone. And it'll be fucking awesome.
And I'll work on getting to know the people I love here. And things will happen as they happen. And I will work on accomplishing my Shounen Life Dreams, and this also will be awesome.