How relative the world appears to its observers. How odd it is that we all see a different spectrum of colors, yet we can all decide on what to call them. Granted, there is some argument over yellow-green or green-yellow, but in the end, we still know it's not purple-brown or orange-white. Why is it that we all perceive a slightly different spectrum, but we can still settle on constancies? Why is beauty a general human topic that can be agreed upon by many people? Why do so many people like classic works of literature, and why does that make them classic? If everyone can agree on such things as color, art, and beauty, then why is it so topic for people to get a feel for what other people see? Why are they so sure that what they perceive actually is?
It really bothers me when people tell me that spending time with friends will fix loneliness and heartache. It won't. Friends and lovers are two completely separate categories with each holding separate functions that may appear similar, but are not. A mixing of the two is okay. But one group will never satisfy the needs of the other group.
You can't hold your friends the way you can hold a lover. You can't talk to them the same, you can't touch them the same, you can't act the same, and you can't feel the same. Most people wouldn't feel comfortable having sex with their friends and remaining just friends. Nothing more, nothing less. Most people wouldn't feel comfortable if their friends kissed them goodnight with tongue, or held them close in the winter and told them they loved them, or promised they'd never leave them.
Similarly, you can't treat your lover the same way you treat your friends. Your lover is to be your backstop, the thing always there for you. Not always agreeing with you, but always there, ready and willing to help should it be necessary. You can't tell your lover all your secrets because life would get boring.
Lovers should be your friend as well. Friends should not be lovers. Friends can't fill the need for companionship like lovers can. The touch of someone you love and who loves you back is incomparable to the touch of a friend. That's why it bothered me when you said that, Deanna. Yes, I'm calling you out. You're in my story for a reason. You, of all people, should know that friends aren't lovers.
When you told me that I should do something about it, I balked. What the fuck do you think I've been doing? Sitting around, feeling bad for myself? Well, let me list my options. (Incoming list! Onoez!)
1. Try finding love in school.
2. Try a dating website.
3. Try bars.
4. Try a LGBT meeting or GSA meeting.
First, let me start with finding love in school. In short, I've given up. A one-in-twenty shot isn't good odds, even on a good day. I've got six-ish months left. I think I can pull through that. It just isn't worth it. Even if I were to find love here (unlikely) I'd feel obligated to break it off before college because college is all sorts of words like New! and Exciting! So I'd want to start new and fresh, without any obligato a priori.
Second, I can't try dating websites because I'm under 18. Further, what am I supposed to do? Hook up with guys from across the country? Jack off over webcams? That's all dating websites are for. Skeezy hookups. One-night stands. Chat roulette, basically.
Third, I can't try bars because I'm not 21. Also, I've sworn off alcohol. It makes people stupid. It makes people disgusting. I'm not saying I couldn't love a drinker, but if I meet my lover in a bar, that's probably what they are. I grew up with drinkers. I don't want to have to be with that for the rest of my life.
Fourth, GSA meetings and the like. Ah, GSA. Mother fucking high school is rumored to have one. Apparently. It never meets, it never has announcements, and it never existed. It's in the extracurricular group book, but I've never heard of meetings. I've never heard announcements about it. It bothers me that, apparently, we have one. But if it isn't active, what the hell good does it do?
So that's my options. In the end, I have none. They're all exhausted. I know I shouldn't complain about my problems, but I feel like it's justified. I don't have anything to do about them now. I can't satisfy them and they're really the only things nagging me. What do you want me to do? Date people I'm not attracted to? Date people I'm not interested in?
I know four LGBTQ guys at school. Two of them have already had crushes on me that I didn't reciprocate. One of them probably doesn't know I'm gay, and I don't really find him appealing. The fourth I don't find appealing whatsoever. I guess I could date people for the hell of it, but I don't want relationships for the hell of them. I want them to mean something. Not just companionship for companionship's sake.
I know you didn't mean it quite like you said it. I know you wanted me to try something different, something new. I know you didn't mean to offend me, I know that you know my choices are limited, and I know you didn't know how to say it. But it still hurt anyway. And I'm upset that you think that it would boil down so easily to "He's lonely, so he's not trying hard enough."
It just made me so darned mad that you thought I was complaining and doing nothing. I was upset that you thought it was just a case of effort. Maybe that's how it is for you. But for me, there's chance involved. 5%, to name a number. Nobody likes those odds. You just…you don't understand, Deanna.
I don't get that serendipitous chance that someone will like me back. If we assume that the odds of someone liking me back is 50% (which is pretty generous) then I have a 2.5% chance of any given male having a crush on me. That's something like one in forty. That's…so ridiculously tiny that it's almost not worth trying. Out of every one hundred guys I ask out, between two and three would say yes.
Maybe that illustrates better what I'm talking about. Yes, you could say "oh, well that just means you need to get asking!" But this doesn't factor in fear of society, being closeted, or other stuff that would reduce it. Maybe if I explained it to you in terms of math you would get it. You'd see that it's time, like one in two hundred or one in four hundred. I wish there was some way to get it out of my head to show you.
Maybe that illustrated why LGBT people congregate together. Because in the world, out there, alone, they've got relatively no chance. Each meeting that worked out successfully would be something like a fairy tale.
Nobody believes in fairy tales. Nobody believes in wishes. Nobody should believe in hope. Hope is a fucking liar, a bastard, a moron, a fool. Hope lies directly to your face and tells you to believe it; it can't be wrong! No, actually. Hope is wrong most of the time. Hope is what people use to deny themselves the truth. It tells people that everything's okay when Rome is burning. It tells people to stay and fight and die as opposed to run and flee and live. I hate hope. With it, I hate optimism. There is no bright side and there's no reason to look for it. There's just the lesser of two evils, to be cliché about it. Two different shades of gray, more or less the same.
I have so much today and so little time in which to say it. I think I need to let these thoughts percolate inside of me and brew and churn and burn and destroy me until I can let them out. Everything is unfolding perfectly for me to stay here, to stay safe. With shattered dreams and hope. That somehow, everything will work out. That even though I've been denied, you'll still realize on your own that I'm right for you.
I fucking hate hope. This is what hope has made me. Hope has made me despondent, reliant upon mere fantasy. I sit here, dreaming of concrete things that I cannot have as opposed to abstract things that could be mine. I need to get out of this town to find someone. I know it's true. But I want to stay here forever, to live beside you, to exist with you. I want you to be the thing I never had. But I've already been denied and all this is just twisting the thumbscrews I've jammed into my soul. I can't shake these fantasies I've laid for myself. I can't get rid of them.
In class, when we read over the same book, I get the same urge to lean in and kiss you. When I follow behind you, I want to wrap my arms around you and engulf you completely. When you're leaving my car, I want to shout "I love you!" at the top of my voice. I want to be your something. Your anything. I've been replaced as one of your best friends. Instead, what am I now? A little more than a chauffeur. Will you remember me in a year? In five years? In fifty? I don't want you to forget me, even though I know I probably won't remember you in fifty years.
I know I still like you. I know it isn't love, and I know it isn't possible. I know you're straight, that you value my friendship, and that you think of me as a great friend. I know that you're fine with me. I know that you'll remember me for awhile. Hell, I'll probably still be in touch.
But therein lies my issues. I'm afraid that you'll forget me, which evidently means that I wasn't important enough to remember. And I know that when you think of your senior year, you'll remember me. I'm how you got to school. And how you passed calculus, because I know you'll pass calculus. And how I was gay and how you were okay with it. And how I asked you out and we still were friends afterward. And how I never told you how much I wanted to kiss you every day as you got in my car. And how you never knew that I've had a crush on you since sophomore year that I've been trying to kill for as long as I remember.
Know what Radiohead sentence fits this situation?
Fond but not in love.
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