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mighty_aphrodite
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Name: Corinne
Birthday: 2/13/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: I like smiling hugely at people with road rage on the freeway, just to see how they react. I haven't been shot yet.
Expertise: Always saying the wrong thing. Writing really boring xanga entries. Drinking coffee. Being an extraordinarily silly girl.
Occupation: Student/BookSlave
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
4/20/2003
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| I'm walking into the grocery store when the old woman yells "He's not worth it, sweetie, you're better than that!"
Her caregiver loads her into her chair and mouths "sorry" at me, but I smile weakly and keep moving. I know she's right and I agree with her because yes, he's not worth it, and I'm absolutely better than that, but I know my face betrays me because barely a month ago I was in this store buying him a heart-shaped box of candy.
It doesn't matter who ended it. I think I did, he thinks he did, or at least the angry emails about how his intent to destroy my belongings would lead me to believe so. I know that he ended it the first time, and I came back, I ended it the second time, and moved away, and then came back. This time, I'm not coming back, because all I know is that fighting and screaming and being angry until we don't know why we're angry anymore is beyond the scope of what I can handle. I ended better relationships than the one I stayed in for more than two years, and I don't know why.
I'm not sad about the end of us, not really. However, I don't relish living in our relationship's graveyard. I'm reminded daily as I drive by the doorway where we had our first kiss, our favorite restaurant together, the venue his band plays at every other week. However, there is also the restaurant where he yelled at me until I cried, the bar where he accused me of trying to seduce his friend apropos of nothing, the airport where he shoved me to the ground. Everything is tied to a memory, and I'm reminded that I never even liked this town, that I moved here for him, and now there's no reason to stay. I float through purgatory daily, counting down days until I can leave, that is, when I know for certain that I'll have a purpose elsewhere.
More and more, I am feeling less and less. the sense of relief and of open doors is intoxicating. | | |
| I was feeling ranty when I wrote this, so it probably will be a sloppy read. Sorry.
In light of recent events*, I've been thinking entirely too much about "nice guys," who aren't real-life, actual nice guys so much as guys who label to themselves as such and use this label as the reason that you are in their minds, absolutely fucking obligated to see them as a romantic partner without any consideration or introspection of your opinion on the matter.
A "nice guy" will start his interaction with you innocuously enough, exactly in the same way a nice guy will. Maybe he'll take note of the book you're reading and sit down to chat with you about it. Maybe you compliment him on the fact that he's wearing a shirt with the name of a band you like about it. Possibilities are endless, but you'll have a brief and pleasant but superficial chat about either of these things and you'll leave thinking "oh hey, I've potentially made a friend." And logically, you'll think he feels the same way. But oh, not so.
By fifteen minute long, superficial conversation number three, apropos of nothing, he'll start referring to you with uncalled for pet names, start sitting way too goddamn close to you, insisting on hugs and reaching for any excuse he can to engage in some kind of physical contact with you. And yes, sometimes people connect quickly and immediately in some romantic way and that's awesome and wonderful and magnificent, and also, sometimes a person can just be really bad at reading another person's body language and may innocently interpret platonic friendliness to "s/he's totally into me." It's an honest mistake, especially when people don't know each other too well, and it's totally up to the person on the receiving end of the unwanted affection to be decent, gentle, and considerate in letting down the giver of the unwanted affection (at least the first time). The reveal of this mistake is what separates a nice guy from a creep-tastic "nice guy." A nice guy will respect your opinion (and your personal space) and back the fuck off from encroaching into romantic territory, at least until some later date when you've gotten to know one another better.
A "nice guy" will quickly turn on you, launching into a whine or self-pity party about how women just won't give him a chance, how he just can't seem to get a break with the ladies. Sometimes he will beg outright, trying to gain your sympathy in telling you how the world is against him and he can't win because he is "such a nice guy," never mind the fact that if this KEEPS happening to him, it definitely has a hell of a lot more to do with him and his personality flaws than any of the women he's pursued. Occasionally, the "nice guy" will launch into straight-up hostility, the phrase "I have a boyfriend" giving him cause to refer to you as a bitch or a tease or a whore when all you did was be pleasant to him.
In my experience, a "nice guy" tends to reveal himself when talking about other women he's taken an interest in- watch as he refers to other women he's tried to go out with as stuck-up bitches or frigid or whatever misogynist hyperbole he feels fitting because they rejected him and how dare they. And while this isn't always the case, the "nice guy" tends to only be interested in extremely attractive women** who are almost always, for lack of a better phrase, "out of his league." The "nice guy" may even have female friends or associates who DO want to date him, but if they aren't hot by his limited standards, they aren't good enough for him because his "nice guy"ness simply entitles him to date whichever woman he wants despite, in every single one of my experiences in this situation, the "nice guy" made up his mind about pursuing the woman in the situation after a small amount of superficial interaction that revolves entirely around him talking about himself and not taking anything other than a sensory-based interest in the object of his *shudder* desire.
Lastly, I apologize for the gender-specific, hetero-normative tone of this because this kind of thing takes place among all genders and sexual orientations, but really, all I want to say is this:
"Nice guy," fuck off.
*which have nothing to do with anyone who could possibly be reading this, as inspirational forces exist outside of the realm of that meddlesome beast, internet.
**quick note- I am not, I repeat, I AM NOT placing myself in the category of "extremely attractive women" in any way whatsoever. | | |
| It would be nice to have a cute meeting story: I bought you a cup of coffee when you forgot your wallet and I was in line behind you at the coffee house; we wound up pressed against each other in the crowd at a rowdy rock show and were almost too shy to say "hello" despite our bodies being entangled in ways that could get me pregnant if not for clothes; we both were looking for the same book at the library; you were wearing gold spray-painted bowling shoes and I couldn't help but walk over and tell you how much I loved them.
In reality, it will be something less romantic. A friend's party. The internet. Your lackluster friend whom I dated before finding you, but oh how sordid that would be.
Work. We're statistically most likely to meet at work.
Maybe we'll be teaching abroad together. We'll fall in love in England the first year,
decide that we have a good thing going and should pursue it in Thailand the second year, pledge our hearts to one another in Brazil the third year.
You'll be some kind of artist, a writer, a musician, a sound technician, or a compassionate and wonderful person, because that's an extremely complex and unappreciated art. On rainy nights I'll sit across from you and write while you read or play music or draw or also write, occasionally pausing to watch some gorgeous branch of lightning spread across the sky, and it will be lovely.
Our Song, if such a concept is not too ridiculous, will be a little ridiculous, like either of the Pixies' Manta Ray songs or something death-metally with Satan in the title (or at least the chorus). We'll both like to go out dressed in silly clothes; you'll be in suspenders and a top hat, I'll wear a flapper's dress. If it's cold, you'll offer me your jacket because you're a gentleman, but I'll try to remember to bring a coat because I'd never, ever want you to be cold.
We'll fuck like the morning will never come. I'll teach you how to tie me up; you'll be the one who finally gets me to enjoy anal. Places we'll fuck: the beach, the park, empty subway cars, almost-empty subway cars, museums, rock shows, the opera, government buildings, closets, the kitchen, the kitchen counter, the kitchen table, the shower, my bed, your bed, eventually our bed. Your ability to growl, and I do mean growl, dirty things into my ear will drive me wild; you'll be partial to my mouth.
We'll be mouthy people anyway, and we'll never have trouble finding things to talk about. Your wit will make me laugh until I can't breathe, and mine will make you blush crimson. Silences will be warm and not awkward, and we'll always hold hands, or at the very least, we'll hold smiles.
Things won't be perfect between us. You'll be embarrassed when I curse out the guy who was rude to you at the bar, annoyed at my love for kitschy Americana like A Prairie Home Companion or 1920's delta blues, frustrated at how easily I'll burst into tears over things that aren't important to anyone but me. I'll wish you weren't compelled to provoke (and win) lengthy political debates with strangers whose opinions you overhear, that you would let me sleep when I'm tired, that you would stop eating junk food around me when I'm trying to lose weight, that you didn't partake in listening to techno. These are all problems we'll accept because we love each other and arguing about small things isn't worth it.
Should we get married, and as naive and idealistic as it is, I hope we will, you'll want a tiny, intimate ceremony; I'll want a bigger one with our friends and family present. We'll do both, first in an elopement in our travels to Andalusia or Costa Rica or Cambodia by an elderly sea captain with his wife and dog as our witnesses, then in a library courtyard in some place of mutual homestead in a more formal but still financially responsible ceremony. When all is said and done, I'll admit that your idea had been better, but we'll still have fun and sneak off to consummate the legality of our love against a bookshelf.
And I hope, I hope, I hope that, despite the aforementioned idealistic naivete, this will sound good to you as well if we cross paths someday.
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| And it's over.
I know I'll be relieved as soon as the searing agony subsides, or when Lacuna Inc. becomes a reality, whichever comes first.
I do know also that I'm an idiot, and that I'll be returning to LA shortly.
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| - unemployed, despite months of tirelessly looking for work. I've been "hired" by a personal assistant agency, but it's per-job instead of scheduled, and nothing is happening at the moment. I am now editing college papers for money, which is is actually fairly lucrative, but makes me wonder why I bothered with going to a university in the first place.
- overwhelmed by the deaths of my grandfather and a professor with whom I was close, my lack of a "real job," my father's mania over his new divorce, and how lethargic and uninspired my antidepressants make me feel.
- a beauty by nobody's standards, just fatter than I've ever been and horsefaced with awful hair. I still try to pretend I'm Dita even though I'm much more like an obese Helena Bonham Carter (not my words, even). At least I have a sense of humor about it.
- submitting writing daily to publications, and not getting published.
- moving into my first house, or more acurately, my boyfriend's first house, although I'm chipping in through a few thousand on the down payment and repainting/cleaning up the garden. This is as terrifying as it is exciting.
- sorry.
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