... you will get what you want.
This is what we have been taught by the consumption machine. If we can reduce ourselves to howling five-year-olds, we can have that shiny new toy we wanted. Probably for free. Hell, if we throw a big enough stink, we'll get a voucher for another free toy. If they don't automatically reward your anger and frustration with something free to shut you up, just accuse them of calling you a liar. That's what people always do to me when I become an impediment to them getting free things. Somehow it never works when I try it, though. Maybe I'm not believable enough as a disruptive child. Oh, wait, all I am is a disruptive child. Strange, then, that I can't seem to grasp the magic of the mollycoddled, complaining masses. You know what? OK. There are people who are totally cool and they just want to come out on top when things go wrong. If something breaks when you're staying at my hotel, I will fix it or you will not pay for it. Fine. And those people are really nice and appreciative and basically not totally awful. But there are a good number of people that just hoot and holler until they get their way because they like confrontation, they assume they're going to always win, because in the life and times of the customer is always right, the fastest way to be proven right isn't to actually be wronged, it's just to throw the biggest fit. And, alright, given, my cynicism is ramped way up at present because of my own personal shit, but these are constant thorns in my side.
Also I'm trying not to make every single thing i write in here be about how I'm trying not to pay attention to Liz.
Because there is that part of me that is screaming to be outside her window with a boom box to make everything all right. In my true love imaginings? That totally works, in spite of being so very done and me being so very not John Cusack. In real life it would be sad and futile and maybe a little creepy. Because she's completely right about some of the things that are broken, that do not for a good relationship make. And being fiercely determined enough or fiercely naive enough to continue hanging on to something that isn't working is a functioning definition of insanity. Even if you're already in deep enough to be in love with each other. I can't help my very nature, which is believing I can super magic Captain America save the day and bring it all back together and bring back all the hope and trust. But that's not the way it works for real people. Every grand over-the-top gesture I make to try to fix something, it blows up in my face and makes me either an idiosyncratic romantic weirdo or -worse- just a creepy desperate guy who doesn't know when to let go. Honestly? In my experience the creep vs. adorable factor of over the top cheesy romantic gestures is generally exactly proportional to how much she likes you.
I've also imagineered a possible reality where she happens upon this blog. And again, in my fantasy disney happy ending world, my erudite and charming metaphors illustrate all my hopes and shine kindly on my imperfections. Yet I know the reality is that on the sad day she finds me here, she will find me to be caustic and obsessive and strange and wholly lacking in the understanding of what went wrong. Okay, maybe that's imagineered in the opposite direction, but it's best to steel myself for the worst. I can honestly say I wish we understood each other. Because as hard as I tried to be part of her world, even insofar as I was and am a part of her world, there is something I can not access. An insight I do not have into how she is who she is. The same way I feel like my weird dwarf star shining soul innocence was incomprehensible to her. How can a grown man be such a child? It's not (just) about the toys and the comic books, either. It's a core childishness which could be charming if given the proper environs. But mostly is just a handicap for trying to operate in the adult, modern world. It might be useful if I ever become a dad, but there's a lot more pretending to be a grownup between here and there.
I miss my imaginary future.
No comments:
Post a Comment