Excuses
I think that somewhere, deep down, I enjoy being alone. I don’t mean in the normal sense, because I certainly enjoy having my own place and spending time alone; instead, I’m talking about somehow enjoying making myself miserable by *always* being alone.
I’m tempted to make this a private post, but I think I won’t. Making it private, such that only the one other person with an account would see it, would just exhibit what I am talking about.
So, I was gonna go to Julia’s New Years party tonight, but then we got forecasts for all this horrible snow. So I watched it for a while, but in the back of my mind I sort of felt like I wasn’t going to go regardless. I started making excuses in my mind, like I always do. Then, I went ahead and found a way to justify the whole thing; I called my mother. She, of course, exclaimed how she had been watching everything and was thinking all the same stuff I was, but she wasn’t sure if she was being too much of a worry wart so she couldn’t decide if she should call me. She talked about, how, even if the roads got better, it was going to be so windy that it could push a car out of its lane… and of course, with the kind of drivers one expects on New Years, that becomes a real problem. Then she was talking about how my dad would do it (of course), but how she remembers going with him in stupid stuff like that and getting stuck in snow drifts and so on and so forth.
So, she solidified the fact that I shouldn’t go (and even said so outright). I gave it some more time, then I called and said I couldn’t go. I just walked into my room and had a voice mail waiting (I had been waiting for this one) from Marjorie saying that there were no issues and I should get over there. I don’t know when it was left, and I guess I could still easily make it with time to spare, but I’m not going to. You know what the first thing that popped into my head was? The first thing: “Oh, well, they won’t know what time I got the message so I can pretend it was too late”. Hows that for an excuse? I can’t remember the last time I saw some of these people, but I’m just copping out. And I don’t know if its better or worse that I’m aware of it.
Even with my friends at WPI, I’m distant. I never really ‘hang out’ with people. The only person who’s been in my apartment is my mother, and even then she hasn’t been in since, probably, move in day. Now, granted, its not in the best shape for entertaining, what with most of my stuff in boxes and such, but still….
Then there’s the whole problem of me being about to turn 21 and having never had a girlfriend. Hell, I’ve never even been on a fucking date! Sure, I’ve done stuff like take someone to a play (with several people in the past year or so, in fact), but the most I do is pay for a ticket or some food or something, and never try to acknowledge any hidden agenda/undertone besides just doing something with a friend. I even write something like this, and then just freak out afterwards an make it private. (and no, I’m not giving a link to the post that gives a better idea of who the third person is… thats remaining a private post tyvm). I just say, “oh it’ll never work”, or “oh, maybe if I pay they’ll pick up on some kind of hint so subtle Hubble couldn’t see it”, or “well, I’m in Worcester and they’re in X, no point in even trying”. Then, of course, there’s the idea that I feel like I’m just trying to come up with people that I could date simply because I think I *should* have someone…. but isn’t it wrong to think about dating someone for that reason rather than for actually feeling something toward them. And there is the other problem; wait long enough to be close to someone and really feel something toward them and suddenly you can’t do anything because you’re friends and you don’t want to have the chance of screwing that up. Nice little catch 22 of excuses in there, eh?
Here’s something to think about. Three years ago, I threw a New Years party. The posts have been private for a long long time, all three of them, but I wrote them over the next two days after the clock struck 12. If you didn’t see them then, and you don’t have an account, you aint gonna see them. But thats irrelevant, because who’s still reading knows what was going on back then. It was a different personal retrospection, about my life and the obsession I had at that time. Back then, I was trying to be slightly more social, and I was around people more often, but a lot of that was by necesisty. You can’t help but be around people in High School, but in College its easy to duck out. Despite being around people and making more of an effort to connect back then, I’m just as much alone now, inside, as I was then. The only good thing is that I feel like I’m at a much better place, personally, now than I was then.
I guess thats the difference between 18 and 21. And, I think that the CDIA really helped with that, and I almost wish I could be in that environment again; A full time job at a studio instead of the constant gear-shifting that is college. But, I also like learning and the atmosphere at WPI. I don’t really know where I was going with this paragraph… never mind.
Speaking of the CDIA, Diego just txt’d me from the party at Skellig. I’m not going because of the fact that my car is still covered in snow and I don’t drink (its a bar having a party on New Years Eve… what else would they be doing?). Those excuses I’m a little less bothered by. But, what about the rest of the CDIA folks? I talked to Dustin through email this past spring, and Libby bugs me on Facebook from time to time. I saw Andrew at Siggraph, but who knows when I’ll see him again. I haven’t really seen most of them in person in, well, since we got our certificates.
I think I went a little off topic there. This is starting to be of the length of that thing I wrote about Jekyll and Hyde at North this summer. I should probably wrap it up. So, yeah, I’m alone; and somehow, I seem to like being alone. I must, since I keep putting myself in that position. Taking the easy way out, as it were. And the question remains: how am I going to change that, if I even can? Something makes me think that, once I am out in the real world instead of stuck in academia, it will change, but thats what everyone has been telling me for years; “Oh, well, once the CDIA starts, it’ll be better”, “oh, well, that was really a small school. Don’t worry, once you get to WPI it’ll be better”, “Oh, thats also a small school and the ratio is horrid? Oh well, it’ll probably work itself out”. The last social thing I did was go to Mysterium, and I made some friends (and actually kept in touch with one of them), but even that might not happen this year since everyone seems convinced to knock down my ideas for driving to Spokane. I tell you this, I’m certainly not flying!
Ok, before I start going again, I think its time to end.
Happy New Year, hahr rahm gah shoraht.
Shorah teh.
-K
And remember, rem’lah sekhen poahnt bonooets b’rigahsen
(“The lizard has highly acidic saliva”) ;D