Saturday, January 31
Yesterday And Last Night
I'm working a few days in arrears, so apologies for that.
Yesterday was such a fucking long day. I was up at 7, after only a few hours sleep. For some random reason, I stayed up until gone 2 in the morning, playing online Literati (i.e. Scrabble by a non-copyrighted name) at Yahoo Games, whilst watching the second series of The League Of Gentlemen on DVD with Matt and Chindle. Stupid, I know. I didn't even win the games!
Anyway, I was fucked by the time I woke up, really tired still. Plus I had to deal with rush hour on my way into uni. That's always good fun. The lecture was alright, as lectures go, and then I hopped back onto the Tube to come home again. I did a few hours work (which entailed spending the first hour tidying my room, since it was a bit of a mess, and I just refuse to work under those conditions. Plus I was trying to put off doing the work), and went back to uni for a tutorial. Again, I quite enjoyed myself, and had a good time with a few friends in there.
I went up to the Waterfront straight away, with Jenni, a really cool Kiwi friend of mine. I knew that a couple of my housemates were going to be there, getting smashed early in preparation for a big (ish) night out at Phase, the name of the Friday night "spectacular" (ahem) at Tutu's. I really wasn't in the mood for getting wasted, and to be honest I wasn't even in the mood for just a beer or two before going home. Nevertheless, I went and drank beer.
I was so tired, and came very close to falling asleep in the Waterfront a number of times. But, for some stupid reason, I got a ticket for Phase and decided to go have a good time. Which didn't happen, in the end.
We went up there at about 10.30ish, and went straight to the bar. Malibus were dirt cheap, so I was on the double Malibus and Coke. Sickly, sickly sweet, but then I have a very sweet tooth. I could feel them starting to hit me, but I still wasn't that drunk.
We were all sat round this table on the edge of the dancefloor, chatting away and laughing at random shit. But, yet again, I could feel myself slipping into depression and a bad form of melancholy. The "why even bother" mood was hitting me like a ton of bricks. I just could face being in that place any longer, alone in a room with 500+ people in it. I had to get out and go home. I said my goodbyes quickly to a few mates, told them I'd see them back at home a little later.
I grabbed my stuff from the cloakroom, and headed to the bus stop to wait for the N13 home. I remembered that I had my notebook on me, as always, so I began to write. The original intention was to write the first of a possible series of columns to go into ROAR, the student newspaper at King's. Seeing as I was in a depressed mood, and constantly being reminded by myself that I am STILL single, I decided to title it "Tales of A Twenty Year-Old Virgin."
I wrote, and I wrote some more on the bus. However, rather than being an insightful but yet humourous look at dating and relationships in the world today, it became a very introspective and depressing look at myself. It became a rant about nothing in particular, and to no-one in particular. It was no longer fit for publication in ROAR, so it is without further ado that I present to you here:
Tales Of A Twenty Year-Old Virgin
Why do I write this? Do you think that it is therapy? Do you think that it is a place to vent anger, to let off steam? Do you think that it is a cry for help? Do you think that it is a request for a solution to the problem?
It is none of these.
It is a story, and it is a story worth telling. I am me and there is nothing you can do about it. You read it. You like it, or you don't. I don't write for a response or for sympathy. I write because I write. There is no ulterior motive, no underlying reason for the existence of this writing. It is, and shall be.
I write because I write. I repeat myself, I cover the same subject areas. I am cliched, unoriginal and boring. I am the same as everyone else.
Except that I have never known the touch of the opposite sex. I am an unplucked flower, an innocent being, the Infant Joy that Blake adores. I have no songs of experience, but yet I feel that I cannot sing songs of innocence.
I have innocence, yes, but I am corrupt. I have been corrupted, but without acquiring the experience of corruption. I have but anecdotes, learned material and an imagination. I have no experience on which to draw. I am but a frost-bitten flower, devoid of petals, but unpicked. Unloved and unappreciated. Who would want just a stem?
Part 2
Who do I bother?
Why do I subject myself to the torment that is having a night out? I have no reason to go out, to resign myself to sitting at the side of the dancefloor, alone, questioning why I am having such a bad night out, but so many are having the time of their lives.
Why is it that I cannot force myself onto that dancefloor, into that meat-market and the possibility of ending the evening in another's arms? Can I not just drop the pretence of being infallible and uber-confident for 10, 20, 100 minutes at a time?
I AM confident. I swear that I am. I am confident around friends, in classes, around members of the opposite sex that I know. Place me with a random person whom I find even slightly attractive, however, and I fall to pieces.
It is a never-ending spiral. The older I get lacking this confidence, the worse it becomes. Every day without success adds to the feeling of "Why bother?". Why build myself up for success, only to be let down, to be dismayed, to be destroyed? The simpler option is to do nothing, to remain aloof, perhaps even unattainable.
I want the world to fall into my lap, not to go hunting for it. I don't want to smell my own fear, to taste the bitterness of defeat, to take that innocuous-looking pill of self-humiliation.
"Yeah, go on, do it. What's the worst that could happen?"
I have no inkling as to the worst that could happen because my fear of it happening is so overwhelming as to block all ration thought concerning the possible outcomes.
Fine, I could be told "No, I'm not interested". My fear, however, is telling me that I will be laughed at, mocked, DESTROYED.
How to overcome this fear? Why bother? The fear rules me, and I suffer no ill effects, save for the periodic bouts of depression, loneliness and general incapacitance. Absence of fear does not solve these problems, it merely removes them. If any semblance of the fear returns, then so does the intensity of the problem. I find myself unable to cope with the problem, but yet unwilling to face it.
The problem is me, and I am the problem. The problem would not exist without me, and I would not be me without my problem. Yossarian would be proud.
