Like the Cool Kid

How do you tell someone, without sounding like a sentimental dweeb, that you admire them?

I mean do you? It may be falling into the category of remarks one should just keep to themselves however tempting it may feel to let that person know, such as:

Oh my god, you really look like that guy from that movie/my dream last night! [Proceed with explicit but oddly detail-elusive narration of said piece of fiction].

Or

Gosh I can absolutely see your nipples through that shirt. Looks good...

Or even

Shit, I just imagined pushing you into the traffic just now – so random, haha!

Because what would they respond with? “Get the fuck away, you creep, I’m calling the police”, if they’ve just spotted you glaring through the hedges after months of successful stalking from their back yard. But even if you’re the closest of bosom buddies, is that a thing you just wrench out over a pint? Literally talking into your glass, and avoiding eye contact. Then pretend it was the alcohol making you sappily swear true bro-love and appreciation, and follow it up with a fading nod in awkward silence. “Mm… yeah. Right.” 

There is then a chance of making them forever weary of suddenly waking up sensing a presence in the room, where just before hastily reaching the light switch they would see your glimmering admiring eyes on a dark silhouette by the end of their bed, Twilight style, (not creepy at all, Edward).

Okay okay, so if saying it is potentially too risky for your mutually maintained respectful distance and aloofness, perhaps showing it would let it out of your system? Surely anyone would be flattered to realise they had influenced a fellow human being to follow in their footsteps, and take advice, and try to apply themselves by imitating the person they admire.

You can, potentially, also be seen as a spineless leech essentially stealing decisions that person’s made. Much like the creative folk indulging in copious audio recordings which for a long time had only been accessible via a round flat sheet of a type of plastic being dragged through with a fucking needle, making faux-nostalgic “retro” music all over again. People who admire something too much, tend to not be able to steer away from said type and style of material that they revere so. Ergo hipsters these days make a lot of shit that sounds like some nursery rhyme from Summer 1982. 

Like the khool khiiids!

So no, you don’t just turn up in the same shirt and shoes and haircut as the person, and grin widely while “creating rapport” by “mirroring” every pose and gesture the poor sod emanates. 

Although who the fuck am I to tell you what’s okay and what’s gut-wrenchingly creepy. Also, what if you feel deep-seated admiration for something like an elephant, gracefully marching through Earth urban and wild like a truly wise king of all living. Or maybe you can’t pass the possibly last opportunity like in that scene in The Great Gatsby, to tell your hamster Rodger how much he’s made you who you are by showing he will fucking chew through his cage to get the hell out to freedom, and then maybe make you reconsider your own role in this whole ordeal even if for a few blinding moments of realisation. 

Go for it.

Na, but for real, of course the person should know, right? They should know why too, and what impact they did have on your beautifully exteriorly decorated brain, and what decisions that brain has decided to do since. What other meaning are most people striving for in life, than to leave a mark and make a difference, to connect in a fundamental and meaningful way with other human beings? It sounds worth letting them know how much they impacted your having gotten where you are now, and how important they are in inspiring you to strive to be who you’d love to be in the future. Tell them.

I won’t. Because it’s stupid, and you’re stupid.

But you go ahead.

"Sexy!" - "Please, With Every Move."

At one of the comedian Dara O'Briain's live shows he happened to be miming out "random buzzwords" the audience shouted out. One last suggestion comes from a lady with a jolly melodic voice – she shouts "sexy!". In a blink the skilled comedian stopps, and replies in a very matter-of-fact, respectable tone, saying: "please, with every move". 

The question for 5,000 Respect Points from a guy whom you’ve seen once before but whose colleagues you’re having a drink with, is:

How come you’re hanging out with the employees from our company yet I don’t know you? Is it:

a)      You’re friends with someone in the group?

b)      You’re “friends” with someone in the group, although I’m not sure you’re hot enough?

c)      You’re a random lunatic who our group is tolerating and indulging out of kindness?

d)     You’re new and I haven’t had the chance to meet you yet, (although I’m still not sure you’re hot enough)?

[Answer: a combination of c), a), and I’ve had a job interview here but they didn’t take me in. No Respect Points won, but who said it was a fair game?]

“Why didn’t you get hired?”

A stream of long-reflected, sappy, self-deprecating accusations scroll through the mind while gaping around at the people who were both the inviters to that job interview, and the rejecters.

Some Clarity Points are hanging in the balance now! For 10,000 of those, is it:

a)     I was shit.

b)     It was my first “real” job interview.

c)     I was immensely overhyped by one of them, who really overrated me for unknown reasons.

d)     I’m pretty sure I just wasn’t hot enough.

[Answer: wonder if any of those decision makers are listening in, and mumble something about not having been ready – then try to diffuse the misery of how that sounded by saying you’re getting the benefits of the job now without having to do the hard bit anyway, haha!]

“The ladies in the office are– they tend to hire a certain type.”

“Well I’m not the type.”

“To an extent.”

Yeah my chest could be a double-D if I’d stuffed something extra in there that day, I’ve left the fake eyelashes at home, I’m in some fairly comfortable clothes, and I deliberately didn’t glaze on the make-up like I’m a layered-coloured candle this time.

Also none of you are drunk enough at the moment. That’s the extent.

I swear I'm not sponsored by Mad Men, but this is the idealistic image of an office for guys in everywhere ever, for real. I'd be the Peggy, obviously.

Do you - you, reading this - ever consider where you’d have ended up if you were simply born a different gender? I mean of course you have, but what do you think of most of the time? How easy or hard it would be in general? The variety of wonderful other ways you could masturbate?

To appease a frequent sense of unfairness I like to imagine I’d be the dude really into his fashion, and makeup, maybe wigs and heels, and that I’d be wishing to have been born a lady for some reason anyway. 

That’s the only perk of being a chick – the trinkets. 

The tolerance from society for you to try and look as good as you can, because obviously that’s what men want from you. And men are the bosses, right?

So for our last question, for 100,000 points of Realization, what is it actually like in the professional world for a young woman? It is:

a)     Being assessed and valued first and foremost by – nope, not that – your work experience. The X-out-of-five stars, the IMDB review of you, the YouTube views and rating ratio of your likeability. How popular you have been. How professionally slutty you are.

b)     Being chosen by your fucking looks, yes. Boys’ toy. Long shapely legs = swift learner, large juicy breasts = astounding social skills, cute pretty face = captivating personality, - continue the list yourself.

c)    Getting commonly infantilized to a degree where even expressing a thought non-conformist to the consensus of the decision makers feels like a daring, reckless challenge. Which gets widely ignored because you’re a cute little whatever squeaking at them, thinking yours is a valid opinion, aw.

d)   Everyone knows you just want in the game with the boys to feel like you belong here, but what you really want in life is to cook loads of food and spew out offspring. It’s in your nature, who are you kidding. Come on, sod off to have babies.

It's cool that someone like Dara O'Briain can build a fantastic career while taking the notion of being sexy as a complete joke. Obviously he doesn't have to be, not in a conventional way anyway.

He doesn't have to be. 

[Picture: http://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2014/04/11/cd87958d-ddc4-4020-beb2-720f6f583376/thumbnail/620x350/330ffaeec4f47db19c5c0b246b2cc499/ff178663-a8a8-298b-fbcd-867d4aa84525-mad-men-stairs-jon-jessica-elisabeth-january-kiernan-christina-1153-1182-v1.jpg]

And APOLOGIES for turning this stream of blabber into such rotten underinformed feminist bullshit lately. I promise to read some and be nicer so that something better comes out linguistically next time. GIFs and all, maybe even an attempt at wittiness at some point. (Which we women are so bad at! Hey, pa-dum-tss.)

Repentance, Acceptance, Forgiveness

Could be a mantra for the overly self-critical neurotic of today. Oh the guilt.

I've been thinking how adults blatantly syringe all sorts of guilt into our young minds as we develop. As a teenager you're, apparently, a (borderline) psychopath, physically incapable of empathy. According to some dude on the Internet (very reliable, trust me, and the dude):
there are a significant number of research studies that indicate the prefrontal cortex is the last to develop and doesn't become fully formed until a person is in his or her mid twenties (the Internet: 2012). Actually, it's "there is a significant number"... but never mind.
But it is well known teens have little regard over others. And that's... fine.

I faintly remember any riskier activities me and any friends would undertake as if through a cold corpse-coloured filter, like we'd all could've just died at any second and it wouldn't have been too shocking. I suppose that's why they recruit soldiers young.
At the time it all felt both like an enlightenment and a persistent existential crisis, both clarifying the way forward, and setting it in thick mist.

Remember how much you'd hate yourself though? Even if you're the cheeriest jolliest chum around, you would still do something embarrassing, or fail at anything important, and would feel it burn inside like you're Iron Man.
Seriously, that thing emits so much energy it must emit heat too. Look how fucking bright it is!

And you know, you're still idealistic, and everyone's trying to keep up to those impossibly highly set standards. Because well, you have little empathy and you actually don't know why Susan could just sit at home all day doing nothing social, or, like, how Stephen would eat another hundred pounds onto himself in just a few years – because you have little empathy. So with this extra stress and keeping up appearances, with every mistake you just want to bash your own cute and way too fresh looking face in.

Often after I fail at something I remember the Costa Concordia and its captain, from 2013. You know, the immense cruiser ship with all the technology, and the modern equipment, and the training? And the ship randomly tipping over after the captain wanted to show off a bit? Also if you're thinking "that's not funny, people died!" Exactly.

Forgiveness. That's what comes next. Not for the Concordia captain, probably, but for teenagers, and people, and all creatures. Look, the dude from the website (2012) writes thus further in his unbearably famous, worthy, and honourable thing on the thing:
the prefrontal cortex is last to develop because it allows the average person to focus on self mastery before becoming fully conscientious about the welfare of their respective communities.

So, like, you, like, totally need to, you know, like understand yourself first, and then, sort of like, help others, you know. You fuck up heavily - or disappoint yourself - enough times, and what it comes to naturally, especially as your brain develops physically too, is the thought that we're probably all fuck-ups to an extent. You know, all your rock stars are drug addicts with serious insecurities, all your hot babes have... well, the same problems plus daddy issues, and I suppose the first heroes to fall at all are your parents. Who've ridden you with guilt, except that now it's actually sinking in.

Why haven't I finished my studies? I've wasted so much money.
I should clean my room.
Shit, that girl was crying when I kicked her out of my room in the morning. <- Lol, just kidding, men don't develop empathy for women until their mid 30s, if at all.

But you know, you start really thrashing yourself with stuff that never bothered you before. As a 7 year old, I dreamed of thriving in my stuff everywhere in the room - because then you can see it all! Now the more stuff I have lying around, the more of a sombre reminder it is of the uncared for responsibilities in my life. How miserable.

As a student I wished to have my own income, (even though I did finish it), and was able to enjoy the financial support in the first year or so. But  in the later years it started banging inside my head like a pair of trainers in a dryer, that you know are still dirty after washing, and have been destroyed by the water and the soap and the heat anyway. Also your dryer hurts now.


I've written earlier here how some church services offer the much needed guilt relief. They lull you into compliance and a forced authoritative rapport, then they try and bring your guilt all up, and then they aggressively assure you the guilt is taken away, almost as if by a large leech that had decreased your blood pressure by sucking some of the superfluous juices out of you directly through all the layers of your beautiful dermis. Or then, as if by blatantly hypnotising you into letting go of some of your own worries.

"I come in da name a Jesus!– repeat it after me, bitch!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pPlFrmkXlE
This guy will FUCK YOU–...r sins up. Out. I don't know, but he scares me.

So the question this comes up to is this: why try and instill so much guilt into people, basing all moral values and duties on the backside of almighty guilt, if exactly that becomes one of the main psychological hurdles in all adult life? And from childhood on it becomes an act of performance art to forgive yourself, and others. Thanksgiving would do good in becoming Forgiveness day (no one remembers what they're thanking for now anyway). 


And you can forgive yourself for not getting out of the house too much, or for gaining the weight of a petite person onto your own fragile skeleton. You're here just like the rest of us – fucking up, pretending you didn't. Patching things up, trying again. Could be a mantra for the overly self-critical neurotic of today.


Sources:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/promoting-empathy-your-teen/201209/is-it-normal-teenagers-lack-empathy
Costa Concordia: http://www.top13.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/costa-concordia-shipwreck-a-genuine-mistake-o-L-8X4ufL.jpeg
Unconventional preacher gif: http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/68895/crazy-preacher-o.gif
The ancient video the gif is from (sweet beat too, you'll like it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pPlFrmkXlE

Spending My Own Money

So I’m under 25. In the adult world, meaning not including any kiddiewinks, or teenagers, because they pretty much live in their own separate society anyway, someone under 25 is largely considered a drooling, boggy-eyed, snotty bag of incompetence. One with much too soft an epidermis, covering that dumbo bimbo cranium, let alone those naive and pointlessly hopeful eyes. Fucking young people.

So when it comes to expenses, the reasoning behind what to get consists of either an unbridled urge to grasp, get hold of, (and then listlessly throw away) anything that seems exciting at the moment, or relying on the competence of authority figures, vaguely thinking “what would mommy buy”? 

The word itself creeps me out now, and only Whovians will get this. If you're not one, try and imagine the mask is the child's actual face, and he's calling you his mummy. Okay, never mind.

What's really odd at this point is getting into a cycle of financial self-sustanence, and actually being able to assess how much you'd need in hours, of labour that is, in order to acquire a new desireable, if not quite necessary, purchase. Say, I want a velvet cape I've found on Amazon that would really help me live out my being-a-wizard fantasies (before I get too mature, and until I am mature enough for this to be socially acceptable again). If it's cheapety mass-produced and of typical Amazon quality, you're looking at, maybe several hours.
A whole day if you're me, but I can bitch about that on other media.

Thing is, there is no sweeter assessment of the worth of an object than by one's own work and effort put into being able to acquire it. I'm sure even thieves feel this way: if you've nicked something quite shiny, new, and potentially hefty-priced, you'll be glad even if you'd had to climb trees, cut through  layers of window panes, disabled the alarm, chloroformed the family - and the dog - and only then pocketed the daughter's tiara. It's just so precious!...

Where it gets weird is strangers buying you stuff sometimes, just because! It's one thing to volunteer to cover the price of tickets for your date, or cuffing your employees with pint handles (how good am I with this metaphor thing, eh?!), but it's plain odd after you've just got used to buying stuff that's your own, to have someone just chip in, and join in on your expenses, as if you're married or they've adopted you for a few hours or something. It's like they have too much, and just feel the need to level things out with you. You know, because you're just so... unbearably poor.

I bet the stylist on the show makes a bunch twice as big for a single shooting of this.

I've never been bought anything ludicrously pricey by a stranger, but surely it must feel like someone seeing you knitting, for example - like you do (beer bottle close by, Top Gear in the background of course) - and them suddenly hugging you from behind and sort of angling their fingers through yours to knit a few loops in as well. First off, they're really not adding much overall, regardless of how skilled they are. And secondly, the whole process will only serve to freak you out, or even worse, will allow you to become complacent with intrusions like that, and to begin to rely on volunteered assistance. Soon enough you'll be widely known as the feeble-fingered knit-digger on the block whose sweaters and beanies only come from a borrowed sets of hands over yours. You slut.


Again, if you're at a starter (at life) age, you're probably broke as hell, and are still finding this whole complete independence thing quite raw, maybe even brutal. So, you know, if someone wants to buy you a drink, if someone's insisting on paying for you cab, if they refuse you chipping in to the birthday funds for Dave the new guy - heck, let 'em. There's always hope you will pay them back some day, right? When you're properly settled and comfortable enough about your income and outcome ratio to let kindness take over and buy others something too sometimes, just because. I mean there is always hope, right? Guys?
There's hope for everyone?

...Right?

[Kid in mask: http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-who-season-1-10-the-doctor-dances-are-you-my-mummy.jpg
Sarah Somebody throwing fake stage-money on stage, demonstratively: http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140105070830/degrassi/images/3/31/Sarah_money.gif
Desperation from Michael Scott: http://www.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-Office-Michael-Scott-bankruptcy.gif]