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dendrite-blues · 3 years

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For a relatively short exchange, this scene is jam packed with characterization for Loki.

It’s also our first reliable look into what Loki was like before Thor 1. Not as described by others, but first hand and from his own mouth. I think that deserves a closer look, to see what we can learn about Loki and how he thinks.

This scene is significant because it tells us what Loki’s personality is like when he’s not running for his life. It tells us who he was before his trauma and what his core beliefs are underneath those layers of humor and bravado.

Better yet, since he’s alone we can assume that every line in this scene is presumably true, or at least Loki believes it to be true since he has no audience but himself.

The dialogue centers mostly around the statement “You deserve to be alone, and you always will be.” I’m not going to focus too much on the “alone” motif since I already dedicated an entire meta post to it.

What I think is more interesting about this scene is actually the looping, and the stages Loki goes through in trying to deal with it. There’s a lot of really interesting character traits on display in that progression.

Loop 1: A Warm Bath and Glass of Wine

The first loop entails Sif lecturing Loki about cutting her hair, kicking him in the balls, and storming away. Loki kneels on the floor and he gives us this great line:

“A bad memory prison? How quaint. Some punishment. I remember exactly what I did after that. I went and had a nice, hot bath and a glass of wine, and I never thought about it again. Because it was just a bit of fun.”

So we can take this to be Loki’s default reaction to pain and criticism. When put into an unexpected conflict without any forethought or outside influence, this is what he says/does.

1) Downplay the damage/threat. How quaint. 2) Dispel/soothe the emotion. Nice hot bath. 3) Minimize the impact. Never thought about it again. 4) Deflect responsibility. Just a bit of fun.

Keep those in mind as we move forward, since we’ll be using them to make sense of what else Loki says in this scene.

Loops 2 and 3: Okay, Sif, Hang On

This bit is about Loki realizing just how bad his predicament is.

L: Okay. Okay, Sif. Hang on. S: No, you hear this. You deserve to be alone... And I always will be. L: Alright, I get it. Listen. You are a reconstruction of a past event created by the organization that controls all of time. So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah? S: Pathetic. (she kicks him again) L: (winces and groans)

As we all would expect from him, Loki’s first impulse is to try and talk his way out of it. What he says to achieve that goal is pretty revealing though. Because he doesn’t try to ease Sif’s upset by apologizing or explaining or offering to magic her hair back.

Any of these would have been more likely to save his nads in the given circumstance, right? The present threat is Sif, and she’s mad about what Loki did to her hair. But Loki doesn’t really see that. Rather, he treats her as a means to an end.

“So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah?”

To me, that choice reveals something of a blind spot Loki has to the feelings of others. Even if he doesn’t actively like hurting people, he does prioritize their problems below his, and quite shamelessly. And at least on his first impulse, he doesn’t seem to feel much remorse or empathy for them.

Usually in fanon we attribute this callousness to his trauma. He’s learned that no one can be trusted and no one cares, and so he doesn’t allow himself to care for others.

But between his Loop 1 sentiment of “It was just a bit of fun” for an event which caused real hurt to Sif, and his Loop 2/3 behavior of “you, stop being mad and help ME” I think it’s reasonable to say that selfishness/low empathy are traits Loki possessed pre-trauma.

Loop 4-????: Happens Off Screen

It’s unclear how many times Loki loops while the camera is following Mobius, but the implication is clear that it was been many, many repetitions. Somewhere in this his denial and deflection must break, because we come back to a much humbler, more pleading Loki.

The Final Loop: I Crave Attention

S: You conniving, craven... L: Sif. Sif. S: ...pathetic worm. L: Please, please, no more. Please, I beg you. I'm a horrible person. I get it. I really am. I cut off your hair because I thought it'd be funny. And it's not. Uh... I crave attention... because I'm... a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone.

HOOO BOY, so this is quite a tough bit to analyze. There’s a lot of interpretations you could make, and a lot of topics to delve into. For the sake of focus, I’m going to ignore the narcissism question. That one really needs an entire post, and I want to focus on something else here.

That being, Loki’s way of processing conflict/punishment.

I’ve always found it strange how Loki takes such pride in being called a liar and cheat when he simultaneously has this chip on his shoulder about how nobody likes him.

Those two traits don’t seem to play well together, and I always scratched my head over how they coexist in his character. If he wants people to be nicer to him, maybe he should stop antagonizing them? Yeah?

Well, here we’re finally given a clear reason. Loki craves attention, he hates being alone. So how does he avoid it? Pranks and mischief.

Fair enough.

But then, if all his pranks lead to this outcome--outrage, retaliation, insult--why doesn’t he ever learn? How is it that after 1000 years of this behavior, he hasn’t found a better way to get the attention he craves?

Loop 1: Downplay, dispel, minimize, deflect. He accepts zero accountability for the impact of his actions, and doesn’t think at all about how they affect other people. Just a bit of fun. I had a hot bath and a glass of wine, and never thought about it again.

The only reason he reaches the level of self awareness on display in the Final Loop is because the looping forces him to contemplate his actions and the impulses within him that lead to that behavior.

This is projection on my part, but to me he acts as though this kind of deep reflection is a new thing for him. He sounds like someone sharing a revelation that he’s just had about himself. We’re being shown that Loki is a man of action. He will always move forward if he can, possibly because looking back to so painful that he can’t bring himself to do it.

Circling back around to the pride Loki has for his knavery, let’s suppose that he’s been on this negative reinforcement cycle since childhood. He’s always acted out to get attention, then received retaliation and insults for it, and then pushed the bad feelings out of his mind with creature comforts and mental gymnastics.

What happens over time, when you’re being constantly told that you’re a pain in the ass and no one likes you? Most of us would take it to heart, but Loki doesn’t. He has a big ego, big enough to resist that constant barrage of hate coming at him.

So how does he marry these two conflicting realities?

He turns it into an identity, the God of Mischief.

In his head, Loki excuses himself of blame by shifting the culpability to his moniker. It’s not that he’s immature and petty, he’s just a “trickster.” It’s in his nature to cause trouble, so he can’t help it. You wouldn’t dangle a steak in front of a tiger and blame the tiger for striking, would you? And if other people can’t take a “joke” then that’s not his fault, that’s on them for not having a sense of humor. It was just a bit of fun.

Here we see the union of these two halves of Loki, the lonely ice runt and the mischievous scamp. (And a little bit of the original Loki who Thor accused of being incapable of growth!)

By refusing to think about others, and excusing himself from responsibility, Loki successfully preserves his self worth and insulates himself to most of the negative emotions he experiences.

Pain, embarrassment, and grief aren’t pointless emotions though. They are vital feelings that serve to regulate our behavior, and that push us to conform to the ways of our social circles. Without them, we annoy and upset others. Be annoying for long enough and you will eventually find yourself, well, alone. As Loki is.

Thus “Mischief” is a self-defeating loop, and Loki is just as caught in it as the cell Mobius trapped him in.

In order to be free of both traps, Loki has to stop running. He has to take a deeper look at himself and realize how much he is getting in his own way. The entire scene is one big parallel between these two “loops.” Pretty neat, huh?

Sadly these kinds of thought loops are really difficult to break, they’re buried so deeply in our personalities and habits that we usually don’t notice them until life forces us to address them.

The cell is Loki’s wake up call, and thankfully he does seem to rise to the occasion. He tells Sif quite clearly what his problem is, and he does it with beautiful, painful honesty.

Which is why it’s so fucking awesome for Mobius to acknowledge that, and to finally give Loki a taste of positive attention.

You don’t deserve to be alone. I believe you can be anything, even something good. Whatever you two did, it was powerful enough to bring this whole place down.

It’s a beautiful scene. Well written, meticulously acted. The clarity of vision in the pacing and shot selection, it’s really something special.

#loki spoilers #loki #mcu #mobius #meta #discussion #discourse #scene study #long post #sif #time loop #tva #character study

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dixbolik-lovers · 5 years

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Hello!!! :D This is kind of a tricky question in the regards that I haven’t really written him yet. Sub Au!Laito turned out a lot different in the actual fic than when I was just doing headcanons, and it’s kind of hard to capture the full detail of a character until I’ve really written them out anyway. But! I’ll try to summarize what I do have in mind for Shuu...just keep in mind that this is subject to alteration when I do get to his section of the Big Fic.

Also, I love character analysis asks like this!!! Please send me more!!! :D ...and this got really long, so under a cut it goes~

-As with pretty much any interpretation of Shuu, he doesn’t want to get attached. Opening up, letting someone get close, allowing his heart to be vulnerable, it’s all just too dangerous. After how he’s been hurt in the past, after knowing that he was the cause of the person he cared about most meeting a horrible end, Shuu can’t let himself make that mistake again. Of course, he takes that fear out in all kinds of horrible ways, but someone pushing past his defenses and worming their way into whatever heart he has is what’s going to get to him the most. Attachment hurts for him, and the added vulnerability of letting himself be the weak one in the relationship makes that worse.

And from that point comes the next one. Shuu would consider submitting in any way to be making himself weak. He’ll play at lazy indifference for as long as he can, acting like it doesn’t matter to him what you want to do, but deep down, he’s getting nervous fast. It’s dangerous to allow himself to be the “prey”. Not only is it humiliating to let a human do that kind of thing to him, it also means that he’s placing a whole lot of trust in you.

Trust means that he’s getting close to you.

But at the same time, Shuu needs the closeness. He’s a lonely person deep down and having someone he can open up to probably feels better than anything has in a very long time. When it gets to a point where he’s actually letting his guard down, even to a small degree, it’s easy for him to start slipping. It feels almost like he’s with a friend again, with someone who cares about him.

...but believing stupid ideas like that is bad and scary and just asking to get hurt, and that’s where the contradiction comes from. This Shuu simultaneously craves closeness and a solid, stable relationship, but is too scared of letting himself be vulnerable to give in to that need easily.

Next is the issue of how he’d resist. Like all of the boys, Shuu has his guard up. He’s got his pride, and that’s not changing easily. As he notices that he’s slipping, you can bet that walls will be put up. Shuu’s number one defense is cutting off all potential attachment. He’ll avoid you. He’ll push you away. He’ll intentionally act like a total bastard just to make sure that you don’t start caring. Because once you start caring, once he knows that you’re capable of getting through to him, he’s screwed. He’ll be as cruel and indifferent as possible to make sure that you don’t think he cares, all while starting to care a lot more than he could ever bear admitting.

Finally, there’s the issue of when he does wind up vulnerable. Feeling weak and broken-open does not sit well with Shuu. You can bet he’ll start panicking once he realizes how deep in he is. He’ll have panic attacks– even if he’ll try to hide them. He’ll have shut-downs where all he can do is find a place to hide from you and try to pretend like he doesn’t have feelings. He’ll get violent and cruel and try to look as sadistic and untouchable as he wants to be.

He’ll do everything possible to avoid looking like he’s falling, right up until he hits a breaking point where there’s no way he can hide it anymore.

To summarize (before this gets too long), Sub Au!Shuu is a lot like canon!Shuu. He’s afraid of attachment, he’s afraid of looking weak, and he’s not going to fall happily into a relationship by any means. He needs emotional intimacy and love, but he’ll never admit to it. He’ll hold onto his distance and indifference for as long as he can. And then, he’ll hit a breaking point hard enough that he’ll just plain fall apart.

Hope this all helps! Feel free to send in another ask if there’s anything else you want me to explain!!! :D

#Diabolik Lovers #Dialovers #Sakamaki Shuu #Headcanon #Sub Au

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moviebuilding · 4 years

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Shoebox Adventures- the power of space in Roy Andersson’s “A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence”

In 2014, Swedish commercial-maker Roy Anderson tried to bring his school science fair project to the Cannes film festival. A series of solemn set-pieces on the human condition shot in hyper-real grey spaces that simultaneously evoke familiarity and discomfort, his odd little diorama was bound to make a storm.

Except Cannes rejected it.

But Venice let it in! And thank god they did, saving this cinematic gem from public negligence and (a mere 6 years later) bringing it to my attention! “A Pigeon”, as I will now be referring to it, is almost certainly the strangest film I have ever seen. It might also be one of the most wonderful, thought-provoking and funny films as well. Characters, plot and setting are largely absent or deliberately vague, instead thrown in the all-consuming mixing pot known as ‘mood’. But when you’re telling a story about the nuances and complexities of humanity, it seems stupid to make it like a story. Much of it is left for the viewer to assert their own personal interpretations, to feel what they feel from the film’s peculiar exhibits. Not because “A Pigeon” has set out to confuse or provoke different audiences, but because different people see life differently. And this film has something for those different views. Who knows, it might even help them live alongside one another.

As part of my recent architectural fad, I thought this would be a great chance to explore the power of spaces within films, which is probably the medium in which we consume the largest quantity and variety of architecture. What Anderson has done with his little spaces is all kinds of captivating. Natural and alien, his scenes grow and decay off the tiniest differences. Now, to work!.

The opening scene puts everything on the table as to what we’re in for. Peering at a talcum powdered women scolding a talcum powdered man peering at stuffed birds in the world’s greyest museum, accompanied by plinky strings, you can already tell this isn’t going to infringe on The Fast and the Furious’ turf. The camera sticks 10 feet back from the ‘action’ and never once zooms or pans, so we can continually survey the scene without any distracting close-ups, leaving the characters spied-on but not fully known. The open doorways and windows are everpresent throughout the movie, a clever trick to alleviate feelings of claustrophobia. This also serves to give us a view to equally stately goings-on in the background, which helps to create Andersson’s diorama world. Every wall is flat in colour and texture, the lighting uniformly gloomy with no hint of natural light or shadow. And the cages that hold the taxidermy are metaphors for our cages of loneliness in the modern world, but you knew that already.

This hospital scene starts out as static, a painting-like arrangement of a classic scene, the children witnessing the gradual passing of their mother. Andersson keeps it uncluttered by having the dialogue occur two doorways away.

And yet after pleasantries are dispatched and pretence discarded, the whole scene swirls like Vertigo; the brothers contort, the sister slumps in her chair, the presumed-still body of the mother’s body squawks out in alarm as her bed is dragged sideways across the room. We do not zoom in to see her anguished face, making her all the more powerless and the viewer confused at what to feel. The nurse arrives silently at the threshold, hesitant to cross into this family’s hysteria. She watches the painting come to life and ruin itself, just as we do. The notion of characters watching characters is one that Andersson returns to a lot in “A Pigeon”, which ultimately provides a heavy dose of the film’s realism. In traditionally-shot movies, the two-way dialogue close-ups obscure the silent characters from our interest. Andersson lets us see them gawp, knowing we do too.

A romantic getaway might seem like a departure from the film’s predominantly urban setting, but whilst the sand and soundtrack provides the impression of a beach-scene, we are actually in another of Andersson’s dioramas. The intimacy of the couple is uncomfortable, and not just for the man’s awkward movements or their judging dog. The wall-like dunes rise up, obscuring the horizon as a pair of far-off high rises intrusively leer into shot. The sky is a pastel blue, withholding any sense of time or importance on the moment we’re presented with, the mutt our audience sleeper agent who stiffly watches it unfold.

The closest the film gets to any main characters are a pair of grey-clad salesmen who potter about the scenes with mixed financial success. Throughout the film we get to know them, and thus Sam and Jonathan carry the largest targets on their back for Andersson’s gentle ridicule, here pictured bursting into the bar like outlaws into a wild-west saloon, in which they explain that they’ve gotten lost looking for a mythical shop named ‘Party’. The gorgeous painted background, viewed through a window, is our first glimpse of a horizon- a grey/green wasteland dominated by gargantuan transmission towers. our heroes have traversed this wilderness, by foot or car we are never told, to find the Party and reap the rewards! Unfortunately for them such a place does not appear to exist, and fortunately for us they are cut off from their usual sales pitch by the arrival of the army of King Charles XII.

You need to go and watch it!

Sam and Jonathan’s spaghetti western (perhaps Swedish meatball western?) journey is revived somewhat later, with what looks like a briefcase-wielding standoff inexplicably located next to a railway. This normally charged setting is relieved of all potency by their slow hobbling around the mid-ground, exchanging insults and emptying briefcases. Which makes it more pathetic, more silly and more real. Probably the three words I’d use to describe the film.

The cruelty sequence of the film begins in a stark grey laboratory. A monkey is hooked up to electrodes and shocked according to a time. The scientist talks vapidly on the phone. In the room behind another technician feeds the remaining inmates. The monkey is closer to the camera than almost any other character through ‘A Pigeon’, close enough to see it writhe. Out the window are more grey high-rise buildings, now somewhat more suspicious and responsible for the monkey’s torture. Andersson’s world is the same palette and yet it’s ever-changing, the mood altering with each new skit. The monkey has nowhere in the film to escape to, you can’t imagine a happy ending for it and thus it’s the most blatant moraliser of the film (until the next scene).

The scene in question witnesses African slaves forced by British colonial soldiers to march into a giant cylindrical drum with horns protruding out. It’s then set alight, and we squirm as it spins, implying the frantic scrambling of those inside to produce a resonant rumble while we watch from a safe distance. I won’t spoil what happens next, but it’s sufficiently sobering.

Waking from this horrible dream, Jonathan wails to Sam to make sure the viewer got the point the point of this sequence- “Is it right to benefit from the pain of others?”. Andersson makes his plea the more pathetic and powerful by giving us a view to his sink and mirror, the latter a reminder of his role in the pain.

Once Jonathan is told to go back to sleep, the camera stays resolutely on the corridor. It is a bizarre space. The flat doors defy depth, the corridor is long yet finite, grubby yet sterile, lonely yet constantly surveyed by the permanently grumpy security guard.

i hope you enjoyed this dip into “A Pigeon”, and I say dip because there’s about 39 scenes in total and I wasn’t going to do all of them (for free *wink wink*). I thoroughly recommend that you watch this film (and currently you can for free on all4 in the UK) and then maybe re-watch it two more times. You may not like much of it, some of it or most of it. But I think you will love part of it. And that can be your bit of it, to take to parties and share with everyone else. Because like the hokey cokey, that’s what it’s all about.

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aupairadventures · 6 years

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A Socially Anxious Girl’s Guide to Making Friends Abroad

I’m about to tell you all a secret: About a year ago, I was diagnosed with social anxiety, though I’ve struggled with this disorder for many years. Cue: gasps of shock from everyone who’s ever met me. This is probably my best-kept secret; unless you’re someone who’s extremely close to me, you probably would never have suspected that this is something that I struggle with. Throughout high school, I became quite good at hiding behind a mask of fake smiles and faux-bubbliness as a way of coping with my anxiety. “Fake it ‘til you make it,” right? This isn’t to say that all my smiles in high school weren’t genuine. In fact, as bizarre and confusing as this might seem, I do consider myself to be a people person. I do truly enjoy interacting with others, meeting new people, and having conversations with them. However, I’m simultaneously prone to feeling very anxious around other people, especially in larger groups. While my heart might want to connect with the people around me and enjoy spending time with others, my head can become overwhelmed with anxious thoughts and feelings, making socializing quite difficult, and sometimes nearly impossible. It doesn’t quite make sense how I can be both an introvert and an extrovert at once, or how I can both love being with others and be terrified of it at the same time.

I’m not sure if this will make sense to anyway who doesn’t struggle with social anxiety, but I’ll try to best to explain what it feels like. (In my case, at least, as anxiety disorders don’t manifest themselves in everyone the same way.) Having social anxiety is like this: Imagine yourself surrounded by a group of people, everyone talking, laughing, and enjoying themselves. On the outside, you look perfectly normal; You’re smiling, nodding your head, laughing politely and appear to be listening attentively. On the inside, well, that’s a different story. You feel nauseous and sick to your stomach. Your palms are sweating and your chest feels tight. You feel self-conscious, like everyone in the room is staring at you. Anxious and self-deprecating thoughts are overwhelming your mind. Your brain won’t stop telling you, “You’re being so annoying right now. Everyone here hates you. Just stop talking before you make a fool out of yourself and everyone starts laughing.”

Was what my brain telling me true? No, of course, it wasn’t. But did I tell myself these lies so frequently, to the point where I couldn’t help but to isolate myself and stop seeking out connections with others? Yes, I most certainly did.

When I first decided to move to France, one of my main goals for the year was to work on overcoming my social anxiety and try to make friends. I felt so worried and scared that this would be an impossible task and that I would end up feeling lonely and isolated yet again, halfway across the world from home. I doubted my ability to have courage and to be strong enough to overcome something that I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember. However, my desire and my determination were stronger than my fear. To make this dream a reality, I had to metaphorically look my anxiety in the eye and say, “Shut up, I don’t care what you have to say. I’m going to make friends this year, whether you like it or not.”

I started off my “Operation: Make Friends” a few days after arriving in France, by posting in the Au Pair Nantes Facebook group. As I had seen several other au pairs do, I shared a post introducing myself and saying that “I just arrived last week and would love to meet new people and make new friends. Let me know if you're interested in meeting up!” Several girls commented on my post or messaged me, and some of these girls have become some of my closest friends. Who would have known that these simple sentences would lead to such amazing friendships?

Two of the girls who messaged me and I made planned to meet up on a Sunday evening to get pizza together in the city center. I was thrilled when they asked, and I enthusiastically agreed. However, the day of the meeting, I was feeling incredibly anxious. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong. “I’ll get lost as I’m walking there,” I told myself. “I’ll take the wrong tram on the way back home and be lost in this strange city in the dark,” “Maybe the girls will never show up and all look like a fool waiting there all alone,” “If they do show up, they’re going to hate me.”

While I felt so anxious that I nearly decided to cancel at the last minute, I knew that if I wanted to succeed, I would have to face my fears and push through. So while my heart raced and every last cell in my body screamed to just stay home, I mustered every last ounce of courage and dragged myself to that goddamn restaurant.

And guess what? None of the horrible scenarios I had imagined even came close to happening. On the contrary, the two girls I met that night were absolutely lovely, and we had a great time together. I loved the conversations that we had, and as the evening went on, I felt myself gradually relaxing and feeling more comfortable with each passing minute.

A week later, I made plans with some other au pair girls to meet up for drinks on a Friday night. Yet another anxiety-spiral occurred in the hours leading up to the meeting. Once again, I felt so nervous and kept imagining the worst possible scenarios. And once again, I came quite close to canceling. This is pretty ridiculous, right? Just a week prior, I had had a great experience meeting up with other au pairs and had proven to myself that there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. So, why did I still feel so anxious? Why was I sabotaging myself? Why couldn’t my brain just leave me alone and let me live my life? Once again, I had to metaphorically look my anxiety in the eye and say, “Knock it off. I’m going out, I’m going to meet up with friends, and everything is going to be fine. I don’t care what you have to say.” Sure enough, I ended up being so glad that I faced my fears and meet up with those girls. The girls were so nice, and we all had a great evening together. I met lots of other au pairs that night, many of which have come to be some of my best friends today. I feel very grateful to my past-self for deciding to be brave and go to that bar because if I hadn’t, I might have never met some of the amazing people who now are a part of my life.

Whether you struggle with social anxiety or not, meeting people and making friends abroad can sometimes feel scary and challenging. So, here are some tips for ways to reach out and connect with new people. f you’re an au pair, there are lots of different au pair Facebook groups. If you live in or near a larger city, you’re sure to be able to find one for your region. I recommend posting a message to introduce yourself and ask if anyone wants to meet up. You can also read through the group’s post and comment on the posts of other au pairs, or message them to ask if they’re interested in hanging out. This strategy worked well for me, and I’ve met some of my best friends this way.

I’ve also met lots of my friends in my French classes. Unless you’re an EU citizen, your visa will most likely require you to take language classes (This is the case in France, at least, I can’t speak for other countries.) In your language classes, you’ll meet lots of different people from all over the world. There’s a 99.99% chance that your fellow students will also be looking to met up with new people and make friends, so why not strike up a conversation with someone and ask if they would want to hang out? I know, this is a lot easier said than done. I used to feel quite nervous when initiating a conversation or asking someone to hang out. I would always be afraid that they would be annoyed or think that I was being overbearing and that I would be rejected. But honestly, no one is going to get annoyed at you for saying, “We should hang out sometime!” Worst case scenario: they say no. Best case scenario: you’ve just found yourself a new friend. Just go for it!

Several months later, I feel that I can proudly say that I have made great progress in overcoming my social anxiety. In no way has it completely disappeared or am I completely free from it. My anxiety is something that will always be a part of my life, but now, it’s evolved from an overwhelming force that controlled my life to something that is much more manageable. While things like initiating a conversation, inviting someone to hang out, or being with a large group of people used to make me feel incredibly anxious, they are now things that I do on a daily basis and no longer feel as anxious about. In fact, I have come to greatly enjoy them! I feel proud to say that I have truly found my place here in Nantes. I have met so many incredible people and have started many amazing friendships. I feel immensely grateful for my friends here. These girls kind, thoughtful, compassionate, strong, and courageous, and are phenomenal women in every way. My friends and I have made so many incredible memories together that I will forever remember and cherish. We have been there to support each other in both our happiest and most difficult moments. My friends have reminded me of the collective power women that create when they come together; Together, we are a force to be reckoned with.

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daughterofdescartes · 6 years

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Why my first ‘situationship’ was doomed from the beginning: a personal Romeo & Juliet story

LONG BUT NECESSARY INTRODUCTION

Ah, failed ‘relationships’. It happens to the best of us. It always ends with hurt feelings, you know, because life is programmed to make us all suffer, since nobody knows why we’re here on this planet anyway! I’m turning 20 in December, and am getting over my very first “special someone” *sighs and looks into the distance*... I’m just kidding he wasn’t that special, just happened to be the first dude I had a “thing” with, that’s all. Even though he’s not that special, the experience I went through involving this guy is what changed my life. Yup, I just said that. Sounds hella dramatic, but i’m literally a changed woman. It was a spiritual journey from beginning to end. 90% of the people who know me don’t even know this happened to me. So, if you’re reading this, consider yourself very lucky! Or not, this is going to be really long and I don’t know how interesting I can make this, but stay with me, you guys...

If you want to know what happened, I can tell you this story very shortly without any of the details, and it will just seem like a very dumb story between two youngsters who both didn’t know what they were doing, like my own modern twist on Romeo and Juliet lol.

TLDR: I met an emotionally unavailable American guy on a dating app, we talked for a week and then we told each other that we liked one another. After another week, I got very overwhelmed and said that we need to take a break. A month had passed and we started talking again. I got immensely insecure because at this period i was the only one texting first. Confronted him with my insecurities many many times. We still talked for a time span of around 3 months. Right now we haven’t spoken in over 3 weeks and I have honestly accepted that this whole situation was doomed to fail from the beginning and am reborn as a new person.

Honestly? I don’t think I’m very heartbroken at all. But this whole experience did tamper with me psychologically, so it’s not like I have no healing to do or anything. I went through a lot of emotional suffering, never truly understanding where it was coming from, but during my evening walk with my dog, a light bulb lit up above my head... (a sockhop beneath my bed, press like if u get the ref xd)

Just so you guys know, this McGuy still haunts my mind everyday. Not all the time, but the thought of him or what has happened, will cross me at least once a day. With this experience being very ‘spiritual’ and all, I have been thinking, a lot. I know, very deep of me. I’ve been thinking a lot about who I am as a person and why I am the way I am and suddenly... it all clicked.

I was always thinking about him and his actions, but when I started seeing the bigger picture, aka including myself in the story, it suddenly made a whole lot more sense. It was never really about him, it was about Me. So here’s kind of a prologue talking about my history after this long ass introduction.

PROLOGUE

In my 19 years of existence I had never before messed with anyone romantically. I always just crushed on people, not knowing if any feelings were reciprocated, not knowing if there were any secret admirers (doubt it). I’m not ignorant of the reasons why i’ve been celibate my whole life. I know that i’m kind of shy, pretty insecure, look unapproachable as fuck, not a 10 out of 10 according to society’s standards, etc.

I used to have a harder time coping with the fact that I had never once experienced mutual ‘romantic love’, but when years and years pass by, you just realize that being a celibate teenager is okay. Although I was okay with it, I still had my moments of frustrations. “What’s wrong with me? Why hasn’t anything happened yet?” But always got myself back on my feet again, telling myself I’m fine and just need to be patient. You’re young, you’ve got lots of time! What’s the rush? Even if majority of your friends already had their first kiss in 9th grade; it’s no big deal, right? You just gotta keep yourself busy with other teenager things like, procrastinating school work, being angsty and rebelling against your parents, spending time on the interwebs and whatever else the teenz do.

So, I kept myself busy throughout middle school and high school, had at least one crush every year, because ya girl gets bored sometimes. Most of them weren’t that meaningful, since I kind of suck at talking to guys in general, because I think they’re aliens. So, I never really got to know most of my crushes as people. It was still a fun time regardless, because who cares about rejection, if you just keep it a secret forever? Except for this one dude I obsessively crushed on for 6 years (while simultaneously crushing on other people, wow multitasking Queen), and Young 14 Year Ol’ Me thought it was a very good idea to tell All my Friends in 8th-9th grade, because 14-15 year olds are so trustworthy and won’t tell anyone, right? I’m pretty sure that guy knows how much I liked him and is kind of creeped out, but 14 year old me was just very excited and infatuated.

Anyways, I graduated high school with ok results and 0 romantic experience! Now this is where life Really Begins!!!!! Time for UNIVERSITY!!! *crowd cheering*

I’ve always been a creative, artistic soul, though I think that quality is diminishing more and more every year, or maybe I’m just imagining it. Nonetheless, I didn’t Really know what I wanted to study, but have always considered architecture an option because of its creative side.

Boy.

Most tiring semester of my life. You only understand once you experience the archilife. I once pooped and when I was done, I stood up and looked back, I literally was astonished at the sight of my own feces, because I had literally forgotten that I had pooped, that was how tired I was. If you are grossed out right now, grow up. We all poop.

This major is extremely grueling and taxing on both your physical and mental health. If you’re a procrastinator, oh boy, now that’s adding fuel to the fire. I kept procrastinating finishing/starting my preparation for the final big presentation and ultimately had a big mental breakdown, and decided that I wanted to quit architecture. It was never my passion anyway, and this is one of the majors you must be passionate about, or else you won’t make it out alive unless you’re a masochist.

What comes next after architecture? Sinology aka Chinese studies. I only grew up speaking Shanghainese, so mastering the Mandarin language is something that I have literally always wanted. I was always insecure about my Mandarin skills, so let’s just do that lol.

No matter how awful architecture school might’ve been, I still met some cool people that I really clicked with. (I’m talking like people you can count on one hand, I’m not that social, okay) Which I was really happy about, because I was scared I wasn’t going to have any friends, because I kind of suck at making them.

Changing majors was a big shift, suddenly I was all by myself again and had to go through the whole making friends progress again, schucks.

The architecture campus is in Brussels, while the campus for linguistics is in Leuven. Brussels is a lot more diverse, I would say, so there are less white Belgians.

Let me tell you something about white Belgians, they are horrible at socializing. Especially the province I live in. They’re horrible. I’m also horrible. Conclusion? Making friends in a predominantly Belgian white class, was freaking hard! BECAUSE NO ONE EVEN CARES ABOUT GETTING TO KNOW YOU!!! THEY JUST LOOKING AT THEIR PHONE BITCH!!!! OR TALKING TO THEIR OWN CLIQUE BEING BORING STAYING IN THEIR COMFORT ZONE!!!! Why do new kids in American movies get so much attention, but the two times I’ve been the new kid literally no one cares. That’s the sad reality of life. I mean Hello? If y’all are not gonna make effort to become friends with me? Are you trying to say? That I have to do the work? Bitch?

So a month had passed, and I still had no friends, it was pretty darn lonely, but I was getting there slowly. But here’s a funny thing! On one of these lonely nights, I was watching a youtube video and it was sponsored by GUESS WHAT? a dating app! WOW... Now here’s where The Story beginz..

CHAPTER 1: INCOMING

So ya bitch was entertaining herself on YewChewb, I was watching some video from some Chinese American guy, and in this glorious video, he is advertising this dating app called EastMeetEast... Yeah, it’s a dating app where Asian people meet each other. Me, a bored lonely dumbass bitch, was like okay, let’s see what this is about. This should be Funny!!! So I made a profile, with some catfishy pictures of myself, you know, take her swimming on the first date and all that shit. So, I match with a few guys okay fun, (you could only match with, only girls or only guys) And this dodgy app requires men to pay for the app so that they can message with girls, because if you use it for free, they can’t see girls’ messages or something weird? Mind you, girls can see and send messages for free. We love this reverse sexism!

Also, this app isn’t very popular in Belgium, mainly American people use it, so ya. I mainly matched with Asian Americans.

Turning-point, The Life-Changing Encounter of Death: I match with a 19 year old with the initial A. We’ll call him A for the rest of the story, like some fun little mystery like in Pretty Little Liars. (I’ve never watched it) He only had one picture, but he’s cute. Half Italian, half Chinese. Ok, fun. So shortly after matching he sends me this message on the app: “if you want to talk my username is @_________”. He didn’t really put anything in his bio if i remembered but one thing that was stated on his profile is the HIGH SCHOOL he was in. First red flag. HIGH SCHOOL. First of all, what the fuck. Second of all, why the fuck? But ok lonely ol’ me was feeling Adventurous and this matching with people thing was fun. Male validation did not exist to me before this historical day and chatting with a good looking guy was unheard of.

It didn’t really say what social platform the username was for, the platform always get censored because the app just wants you to pay for the app to talk with people, crayzy. But i just assumed i’d find him on instagram, because that’s where everyone’s texting nowadays. I found him and followed him. He followed me back and messaged me, bingo.

We talk for a short while. I said some cringy ass shit I would literally never say to anyone in real life, because a shishter was feeling very Bold that day. I have never said cringier shit than when i was talking to this guy. It wasn’t anything creepy I just complimented his looks and all he said was “thanks, i’ve seen your pics too. very pretty.” Uh? Who talks like this? What kind of dry ass chicken breast are we eating here? He tells me he’s a high school senior and is born in ‘99. Stayed back a year since he migrated from Cuba to Miami. OK, interesting.

So after shortly introducing ourselves to each other, he suddenly asks if he can have my number? and I was like ??????????????????????????? Why?????????? Forgetting that people actually talk on iMessage, I barely ever do that. But that’s what A meant. I was sceptical but intrigued.

We talk some more. Doesn’t seem like a bad guy, and he texts back quickly. This is entertaining. When once again, A asks me a sudden question. “Can I call you? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.” My head is full of question marks and I start getting sweaty at the thought of having to call a person I barely know. Like I guess this is American culture? Or I just don’t understand calling culture because I have no friends who enjoy calling? But I was like? Calling? That hateful thing my parents force me to do when mailing is not quick enough? Why would you want to do that?

So I’m like, “UH. I DONT KNOW MAN. I’VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE SO I’M KIND OF NERVOUS LOL. I DON’T THINK I’M READY FOR THIS” (not actually in caps, but this symbolizes my very nervous energy)

And he replies, “It’s okay. I don’t want to push you into doing anything you’re not comfortable with.”

We were literally talking as if he was asking me to have sex with him, when it was just about a dumbass call. It’s so funny.

Whatever, we continue talking. It’s time for me to sleep. He says “Buenanotte Bella” ..... ?????? OK.

Next day comes, we talk again. He once again asks out of the blue if he can call me??? So I say

“Are you really that curious?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

I was curious, so I caved in and let him call me. It was so nervewracking. The only men I interact with on a regular basis in my life are my dad, brother and my dog.

Boy, the moment I heard that voice say “hey”. That’s the moment I got hypnotized and became a clown for nearly 5 months. I didn’t know you could be this attracted to a voice, but okay. Unfortunately, my voice cannot compare and he did not get hypnotized in return. Wack.

The call wasn’t too bad. It’s cute looking back at it. I couldn’t believe a guy actually wanted to talk to me. That person texting me, was a real human being with a real voice. I was fucking wonderstruck over the fact that a good looking guy was talking to me so I was on cloud 9, Okay? lmao

So the time difference between A and I is 6 hours right. Most of the time we’d start talking when it was evening in Belgium, so for A it was always in the afternoon. Only he could say good night to me, and I never could to him. This created a pretty big inbalance in the attachment levels imo.

In this chapter (the first 2 weeks) he would always ask me what I was doing. Like that’s not your business sis. I don’t wanna tell you that i’m a loser that’s not doing shit even though she has shit to do??? But apparently he always wanted to see if I was busy or not so he knew he wasn’t disturbing me and so that he could, you guessed it, call me.

Everyday, we would text each other, and that was fine, until the dreaded question came. “Can I call you?” BITCH WHY DO YOU WANNA CALL SO BADGSJOGJOISGJI I SWEAR. I didn’t absolutely hate it, but there were just factors that made me not like calling very much. (nearing the end i definitely came to hate it)

1. I don’t want my parents hear me call with a guy (I literally could’ve worn my earbuds I don’t know why I never thought of it... we stan a dumbass bitch)

2. Sometimes there was literally nothing to talk about because we’re foremost still strangers and it was awkward

3. The fact that I wanted to hide this from my parents, made me highly aware of how loud I was speaking and I couldn’t fully express myself, scared that my parents would barge in on me calling.

4. 90% of his jokes flew over my head, they weren’t that funny. I’m sorry, A. I’m funnier. And that’s just tea.

5. EVEN DURING THE CALL when there was nothing to talk about he’d be like “so what’s up wyd” bitch? calling you? I couldn’t concentrate on anything else everytime because I was a nervous wreck.

6. Even if I wanted to do school work, I would push that aside to call him because, I wanted to hear his voice. Ke$ha - Your Love is My Drug

7. BECAUSE I WANTED TO HEAR HIS VOICE we would even call until 4AM TALKING ABOUT LITERALLY NOTHING IT WAS SO AWKWARD WHY KILL MY CLOWN ASS. I RUINED MY SLEEPING SCHEDULE FOR THAT DONKEY

Our text conversations were honestly, more fun, because when we were calling, a bitch couldn’t think straight. Our calls were most of the time not that fun I don’t understand why he wanted to call everyday.

Mind you, the shyer i get, the more monotone I get. So I would react very coldly and in a stiff manner during the calls just saying: “Yeah.”, “Sure.”, “Wow.”, “Ok.” BECAUSE I didn’t have time to think and didn’t know what to say 99% of the time. So a week after getting to know A, during the 64th silence in one of our calls, he says this:

“This is gonna sound really insecure but, do you even like talking to me?”

“Yea.”

So romantic...... I’m swooning...... Pick me up......

Call ends. It’s almost time for me to sleep, but I’m still thinking about what he said right there, so I text:

“Would a person really stay up until 4AM calling someone although they don’t like talking to them? Silly” JGOIJGOIDSGJOSIGJOS JUST SHOOT ME RIGHT NOW I CAN’T BELIEVE I SAID THAT

And then he said something along the lines of “I don’t know if you’re talking to me because you’re just bored, or there’s something more.Like tell me what you want from me, woman” like??? woman?????? SECOND RED FLAG DONT CALL ME WOMAN SHUT THE FUCK UP I HATED THAT SO MUCH

So i was like “idk what do YOU want from me??” And he was like “well” and i was like “i’ll say it too u go first” (lmfao) and then he said

“Honestly I’d like to be romantic with you but, you know, there’s an atlantic ocean between us” and at that moment my heart dropped when I read this text because this might as well have been the smartest point A has ever made in the 4 months of talking to him. He’s right. This humongous distance has slaughtered any budding of any kind of relationship from the very beginning.

Dude never liked me enough to actually want to initiate a meeting, I don’t blame him. The boy was bored and created an account on a dating app because his friends told him about it. I bet he wasn’t really planning to find an Asian European lover in his last year of high school.

But who was naive/delusional enough to convince herself that MAYBE these two people who aren’t even that compatible in the first place, could maybe MEET someday and FALL IN LOVE??? ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With the word ‘romantic’ he probably means fuck, i mean do high school boys actually know what romance is uh. The biggest thing that could have developed in under a week is a small little crush. Anyways, i did not realize this properly and took his statement very seriously and thought “Wow a boy just said he likes me WoW, we will make this Love happen No Matter What” I was thrilled.

Next morning I wake up, I’m a ball of sunshine. A guy 7876768 kilometers far away from me says he likes me. That is so meaningful. Wow....

While I was talking to A, I still matched with other dudes on that stupid app out of boredom, but never talked to them because in my maiden’s ♥heart♥ A was still nr. 1, because he just said he likes me WoW. So while messing around on that app, i keep noticing there’s a green dot next to A’s name, meaning he’s active on the app. And i’m like hmm..... ......................

Me, a nosey bitch, said somethign dumb like “oh you’re active on weird hours” and he just said

“yeah, left it open and let my friends mess around with it”

.................................hmmmmmmmm investigation time even though it’s literally not my place and I am not entitled to any form of commitment at all

Let’s talk about the biggest red flag of all red flags that I decided to ignore,

A’s instagram account. Let’s talk about it.

His username does not include his name, there are NO pictures of him in his feed, only posts dank memes and likes his own posts and if you look at the people he’s following, you see something very interesting!

Half of it are instagram accounts of Asian girls... And most of them weren’t even like popular accounts like they were just really freaking random accounts most of the time, and other ones were girls he met on EastMeetEast.

Yup........ I looked at his moderate collection of Asian girls and thought. Wow this makes me uncomfortable, but he said he likes me, and I don’t think anyone else will ever like me so I should stick to him..... I guess!!!

The only redeeming factor of his instagram is that his profile picture is a kitten, I think her name was Eko or something. Don’t let him hurt you, kitty cat.

So discovering this information, I felt hurt. He said he wants to get ‘romantic’ with me??? Why is he still collecting other Asian girls when clearly, we will fall in love someday?

To confirm my already confirmed suspicions that he isn’t in love with me, I send my Indonesian best friend on a mission and let her create an account on EastMeetEast. I told her to try match with him. THEY MOTHAFUCKIN MATCHED I LITERALLY DONT KNOW WHY I WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN THAT HURT LIKE A MOTHAFUCKAR AT THE TIME. MIND YOU, I TOLD HIM MY BEST FRIEND IS INDONESIAN, AND HE SEES THAT AN INDONESIAN BELGIAN WANTS TO MATCH WITH HIM, WHEN 10 PEOPLE IN BELGIUM USE THIS APP. JGSIDOGJOSGJOISGJ MEN ARE SO STUPID

Notice the sudden spike of emotional instability and irrationality after he told me he liked me? It’s extremely important actually. At the time, I did not understand what I was going through emotionally. And I think if you’re just casually reading this, you might be wondering what was wrong with me too. Thank you for worrying about my wellbeing, you are a better person than A.

So increasingly, I get more and more nervous concerning literally everything that is not pointing towards the direction that he is in fact in love with me, after one week. That’s 7 days, if you will.

I myself was also questioning my sanity throughout this whole process, because I never thought I would go that far. I talked about other guys to see if he would get jealous. (I don’t really think he cared lmao), constantly checked his activity on instagram (he just likes dank memes about fucking girls or something, what a chad)

Week 2 chimes in, I can tell he still ‘likes’ me, talks about stuff that happens in his American high school life, boasts about literally anything possible to make himself look good, jokes around, some intellectual conversations here and there between a weirdo horny for Asian girls and the most hopeless romantic to have existed.

I was watching a very stupid Belgian reality show, reminiscent of ‘Jersey Shore’ or ‘Ex on the Beach’ that kind of stuff. And I touched on the topic that, men cheating on women is highly popularized in media, and i said that women probs cheat just as much but are better at hiding it,

and he said, “Ha, I would know about that”

And I was like aw, I’m sorry. He talked about the fact that he had many failed relationships, most of the girls breaking up with him, if I remember correctly and eventually I got curious over the amount of partners he’s had in his 18 years of being alive, so I asked about it.

And he says “I don’t know, I don’t keep track of that stuff”

??????????????????????????????????? ???????????,

My heart started racing at this point. I was like “What do you mean?”

A says, “I just don’t count that stuff” And in my mind, my inexperienced maiden’s mind could not comprehend that you could be with so many people at such a young age that you lose track of the number? Actually, you know what, anyone with a healthy mind will find this hard to comprehend, i’m not the crazy one here in this case. Like I look at his instagram, and look at what he says and it doesn’t add up LMAO. Also he kind of fucking sucks at communicating how did he manage to cop that much pussy?

I kept asking for a number and he just keeps saying “I don’t know. It shouldn’t really matter right? I don’t keep track of that stuff.” But I was just so fucking pressed like? WHAT????? HOW CAN YOU LET SO MANY RELATIONSHIPS FAIL THAT YOU CAN’T COUNT THEM. YOURE 18, IS THIS AMERICA????? IS THIS WHAT CHILDISH WAS RAPPING ABOUT??????

I was pissed because he just kept refusing to even give a rough estimate, I’m a capricorn we love em statistics (idk what i’m saying)

So I was angry and gave him short answers. Guess what he sends,

“Call?”

I say, “No”

Iconic.

But a few minutes later I give in??? I DON’T KNOW WHY???? LMAOO and we call but it was This Very Last Call that Killed Me

The Call of Death

Call starts. I’m still pissed about the whole thing and he goes,

“So... what’s the beef with my romantic past?”

And I say I just really wanted a number because I wanted to at least have an estimate to have something to grasp onto???? fuck so he’s still very irky about it, doesn’t wanna talk about it, MAYBE BECAUSE HE LIED???? BITCH?????

He says “idk maybe over 20″ ...........????? that’s a larger number than his own age and if you do the math he would have had his first serious girlfriend at 12 years old he would have to have had at least 3 to 4 girlfriends every year....??? is this Floridian culture? Is that normal? Is he talking about anime girlfriends in dating sim games????

So this whole topic just upset me like no other, it confused me, I mean what the fuck is he talking about JGOIIJGOISDJGOSDJGOISJG

It got pretty quiet. When A suddenly says

“You know, if you don’t want to talk to me, we don’t have to”

“Hm. Maybe I don’t”

“Ok.”

The whole call goes dead fucking silent for like more than 10 minutes or something. I was just lying in my bed, scrolling on my phone, trying not to breathe, so the mic can’t catch any sound and I am internally dying.

The silence felt like it lasted forever. I didn’t have the guts to end the call. But i said something dumb to break the silence because I couldn’t take it anymore. Idk what I said.

Not too long after breaking the silence, it was so fucking awkward i don’t even know what we were talking about. Clearly, I’m traumatized and my brain is protecting me from whatever happened that night, which I’m thankful for.

So, not too long after breaking the silence, A says very abruptly, something along the lines of, “I’m home now, bye.” and ends the call. ?????????????

To add to the context, he would mostly go on walks during our calls, what a fit Chad. He really spent some evening walks, just calling me, climbing trees, stealing furniture, talking about literally nothing, that’s so iconic.........

Anyways that felt absolutely terrible, and I knew I never wanted to do that again, fuck.

I woke up the next morning feeling just as horrible, not exactly sure why but the previous night had upset me severely. Throughout this whole day I was questioning my sanity, the ‘relationship’ jodsigjosgj, and also wondering, who the fuck is this dude i’m talking to?

Realizing how much each and every word and action affected me mentally, I felt that I was losing control.

My inner thoughts: This guy is a freaking weirdo. He said he likes me, but then does all these things I do not approve of. I started liking him without really getting to know him and now I face the consequences! We should stop talking for the sake of my own sanity!!!

I’ve been talking about A to two of my close friends, they both roasted him and said I need to leave him, since he’s making me feel miserable with these extreme highs and lows.

That day, I decided A and I should stop talking. This way, I won’t feel the way I feel anymore. Actually felt pretty conflicted, because at this point, I had already grown attached to A. He helped me fill my loneliness when I didn’t have any friends yet in my new major and despite all the red flags, I still wanted to see the good in him. I mean, he said he likes me??? Can’t let that pass!!!!!

I confronted A and asked if he was angry during our last call with the long silence and all.

He says, “No, I was just joking around”

????????????????? Idk how dense I really am? But that atmosphere felt heavy and both of us weren’t laughing so I don’t know where the hell he’s coming from LMFAO. But anyways, I tell him what happened last night really upset me for some reason and that maybe we should stop talking, because talking to him everyday had taken an emotional toll on me.

A says, “Ok, if cutting me off is what you really want, then do so”

A keeps typing, then stops, keeps typing, then stops.

“Can you at least tell me what I did wrong, so that I know what to do next time when I land in a situation like this again?”

I didn’t know what he did wrong either. He was just being himself, I guess.

I say, “You didn’t do anything. I just don’t think talking to you is doing any good to me. It shouldn’t interfere this strongly with my daily life, but it is.”

He said he understands, and that we should part ways, if that’s what’s best for me.

I say, “I wonder why I’m having a harder time saying goodbye than you are”

A says, “Believe me, it’s very hard for me too”

Behind my screen, I started crying? How did I get so attached to somebody I barely knew? I couldn’t understand what was going on with me.

I wanted to hold onto him for dear life. From the moment A said he liked me, my mind took off to fantasyland. I got so excited about this mutual liking, that my mind overlooked the realism of this whole situation. I was so attached to the idea of someone liking me and the embellishments of romantic love, that I completely malfunctioned when confronted with reality, when my expectations of a perfect love weren’t met.

Because I didn’t want to let go of that concept of love, I didn’t want to let go of A. Who knows when the next person will like me? It took me 19 years to get my first one? Was my logic lmfao. fuck.

I said, “Maybe I just need some time to sort myself out. We’ll talk again someday.” I could not let him go, not because I even liked him all that much, but because of the sheer reason that he said he liked me.

A said, “Do whatever you need to do to make yourself happy. If there’s anything I can do, please tell me. But please don’t cry.”

In this last conversation before the ‘break’, A was oddly enough very sweet to me, which felt horrible. This is the most vulnerable, genuine side I had ever seen of A in the 5 months of knowing him. I wanted to continue talking, but I already said we should stop talking so I was too ashamed to go back on my words GJOIDSJGOSIGJS

We wished each other the best of luck and said our goodbyes.

I said, “Talk to you later, one day”

��I know. Goodbye.” A said, thinking this was our last conversation, because he didn’t think I would actually hit him up a month later. Lol.

CHAPTER 2: ON HOLD

I still have never been in a relationship, but what I felt the next morning, is what I imagine what half of a break up must feel like. I felt empty and wanted to text him almost immediately.

Yes, ya girl listened to sad songs and she was bawling her eyes out. Jeez. Give me a break.

Lunchtime came around. I looked out the window as it was snowing. I wanted to take a picture and show him, since it doesn’t snow in Miami, fuck please what the fuck. BUT i couldn’t do any of that because I had already said we’re taking a break, wow.

I start tearing up and my mom looks worried.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” The feeling of eating and crying at the same time is horrible. My mom doesn’t ask me anything further and I just keep sulking for the rest of the day. For the rest of the freaking month.

Holding back the urge to talk to him that day was extremely difficult, but imagine how ridiculous I would have looked if sis gave up in less than a day, so that held me back LMAO.

On some days A wasn’t even on my mind and I was living just fine.

On some nights A was all I could think about.

I kept thinking about when I should contact him. After my exams? That’s too long. That’s like 2 to 3 months, he’s over me by then! But if I talk to him before my exams, how will that affect my studies? The struggle was real.

I wanted this break to calm my feelings and for me to get back on my feet. That didn’t happen. I was still obsessed with the idea of what it must be like to be with someone. And for some odd fucking reason I thought I could make that a reality with A LMAOOOOOOO STOP

I thought, the longer I wait, the bigger the chance he’d no longer be interested in me. That thought was absolutely terrifying to me. I had to talk to him by the end of the month, or else I could not salvage This True Love.

CHAPTER 3: KIKI

We’re nearing the end guys, stay with me. It’s gonna be very anticlimactic, so stay tuned!

So after a month of anguish and yearning I send him a text. I couldn’t even wait until I got home. I did it while i was on the bus with 4G, um calm down binch???

We start talking again, but for some reason things just felt different to me. I expected things to be different. I wanted to go back to the euphoric point of when we told each other we liked each other or back to him comforting me in our ‘last moments’ before I momentarily cut him off.

The next day, and the day after, and the day after that, I kept waiting for A to text me first, but he never did. I had to text him first for 4 consecutive days. Is this a bad sign? Did he not like me anymore? He hadn’t even asked if he could call me, which I didn’t really want to do anyway, but at least it meant that he liked me, right? He’d always text back, though. And our conversations were moderately fun. So I couldn’t understand what was going on. I had to know what was going on in his mind. Does he still like me the way he used to?

These 3 months I was constantly very vulnerable, emotionally unstable and very very insecure, once again finding it hard to grasp what I was going through mentally. For tackling these problems, I always went for the approach of wearing my heart on my sleeve. Now, I really don’t know if this was the best tactic, but at least I got everything off my chest and didn’t hold anything in.

“Why haven’t you been texting me first?”

“Honest to god, I’m just really busy lately. If you want to talk, just talk to me. If you’re bothered with anything, don’t deal with it by yourself. I’m here to listen.” A told me he was preparing for his finals. I once again made a clown of myself.

But how busy was he really? He still liked his dumbass memes on instagram, continued following Asian girls, why couldn’t he make time for me? Didn’t he like me?

It dawned on me that I wasn’t on his priority list. And it made sense. Seniors are pretty busy and need to worry about applying for college. Which senior in their right mind would be looking for love? Who was I in his world? Just a part of his collection of Asian girlfriends? Sure that’s kind of hurtful, but can we still make ♥~*LOVE*~♥ happen though? My delusional self thought, Yes!!!!!

As time progressed, I got more and more insecure and kept confronting him with my own problems, and A must’ve gotten more and more sick of my bullshit.

At times he’d text me first, but not make the effort to keep the conversation going at all. I always had to bring up something interesting to keep talking or else the convo would’ve just ended with him giving a one word reply like “lmao”

He asked to call 2 more times, but I said no, feeling slightly traumatized from what the last call did to me lol. Also, I knew if I heard his voice again, that everything would affect me even more. So we never called.

“Can I call you?”

“Why? Do you miss my voice that much?” LMAOOO BYE WHO DO I THINK I AMMMMJSOIGJSOG

“No, I just need my hands to be free, I’m making homework, so calling seemed easier.”

I realized him wanting to call me, wasn’t necessarily because he liked me, it was mostly out of practicality, so that he could multitask and do something else.

A was sometimes just flat out rude, and he honestly doesn’t care. He was a self-proclaimed Asshole (is that something to be proud of?) and said that he most of the time doesn’t care if he hurts people’s feelings. That’s scary. Why wouldn’t you care about being a good person? Lawful Evil.

Here are some other red flags that still didn’t stop me from backing away:

Racial slurs are a joke to him

He really enjoys WWII jokes

Is heavily annoyed by pride month

When I showed him pictures of my dog, he didn’t seem to care at all

He dislikes Ariana Grande

Despite all these things, I was still attached to A. For what? He didn’t even like me romantically anymore at this point. What kind of rose goggles was I wearing? LOL. At this point i just wanted his attention.

I kept holding onto something that was never even there to begin with. The possibility of ♥~*LOVE*~♥ ever happening. I failed to realize that everything was doomed from the beginning. I had been alone all my life and the moment I thought somebody could change that I Snapped Lmao.

1. The distance. For real, who’s actually going to pay that much money to see someone you barely know and barely care for?

2. A was never really out there looking for anything serious. He’s a high school senior for god’s sake.

3. My unrealistic fantasies of what should have been happening to achieve ♥~*LOVE*~♥ constantly clashed with my reality. I was constantly busy fantasizing of what could have been that I failed to see things for what they were. I continuously tried to mold the situation into something it wasn’t.

If you think about it for more than 10 seconds and imagine a situation where we would actually meet, I would probably find the nearest cliff to jump off of. Exactly how much embarrassing cringy shit have I said to this man?

In probably our last meaningful conversation I asked him what he thinks of me, after “knowing” me for around 4 months.

A says, “I think you’re cool, you just need a confidence booster”

He once again, called himself an Asshole and made the point that I actually have a great personality and am really funny and that I just need to realize it. At least he’s aware. I applaud him. He told me things I already knew, but it was still very thought provoking to think about my confidence because it is the root of many of my problems.

Our last conversations felt like I was beating a dead horse. I don’t think any of us care enough anymore. Our situation was dead from the beginning and that’s fine. I’m glad this story has finally come to an end. I wish A would realize being a good person is actually rewarding, but it’s his own choice to change his life for the better. I wish him the best, and I wish myself the best of luck too. He just graduated high school and might just enter a transitional phase like I did lol. Does everyone go through a rebirth in their first year of uni? Maybe it’s just me. Finally this can die. My soul feels a lot lighter. Like in Shugo Chara, how the X-egg becomes a normal egg again and says “Thank You”, that is literally how I feel right now. Wow.

CHEESY EPILOGUE

This whole thing started because I felt extremely lonely and bored lol.

And that loneliness was amplified with my insecurities + inexperience of never having had any romance in my life? I always tend to blame myself, when really, inherently, there is nothing wrong with me. Things like a first kiss, a first lover or a first date all come at a different time for everyone. I just need to stop being impatient and glorifying my own concept of what ♥~*LOVE*~♥ is and just enjoy my life for what it is as time flows.

The thing about my self-esteem is, I am definitely aware of what a great person I am, but I still find it hard to see my worth? Like, I can see it, but I can’t grasp it? I think I tend to magnify and pick at my flaws so strongly that I can no longer believe in my own capabilites... It’s important to be kind to others but we forget that we should also be nice to ourselves.

If I want to make friends and get to know people, I will, and the right people will like me for who I am.

I must realize that I am more than what I hate about myself and that I am in fact good enough. Validation from the outside world can be nice but it’s still Me who really needs to believe it. (dattebayo)

Human beings are so complicated and we need to take all the time we need to understand ourselves and understand why we feel the way we feel, why we think what we think.

If you have been reading up to this point, I would like to thank you for taking your time to read about my experience. Hopefully you learned something too!

I love you :)

#thoughts #story #long post

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thebigcitynightsband · 7 years

Text

Time Out Of Mind and the TV Guide

Bob Dylan released a record in 1997 called Time Out Of Mind, his first album of new material in seven years, the longest gap of his career in which he released no new songs. He released some old ones, mind you, on 1992′s Good As I Been To You and the following year’s World Gone Wrong, but both albums were lo-fi affairs, consisting only of old American standards and folk songs. Dylan’s version of “Froggie Went A Courtin” is the best thing on those two records, intimate and strange and haunted, with Dylan’s idiosyncratic picking style on full display. You can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c8kO5RQIQo

I used to be obsessed with Bob Dylan in high school, but was I more into his process and image than his music itself, which I found a little boring in an album context. Even back in 2001, long before the internet destroyed my attention span, I had a hard time sitting through entire Dylan albums. Blonde on Blonde, for example, one of his alleged masterpieces, consists of little more than blues dirges featuring a dutiful but dull backing band. Not much happening on that record for me, though I do like the deep cut “Achilles Last Stand,” and of course “Just Like A Woman” is one of the greatest songs ever written.

Dylan’s early stuff is just guy-with-guitar music, not the best thing for a young boy obsessed with the mix tape aesthetic. I made a shitload of mixtapes back in high school, most of them for my/our friend Emon, but some for myself, and I loved to put a blasting punk song right after a slow syrupy ballad. The jarring aspect of it, the audio equivalent of a smash cut, always gave me a thrill. I always preferred my Dylan songs sandwiched between Oasis and The Offspring, so a whole record of him strumming and warbling didn’t hold my interest. I feel the same way even now.

But I loved the idea of Dylan, the idea of a fiercely individualistic artist releasing albums at a furious pace, following the dictates of the muse, not the mass. I loved Dylan’s imagery of the American highway, augmented by my simultaneous obsession with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, a book that has lit fire in the hearts of millions of young men who close the book and want to run out into the world and travel and drink and write bad poems while sitting on fence posts at dawn in Missouri, and I started writing songs about being a hitchhiker, songs about drinking coffee in diners at 6AM in small towns on the great plains, offbeat characters smoking in pool halls, sullen men sitting at the bar, gambling away their grocery money. To my embarrassment, one of these songs was actually called “Morning Cigarette.” I couldn’t just describe the lives of the lower classes, no, I had to align myself with them, insincerely I might add, and so I declared a smoking habit I had not yet acquired, claimed kilometres and miles I hadn’t yet earned, and described places I’d never been to and still may never go, sylvan beaches where blue water laps at the shore, where the highway finally ends and gives way to sand. All of this at the altar of the great American highway. REM’s Fables of the Reconstruction had some great highway and railroad imagery, especially “Driver 8″ and “Green Grow The Rushes.” I’ve mentioned REM’s “Leave” on here before, their greatest song, on an album recorded while the band was on tour and so has that rushing, disoriented, slightly seasick but gleeful feeling of constant highway travel, the thrum of the road beneath you as you rocket through the inky night. But REM came years after Dylan, so while I loved road imagery in literature inherited from the abovementioned Kerouac and Sam Shephard’s Motel Chronicles, Bob Dylan was the first musician I’d encountered who dealt in that kind of daylight.

I still love that highway stuff, though no longer to the exclusion of other modes of experience. The old excitement still comes back once in a while. Just a few years ago I came across a novel that captured the raw gritty reality of the road so vividly that I wanted to stick my thumb out again and see how far it would take me, a book called Angels by Denis Johnson, which features a ne’er do well drunk named Bill Houston who robs hardware stores and a desperate woman named Jamie Mays who is trying to escape her abusive husband by shuttling between states on Interstate Greyhounds, donating blood plasma to make her meals, carrying her silently suffering children along like sentient totebags. Eventually the woman and the bank robber cross paths (on a Greyhound, natch) and Bill takes Jamie down to Texas, splurging on booze and motels on the way like a sailor on shore leave, at one point trying to bribe a bus driver to take them to Philadelphia just so his Jamie and the kids can see the Liberty Bell. A drunken whim, needless to say. When the bus driver refuses, Bill Houston throws his bundle of cash to the floor and sets it aflame. Bill and Jamie and the kids are kicked off the bus for this stunt, and as they watch the bus pull way into the deep blue evening, the man mutters “this shit just keeps on happening til you’re dead.”

I think about that character a lot, Bill Houston. Here’s another great line: “It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized now that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was.”

I feel that way sometimes. On the edge of a great change within me but still tethered to the past, to my lonely self and all the bad decisions and deep depressions I’m prone to. Reminds me of a great line from a Reigning Sound song I love, “we could be who we wanna be/if we weren’t who we are.”

But back to Dylan. Here’s something I find interesting. In one his biggest songs, “Like A Rolling Stone,” he sings “when you ain’t got nothin/you got nothin to lose.” A great line, right? A writer’s line. As Randy Bachman once said, “when you’re looking for a great line, you’d step over your own mother.” Meaning it doesn’t matter how wrong or offensive or mean-spirited the sentiment, if it sounds good, if it pulls the emotional freight of the song, you put it in. “When you ain’t got nothin/you got nothin to lose.” Hard to dispute the conviction young Dylan sang/sneered it with. But the line is ultimately rejected, or amended, by Dylan himself, on a song from Time Out Of Mind. Thirty one years after “Like A Rolling Stone,” the song that made him famous, his voice now ravaged by time and cigarettes, peering out from the liner notes like a bored sage finished with dispensing wisdom and free to just say what’s really on his mind, to the chagrin of friends and family, Dylan sings: “when you think that you've lost everything/you find out you can always lose a little more.”

Now, that’s really pessimistic and sad, I’ll admit. But it’s more true. It’s way truer. Young Dylan sang a line that suggested freedom from constriction, youthful abandon, and cheerfully fucking off to somewhere else on the map. But the elder Dylan sings a wisdom earned, the bare fact that things could always be worse. Losing everything isn’t always a fresh, clean, starting point for people. It can hurt. Sure, Fight Club told a generation of kids that it was silly to love a sofa, and it is. But it’s not silly to love a photo album lost to fire. Or a guitar that’s played three hundred shows stolen from one’s attic by the undiscerning hand of a burglar. Sentimental stuff matters, what burns never returns, and things could always be worse. That’s why I’m so interested in Dylan referencing one of his most famous lines and directly contradicting it. But as pessimistic as the latter line is, there is a hopeful message elsewhere in the song, one that demonstrates a kind of consistency of purpose for Dylan, a message found right smack in the title. Dylan released “Knockin On Heaven’s Door” in 1973, and the song from Time Out Of Mind that I’m talking about is called “Trying To Get To Heaven.”

So Dylan might have been more jaded in 1997, but he was still searching for salvation (his early-80s foray into Christian rock notwithstanding). And that is a positive thing, without a doubt. The reason Dylan went so long without releasing new music in the 1990s is that he’d lost his confidence. 1990′s Under the Red Sky received such vicious reviews that even a seasoned veteran of dismissive reports like Dylan was shocked at their recreational cruelty. One reviewer posited that Dylan must have lost his sanity to have released such a horrible record. And it is a bad record. And so, in a move that other artists really should emulate more often, Dylan decided to shut the fuck up until he had something to say. The two folk albums of ‘92 and ‘93 were released more out of contractual obligation than any feeling of artistic responsibility to his fans or the larger public.

So nobody thought Dylan would come back with worthwhile music, much less one of his all-time great albums, an album that actually yielded a standard, something no other Dylan album has done, with the song “Make You Feel My Love,” which truly is beautiful. Worthy of Sinatra and sung with care. (And Dylan loves Sinatra, as evidenced by his decision to release a triple album of Sinatra covers this year.)

In tenth grade my girlfriend at the time gave me a biography of Dylan that contained interviews from his early years up to Oh Mercy and, best of all, his complete discography. Man, I poured over that discography section. I loved the idea of releasing albums, each one different in vibe. I wanted to do it so badly. In class I did little else but write out fake albums with fake songs on them. I fronted a phantom band called Drainage and we released an album a year all the way up to 2030. I loved the idea of assembling a set of songs, then figuring out which one should go first, a monumental decision, as the first song sets the tone for the subsequent record. The last song is important too - though less so in the mp3 era, and was even declining in importance in the mixtape era - but the lead-off track is unimpeachable. I mean, Nirvana’s “Something In The Way” is a great closer, but “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was born to be a track one. I’m proud of our track one, “Born to Bar Band,” and I think it still holds up over the years, ten of ‘em by now. And it’s not just a okay song, it’s kind of a mission statement. A declaration of intent and a defense mechanism. You can’t tell us our band sucks if we admit it in the first song on our first album. We know we suck. We know we won’t ever be famous. We’ll play bars til we’re forty, we’ll release album til we’re ninety if we live that long. You can count on it. We will never stop releasing albums because I’ve never lost the thrill of writing and recording and mixing and assembling an album and then finding a fitting little image for the front cover. And all of this excitement and obsession started, for me, with Bob Dylan.

So even though I barely listen to him now, I’m still very fond of Bob Dylan. I returned to him a few summers ago when I had a brief but intense flirtation with his 80s oddity/odyssey “Caribbean Wind,” a hallucinatory masterpiece that Dylan was never satisfied with and so never released, inexplicably choosing to afflict us with wretched albums like Knocked Out Loaded and Under the Red Sky, which is the sonic equivalent of a man with a bazooka choosing to fight a street battle using only his pinky toes. Why the hell would Dylan lead with such weak appendages when he had such a powerful weapon in his arsenal? Perversity? Perfectionism? Who knows. You can hear “Caribbean Wind” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQIpNPyOPW4 Remember though, this is older Dylan, sad and solemn, singing about “the pain of rejection and the pain of infidelity.” No protest stuff, just pain.

Speaking of pain, the last season of True Detective had a great line about it’s nature. I forget which character is talking, because they’re all surrogate mouthpieces for Nic Pizzolato - the head writer and creator - but he or she is saying something about pain, expressing wonder that pain never seems to reach a hard limit, a final terminus, a point where “more pain” is no longer possible. Peak pain. But Ray, the archetypal-grizzled-cop-with-a drinking-problem-who-is-prone-to-violence, just shrugs a worldly hungover shrug and mutters a reply: Pain is inexhaustible. It’s only people who get exhausted. Damn. That’s a good one eh? Worthy of Dylan, and almost as bleak as revisiting a famous lyric and editing it through the lens of living thirty-one additional years. Given my unfortunate propensity to ramble and digress, I could probably go on a fifteen page rant about True Detective right now but I’ll just concede that it is a great show, even if it’s the same old song in some ways, it remains yet another mammoth entry in the canon of American highway imagery and storytelling, the first season showing the swamps of Louisiana in such gothic haze, and the second showing the endless intertwining highways of California, where the car is king, with such detached bitterness, that you just want to hire a P.I. to track down Pizzolato and give him a nice big hug.

You can probably tell that I’m sad and tired today. I thought I’d fixed a big problem but I didn’t, and I have 48 hours to get $500 to my landlord. It’s so annoying. This May 19 at 3AMI will be receiving $2200. But I can’t make my landlord wait that long, so I gotta hustle. I’m trying to take on writing/editing gigs but exams just ended last week and most students are done. This is usually vacation week for tutors, the week they’re all finally done and get to go to Jamaica, and here I am begging for work on Kijiji and Craigslist. Bagh.

“I’m only a man and I do what I can,” as Grimes would sing. I worked thirteen hours today, a bizarro shift hosting the Canadian Media Council across the entire building from 6am-7pm, in which we served breakfast, lunch, dinner, and had a post-dinner reception, with an insane amount of setting up tables, carrying bus bins from the sixth floor to the second and back up again, forgetting to bring something down and having to go back up, or down, again and again and again, all day. I felt like I was dreaming or something. The terrace has been set up and wedding season is in full swing now, so I’ll be working about six days a week until mid-December. I’ll still keep an ear and an eye out for other opportunities in the meantime, as it never hurts to try to move on up instead of laterally, but I’m in a secure spot again. I’ve been at O&B eight months now, and most of the tasks are starting to feel like second nature to me, like making crazy cocktails with maple syrup whiskey and orange slices and club soda and lemon juice and pineapple juice and making 100 of them in 10 minutes:

We have a show in Brampton May 22. Can you dig it? Venue TBD. Or TBA. Whichever you prefer. Hey! That just reminded me of something. An involuntary memory, like Proust wrote about. Remember the old cable package back in the early 90s? Back before Teletoon and the History Channel when we had about 45 channels and only five of them were any good? Yeah? Remember Channel 5 that just showed the TV guide? It was a lot like the guide you see now, except that you couldn’t scroll through it, it scrolled at its own pace, showing five channels for five seconds, then moving on. I used to watch Channel 5 when nothing else was on, just to watch something, sort of how later on I’d stare at CP24 for so long that I’d inadvertently memorize the headlines. Man Hit By Bus at Dixie and Courtney Park. Vaughan Woman Accidentally Shoots Dog In Snout. Two Dead After Bank Robbery Goes Wrong. Stuff like that.

Anyway, if Channel 5 didn’t have the pertinent info from a given station, they would put “To Be Announced” instead of putting a question mark (which would have made them seem stupid, like “uhh, we don’t know what’s on that channel at that time. Sorry?”) or leaving it blank (again, stupid). So they put “To Be Announced” - not the acronym TBA - in the spot, and I used to think that it was a TV show. I thought that there was a wildly popular show called To Be Announced that seemed to be on a shitload of channels that I’d somehow never seen. I’d try to watch To Be Announced and it’d be some soap opera. Other times it’d be the Simpsons, which was just fine with me, yet still confusing. Later on, when I learned that “To Be Announced” was adult shorthand for “the show airing at this time on this channel will be announced later,” I remained confused. It never was actually announced, in the proper sense of the word. So now, getting more specific/pathetic in my gullibility, I’d stare at Channel 5 for hours, waiting for it to cut to a talk-show like thing, a cheering crowd and an “Applause!” sign and a man with a microphone cheerily announcing the shows that would be shown on each respective channel.

ANNOUNCER: And on Channel Four at 7:30, it’s Wheel of Fortune! How great. For people who like that show, that is. Of course on Channel Five it’s us, the whole scrolling TV guide deal, or this specific show, the announcing show, which we should probably call To Be Announced so that certain suburban kids don’t get confused. And on Channel Nine at 7:30 we’ve got Baking With Pretzels (and Brenda Bunson) which sound just...god-fucking-awful if I can be deadly serious for a second...I mean, talk about declining standards on televison, eh people? Who is this Bunson bitch? I’ve never heard of her. CROWD: hisses and boos ANNOUNCER: Shut the fuck up! Seriously, why does Brenda Bunson get a show on Channel Nine when I’m stuck down here announcing her shitty show? I’ve got ideas! Good one! Why can’t I be on real TV? Huh? MAN OFFSCREEN: inaudible mumbling ANNOUNCER: What? Fired? Are you fucking kidding me? Why?! MAN OFFSCREEN: more inaudible mumbling ANNOUNCER: For swearing in front of viewers?! Todd, we’re Channel Five! We don’t have viewers!!! Except for some gay kid from Brampton who imagines this is all actually happening!! MAN OFFSCREEN: slightly angrier inaudible mumbling ANNOUNCER: Homophobic remarks!? (throws microphone at man offscreen) MAN OFFSCREEN: *surprised grunt of pain* ANNOUNCER: Aw, suck a dick, Todd! Fuck you! And you! (points at camera...stomps away...door slams...car drives away....car smashes into other car...sirens approach....ambulance arrives...ambulance drives off...ambulance smashes into a train...helicopter arrives...helicopter explodes...)

And so on, into the night. Sorry, Channel Five was so boring that I used to imagine it was better, usually involving some kind a tragic Trebek figure screaming at the audience and studio execs, bitter and humiliated and getting fired at the end of every episode, only to be replaced by another man who will eventually be driven insane from the tedium of the job and also go insane in a slightly different, televisionally inappropriate manner.

What does this have to do with Dylan, you ask? Nothing, I reply.

Except one time I was watching Channel Five and it said Big Time on at 9PM on Showtime. I checked it out and it was a Tom Waits concert. I’d never heard of Tom Waitssi I checked it out and was enthralled. He’d definitely been schooled by the Beat writers and Dylan’s lonesome traveler thing. So from Waits I went backward and checked out his influences, one of whom was Bob Dylan. So I guess you could say they’re connected. If it hadn’t been for Channel Five and it’s maddening scrolling TV Guide (if you blinked or didn’t read fast enough you had to wait a few minutes for them to tell you what was on the channel whose program you wanted to know about), I never would have gotten into Bob Dylan, and subsequently never would have become obsessed with making albums, and subsequently never would have formed The Big City Nights with the sole intention of making recordings, and making a lot of them, if not for Channel Five. I owe all our songs to that channel. Our prolificacy too. Hell, our first day as a band, albeit with a different lineup, we recorded eight songs (though only three of them made the For Shame EP), which is nuts considering Mitch hadn’t heard them before, though James broke this record twice over in December 2015 when he recorded drums for 17 songs he hadn’t heard until that day, ans he did it in three hours. That’s pro-prolific. I mean, professionally prolific. All along, this was supposed to be a prolific project. And it is. Thanks to Channel Five and Bob Dylan. When you think you’ve written enough songs/You find that you can write a little more.

Coming soon: Bands I’ve Been In Vol. 13103843: Pretty In Pink (w/ James and Carey) and why recording with that band was the worst experience ever that directly led to the creation of BCN

My Morning Jacket, Elk City, in a Bands I Love post

the QOTSA/Kyuss thing maybe.

Bands I’ve Been In Vol. 32742347: The Circus (a bit of a cheat because I was only in the band for a few months and participated more from the sidelines, but a hugely important band in my development as a person of interest...LAWL)

That’s the news, lose yer blues.

#thebigcitynightsband

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