not dead

Not like Salinger is, anyway. More than a bit of a freak, but c'est la vie, some geniuses are. I remember I tried to tackle Catcher in the Rye for the first time in the seventh grade, but not surprisingly I wasn't yet able to process it at the age of twelve. I don't think I picked it up again until sophomore year, at which point I believe I burned through it within a week, excited by it on a level I didn't wholly understand yet but became eager to explore. In fact, I think Catcher was what opened the floodgates for me and serious literature - after it, I unconsciously started to drop genre reading and juvenile/general lit altogether and gradually moved into the classics' territory, and I've rarely ventured out ever since.

Speaking of venturing out, I've been really terrible about my resolution to keep to myself more often than not this semester. I blame it on just being a nice gal. Too polite to turn down invitations, not devious enough to come up with a convincing lie. And maybe just a little bit lonely, but that's always true, and it's never alleviated, no matter how many radically different crowds I experiment with. Right now, there are 4 event invites staring at me on Facebook - one from Phi Kappa (sorority/fraternity kid crowd) one for a poetry slam (hipster crowd), one for a themed party (hipster crowd), and one for a themed birthday party (hipster crowd. I am admittedly most popular with the hipsters). All of which would occupy both of my Friday and Saturday nights for the next two weeks, and a couple of which conflict with each other. On top of all that, I've been roped in to being a wingwoman for a night of blacklights, booze, and general debauchery this Friday with the neighborly crowd, and that will make me mesh crowds with the sorority/fraternity kid crowd, and meshing crowds never works, ever, and that night is also the themed birthday party with the hipster crowd for which the birthday girl herself invited me personally, and I'm about to flip a shit.

I know it sounds awful and ungrateful, bitching about being in high demand socially, and really, I'm not kidding myself - I know that my company is not considered that valuable or anything. My presence is always enjoyed, but it never makes or breaks an event, except maybe for the few people from each kind of group who do notice when I'm not in attendance and text me about it, i.e. sweeter people, softer souls, and guys who want my lovin's. So I'm not being cocky and stupid. I'm saying that what's really difficult about this is that three entirely different groups that I cannot mix together and often schedule over each other are all after my time.

And damn it, I wouldn't have to hang out with so many people if I were satisfied and fit with a single group, but I'm not, and I don't. The neighborly crowd is made up of just kind, decent people, the hipster crowd is the most intelligent and/or culture-conscious that I can find, and the sorority/fraternity kids are just wild and fun. There isn't a single person on this campus who doesn't underwhelm me within the first ten minutes that I spend talking to them, but they're all great in their own ways. So it's not the loneliness that will make me bother to get dressed up and attend these parties - I would feel alone no matter how many people I surround myself with. It's more the guilt that would come with lying to them to get out (or worse, telling the truth), and the obligation to maintain all the relationships that both they and I have bothered to build.

I would like to match the way I feel with the way I physically am. I don't want to go to parties or poetry slams or this thing and that. I don't want to be on lagom with everyone. If I'm going to bother spending time and energy on and with someone, I want that someone to be able to understand and accept me for everything that I am. So far the only person that can do that is - uh, my mom.

My ex calls me "dull" and "common." He says it will be easy for me to find someone new. God damn. I beg to differ.