Sunday, October 12, 2008

Stuck in the Shoals

Last night I had a date. At least, I want to believe it was. Of course nothing happened, and for that I have no one to blame but myself. I need to seriously ponder if I've matured at all since high school. I still make a far better supportive female friend than an interested male date. I know I've accumulated more street knowledge, and am slowly coming to terms with how to tell a joke or two, but in terms of actual social development it feels like I'm standing on the shore of a great sea of doubt and watching the waves of failure continually crash against me.

I don't think it's my appearance, though admittedly I still wear glasses. I try to exude an air of cool and hip, but appearances are only meaningful to the pathetically shallow. Maybe I am shallow... how would I know?

I brought her a dozen cute roses. She didn't give a shit. An obligation to put them in water. No need to display them somewhere. Perhaps this is a tradition that died decades before I was born and no one told me? Yet another example of having absolutely zero experience with these things. What did I seriously do in college? Aren't you supposed to learn how to be a real person in college?

I made it a case to take off my shirt to show her my tattoo. Nothing. I felt like a girl switching dresses with her friend. And the really sad part? I would love to do that. If I really do make a better girl, than what do I do with that? Certainly I have no lesbian waiting for me, as I lack the needed accouterments. Physically I'm short, but I need about ten more years of yoga before I can pass as female. And why would I seriously want that? Supposedly my friend Janine became a woman because she wanted to experience lesbian sex. I want to be a woman so I can, what? Fit in? What an oxymoron.

What is needed to be a successful man? Power, wealth, abuse of women, some other awful stereotype I'm not capable of? If I were to trace my history of masculinity back, I can't find the divergence. As soon as my brother was in middle school he was attracting the opposite sex. I was, what? Being awkward and inadequate. Both of my brothers are now happily married (mostly). There has to have been some critical stage in male development I never was presented with. Some test of manhood which decides if you sink or swim as a guy, and I got lost and never found the proctor.

This all of course negatively effects my self-image. If I thought I was god's gift to women, I probably would be. Instead I find myself on the road to loneliness and too many cats in my mid-twenties. WTF. Is there really anything that can be done at this point to feel comfortable in my own skin? For years I couldn't even look at myself, spare to shave. If I do so now it's as one might look disgusted upon Buffalo Bill.

I make for a dutiful son, but what does that say? I'm sure I would make for just as dutiful a daughter.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if we've never developed sentience. If I didn't ever have to look at myself in the mirror. Maybe I'd be one of the jackles who waits in the wings for his time to pounce. Psychology doesn't work like that. If I don't take it upon myself to be interesting, witty, fun, drunk with life, sexy, miskept, whatever else there is that makes men attractive to women, how can I ever know what success feels like? I don't want to go my entire life hoping the right woman will come along. I'd rather know NOW that I'm a complete failure and should become a Buddhist monk.