Do you ever look at your life and think, This is the opposite of what I wanted to happen … ?
That’s the problem with wanting things. There’s no guarantee you’ll get them and often what you want is quite a superficial longing for something. Whether it’s a person or a thing or a trip or a job … none of it really matters in the grand scheme of things, does it? Take, for example, my painfully prolonged obsession with Dale after we broke up. Knowing what kind of person he is now, there’s no way there was ever going to be lasting happiness there. Infatuation often makes one blind to the reality of the situation, which is that he is a dickhead and I am not, so it was never going work on that basis alone.
I wanted a first. I did not get a first. I had a momentary pity party in which I stood in my room getting dressed after a shower, tears streaming down my face. I caught myself in the mirror, which is never good when crying because I look particularly red and awful when I cry. For some reason I didn’t have that kind of anguished sobbing look though, almost as if someone had just forgotten to turn the tap off on my face and tears were just trickling out. I realised, I didn’t deserve a first. In fact, I’m quite sure that I barely scraped by with the quasi-decent mark I did receive considering that, despite my intelligence, I’m very, very inherently lazy when it comes to academia, and it’s my own fault for choosing a subject which involves absolutely no creative thinking whatsoever. Not interested. Not really that bothered. The tears were more of a release of months of relentless stress and emotion when it comes to everything, not just exams, in my life.
Which brings me to what I now want. I have come to terms with and accepted that I have a deeply profound attraction to Bear. I want him to be mine. Which is a perfect example of a superficial want – is it only because I can’t have him? Is it a subconscious desire to hurt his girlfriend for being such an awful person? I wish it was superficial, but unfortunately he is just one of those people that people gravitate towards. He is lovely and kind and attractive and something anyone would want really. But, having cheated and been cheated on it just isn’t something I would ever attempt. So until he’s single I think our friendship has to take a hiatus. Which makes me immensely sad. Exceedingly more so than my degree, which is probably why I didn’t get the result I wanted.
Which brings me to my next point, that while wanting things is pretty useless, being passionate about things is crucial. To spend one’s life floating around in a sea of want leads to misery and unsatisfactory realisations of what you thought you wanted. I thought I wanted Dale, and while he is undoubtedly a charismatic and energetic character, he is the most immature excuse of a man I’ve ever met. Which makes for a great drinking buddy, but for a terrible, terrible boyfriend. He’s now gone so far as to deny that I was his girlfriend as a chat up line, which made me momentarily consider that perhaps I was absolutely mental and really over-fantasised the relationship we had. Luckily modern technology allows for the textual evidence of our relationship. Our text message log, and my subsequent blog stories about him, confirm that he was indeed my boyfriend. Luckily our relationship was quite public as well so his attempt at pulling with this line fell on the sceptical ears of a girl who knows me. I thought I wanted a first, but here I am, less than a few days after getting my results, and pretty much over the fact that months of revision didn’t really pay off as I’d hoped they would. Instead, I’m doing what I do best. Drinking and writing. Which is, quite honestly, basically what I’ve been doing the whole time. This is my standard mode of operation and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Being dumped by Dale sucked, but it made for some good writing. Not getting a first was pants, but time spent outside of the library and department was spent doing things that this blog wouldn’t exist without. Do I regret anything? Never. Even the prolonged agony over Dale has made me realise that I never, ever, want to feel that way again and that I’m much more successful on my own than I am in a relationship. It’s a sobering reality but it’s just the way I am. It’s the way most people are I feel, and even if I were to get what I now want – being Bear – there’s a long, long list of sacrifices that would have to be made in order to make it work. I’m too selfish for that. The only time I can honestly foresee myself being selfless for another human being is when (if) I have a child. (I only say ‘if’ because, you know, I could be hit by a bus or something.)
Whilst having Poppy pull me aside in the middle of a party to whisper, ‘Don’t be upset,’ a preface which is almost always followed with something deeply upsetting, ‘but I heard that Dale told that girl he’s been chatting up all night that you two never dated’ could pretty much be the definition of the opposite to what I’d ever want to happen, it did happen. Whilst having the cold harsh reality that I’m not the genius that I thought I was and didn’t get away with doing fuck all for 85% of my time this year, I didn’t get away with it – and rightly so, it would have been a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to everyone who actually works like Oxbridge students around me. I don’t know any of those people though. I sat with RG outside of Russ’ window for an hour on suicide watch in case he didn’t pass his degree, he did though, so we were then on suicide watch in case he drank himself to death celebrating. My life as it is, isn’t something that I imagined that I wanted, which is good because I could never have imagined a life as fantastical as the one I have now. When I was fourteen I was sat in an office at my school and told to write down what I wanted to be in life when I was 18, 21, and 30. I put ‘happy’ on all of them. I’ve done a pretty spot-on job of achieving that for the most part, and everything else is just extra benefits. Happiness cannot exist without polarity, so though there have been shit times (as you all well know), those are essentially just the times that interrupt my otherwise blissful existence. Writing about them is a sort of therapy really, which is why this blog is exactly what it promises to be – a representation of my sex life, which in reality is one of the smaller aspects of my life. Dating is going to become one of the nonexistent aspects of my life as I just can’t be fucked any more to care. Shagging however, is always on the cards.
Then again I did meet quite a handsome boy yesterday … His new nickname is already Future Boyfriend. Or Future Shag. One of the two is bound to happen, and considering our busy travelling schedules this summer it’s probably going to be the latter.
I think Rosie summed things up quite accurately in an email I just received. Her and Briony and I have an email ring in which we tell each other every in and out of our lives to keep up – an especially useful tool throughout exam term when face to face contact came to a full stop. I quote:
‘So...remember how SAO has been plagued by imbeciles throughout 2011? Well, she finally told them all what she thought of them, which won't do them any harm at all seeing as they are mostly self-important immature idiots with inflated egos.
I find the idea of Dale flirting quite hilarious. As I'm sure I've told you before, he has really let himself go since you and he broke up. He's become bloated, his hair needs much more TLC than he evidently gives it, and since the sun has been out he generally looks a peculiar shade of lobster. I think really the problem is that now when I look at him I see an inconsiderate 12 year-old arsehole, which is not a good look this season. I know you say that this doesn't make you feel any better because you're way out of his league and still he found some way to wheedle out of being with you, but one day you'll look back on the boy and think ‘dodged’ and ‘bullet’. Good riddance!”*
*Some names have been changed, and her reference to me telling people what I thought is a nod to the pieces of my mind I’ve given away to those who have wronged me or my friends in the past. I refuse to remain silent when someone is a dickhead, and I’ve never regretted standing up for myself. It’s the not standing up for myself I would regret, which is why I lay all the cards on the table. There is nothing I’ve written here that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. In fact I’ve said most of it to people’s faces. Or to their phones. Or pigeon holes. It’s no secret that I’m a more eloquent writer than I am a drunken shouter, but regardless in one way or another I get the messages across. Recently I’ve been practicing face-to-face combat though. It’s kind of exhilarating in a way, but something best reserved for special occasions.
Huzzah to my best friend Rosie for putting everything in perspective, and if she does ever happen upon this blog, which is so comically unlikely due to her ignorance to technology (subsequent email was titled ‘Can I get my results online??’), she should know that I love her so, so very much.
And finally, thank you to anyone who reads this blog for getting me through this year – I might have run away to Greece or something had it not been for the encouraging comments and sympathy of everyone, so it can’t go unmentioned that your support was instrumental in my (relative) sanity.
People keep asking me what I’m going to do after Oxbridge, to which I reply, who ever said I was a finalist? ;)
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