penguinpride

Tonight I read a quote by Emma Watson saying that despite her fame, she does not feel that she has lost her youth. The quote made me think, and I soon came to the conclusion that although I am not famous or rich like Miss Watson, I have lost my youth. But this theft was not forced upon me by outside forces, such as stardom, but by my own selfish desires. I realized that most of my time these days are not spent hanging out at people’s houses, the beach, restaurants, paintball arenas, pools, or anywhere else. Most of my time is spent by myself, thinking up some new business strategy for my mythical media conglomerate, or a new foreign policy to bolster my imaginary nation’s place in the world.

But in my mind, neither the company nor the country is merely in my mind; I treat them as real as George W. Bush treats the United States or like Ted Turner had treated his company.

I know I have no life, when everything boils down to the core of everything, and will never be a success in politics or business if this keeps up. But I really don’t know how to get out of this rut.

I suppose this is my equivalent of crying out my admission of guilt, but instead of a criminal court, nobody is listening here. It is so easy to post on Rose In Fist, but when it comes to building a social life *almost* from scratch, I start thinking that maybe my fantasies are a far better reality.

But how am I supposed to create this social life? I am about to enter my senior year in high school, and have never participated in a single club or activity which would put me in connection with other people with similar interests or abilities. However, let me make this clear: the reason behind this is not because I do not want to be around people, it is because most of the clubs do not represent my interests.

But then again, what are my interests? Blogging is certainly not an interest of mine. Although I do it, this is actually my first-ever personal post. (If you want proof look through the history.) It may also be my last.

Some say that a man’s interests are what he has done for most of his life. But I have done absolutely nothing of any use to anyone, not even myself, for the last seventeen years of my life. Certainly nothing that has brought me into contact with anyone, other than school. I see myself as a boring person. My ideal role in a movie would be that of the narrator. I find that the people who are popular tend to be the people who are interesting. I’m not saying I want to be popular; all I want is something to do. I suppose I have finally reached the point where I am burned out on myself.

Others say that what a man has done for most of his life is not necessarily his main interest, but instead what he is good at. I liked this statement much better than the first one, because it makes a lot more sense. Someone could have been a carpenter for his entire life, but hated every minute of it. However, by the time he retires, he is undeniably a good carpenter. But then I applied the statement to myself and drew a blank. Having done nothing my entire life, I am therefore good at nothing. I am therefore skill-less.

Don’t think that I am ignorant to the fact that my problems are trivial compared to 99.9% of the world. I know that in ways, I am blessed. But, I wonder why so many people I know are having a wonderful summer, while I am not.

Well, I don’t really wonder. I know why. I just don’t know how I can change that.

Although I suppose for a start I can try to unload the unnecessary burdens I have put on myself: the adult responsibilities I will have to bear soon, but not quite yet. Taking up that burden early is not gallant; it is not noble or heroic. It is really quite stupid. I will never forget the time my church youth group went to the aquarium with our families. While the kids went off and did God-knows-what in the aquarium, I preferred to stay close to my sister and nag her about what to watch out for and where not to lean. I had just told her not to lean too far into the guardrail around the stingray tank (as if it were going to give way any moment) when one of the women told me to “be a kid for once.”

Well truthfully, I had no clue how to be a kid. I didn’t know what kids were supposed to do, having had almost no contact (except school) with other kids. I was not allowed to watch much TV other that those Y-rated, while the girl who my mom was babysitting watched Nickelodeon. I had watched bits of Nick shows at her house, and found them rather amusing. However, I never watched a single show in its entirety, and therefore missed out on all the inside jokes at elementary and middle school. I never even saw Space Jam, which I recall was the subject of 100% of all the inside jokes for about a year.

Why? I really don’t remember. I didn’t have many friends at all in elementary school, and perhaps it was simply because I had nobody to tell me that such a movie was coming up.

Also, I never liked basketball. I had never even heard of Michael Jordan until after Space Jam, when everyone was talking about him in the movie.

Come to think of it, I don’t particularly like any sports. I enjoy watching football, but if my team loses, I get extraordinarily angry. As for playing sports, I don’t like any of them. I have told several friends about this (I certainly have friends now that I am in high school, but they are almost all video-gamers) and they have invariably responded with “maybe that’s because you can’t play the sport.” And perhaps they are right. But is that really my fault?

When most people were starting out playing their sport(s), they are very young indeed (around the age of 5). My parents, however, did not put me in any sport during these years except for soccer, which I played for two seasons without making any progress whatsoever socially. I thought that the point of my playing soccer was so that I could play in games; I never thought of it as a social situation. In fact, I didn’t even want to play for a third consecutive season, because it was “taking too much of my time:” two days per week for practice and a third for a game. And what exactly were these sessions interrupting? To my recollection, the only other thing I accomplished was memorizing all 42 U.S. Presidents in order.

Now which of those would have proven more beneficial to me today? What use has knowing all the presidents in order served me at all? What a colossal waste of my time. I should have stayed in soccer; I was actually a rather good sweeper. It’s a shame, really. I could be on the varsity team by now.

See? Playing soccer is interesting to people. Playing just about any sport is interesting to people. It gives people something to talk about when they talk to you. Even being in our school plays is interesting to people (unfortunately for me I can’t act. Here is proof).

Instead, I have nothing to offer and am therefore obligated to start every conversation myself, which usually winds into a dead-end as the other person grows either tired or uncomfortable of talking about themselves and subsequently find they have nothing more to say. With me not being able to relate to anything, the conversation ends and I am not really anywhere further along the path than I was before.

So why don’t I do something interesting?

What can I do? And with whom? Nothing and with nobody. And it’s not as though I haven’t thought about doing things. There is a girl I know who I would like to know better, but I have no way of getting in contact with her. I therefore rounded up three options for myself:

1. I could get a membership at the pool I know she goes to (she told me herself). That way the opportunity would at least be open for us to converse. Of course I would not be able to go alone, but then the problem arises: who to go with? Most of my friends would much rather play Guitar Hero than go to a pool. Then there is the small problem that the pool in question is for paying members only, and not just any paying members. They have to live in a certain part of town, a part of town that happens to be rather far away from where I live. Even if I were able to fake an address and pay the $400 membership fee (which I cannot afford), how would I get there? I don’t even have a car. Besides, once I was at the pool, what was I supposed to do? I can’t even swim!

2. I could simply talk via comments over MySpace, then ask for her number and talk over the phone. This method worked for one of my friends, but….

… when I tried it out myself, I felt as if I was dragging conversation out of her rather than her being interested in anything going on in my life. (Why would she? There is nothing to be interested about…) The failure of this idea led directly to idea #3.

3. I could give up on her given her obvious lack of interest and pursue someone else. However there is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that anyone else would have any more interest in me than she did. In fact, I imagine that if I were to meet myself, I would not care what he has been doing with himself.

Because even if I cared enough to ask him, the answer would be a rather truthful, “Nothing.”

Unfortunately for me, number 3 was the most plausible of all the ideas. Number 1 was doomed to failure due to countless flaws, and number 2 had already failed.

See, here I go writing up complex strategies, when it works so naturally for people who “know how to be kids.” I have noticed gray hairs on my head, and sometimes I get so stressed I feel physically sick. In addition to all these, I looked in the mirror the other day, getting ready to go to work at Chick-fil-A and I noticed that when I smiled and looked around the area of my eyes, the skin itself looked old, and worn out. I wondered if perhaps I was looking at the face of my father, who is turning fifty in a matter of months.

Emma Watson is only two months older than I am, and is more successful and more interesting than I am, and yet she still feels (and likely acts) younger than I do. She enjoys life more than I do (although there is not much enjoying required to enjoy life more than I do).

That’s not fair, but then again, neither is life.