1:16 p.m. the clock on my living room wall taunted, the tick, tick, tick of the second hand like water constantly dripping from a faucet.
Ten, fifteen, twenty… I counted the hours back until I almost got all the way to fucking fifty and rubbed my eyes.
Well, fuck. I’ve been awake for forty-eight consecutive hours.
This probably wasn’t the time to get on my computer and record myself talking about this article, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I’m way more of a lover than a fighter, and I hardly ever get revved up or rattled by anything.
But I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins now.
If this Lola Sexton was going to keep putting this kind of shit out into the universe, it was only fair that I balanced the effect by sending an opposing view out into the same space.
Right? Damn right.
Besides, I coached myself, the only one she isn’t doing a disservice to is herself, assuming she actually believes the “advice” she’s spewing rather than focusing on selling. These people need this.
Convinced of my necessity, of the very principle by which I lived, I opened my computer and spun my finger on the mouse pad to rouse the screen. It came to life far slower than my current patience level demanded, but before I reached out and smashed it like I was so tempted to do, I stopped and took a deep breath.
Why the hell am I so worked up over this?
I searched the recesses of my mind for an answer, but it never came.
It doesn’t matter why, my sleep-deprived brain reasoned. It just matters that you are. Get it out.
Blindly, I obeyed, clicking into my camera and setting it to the video function.
I didn’t have a plan, and for me, that was nothing new. I just had feelings to get off my chest, and this was the fastest, most effort-effective way to do it.
I centered myself in the screen and clicked the red button to record before reaching forward, shoving the window open and pulling a cigarette from the full pack on the desk in front of me.
Patting my pockets until the bulk of my lighter formed a mound between my hand and body, I pulled it out and flicked the wheel. A flame flew up to singe the end of my waiting paper. One deep inhale and I was ready to roll.
“Hello, world,” I greeted cheekily, pulling the smoke from my lips and leaning back in my seat. A teasing smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth, the idea that anyone other than me would see this thing laughable in every possible way. This could be just a very vivid dream.
I leaned forward and pulled the rolled newspaper from my back pocket and splayed it wide on the surface of my desk, so I could reference it if necessary. I doubted it’d come to that—I had this fucker pretty well memorized.
“Today seemed like it’d be any other Wednesday as I ventured home from work and stopped by one of my favorite refueling stations—aka coffee hangouts—Hallowed Grounds. Seriously, if anyone ever happens to see this shit, stop in and give Tony a visit, and tell him I sent you.”
I took a drag of my cigarette and smiled, a wicked gleam in my eye and my heart.
“Tell him you want the twenty-percent Reed Luca discount. He may resist a little at first, but he promised it to me this morning, so just keep at him. He really likes that.”
I bit my lip as I thought about how much Tony would fucking hate that. Please, let at least one San Franciscan see this fucking video.
“Another patron got up after reading the little article that led to this sleep-deprived reflection, and I have to theorize that her blind and immediate distrust of me was facilitated by the contents of her reading.”
I picked up the paper from the desk and flashed it toward the camera.
“Sex Says,” I read. “The byline reads Lola Sexton, and if you are, in fact, a real person, Miss Sexton, I entreat you.”
“Stop dictating. Stop telling. And stop goddamn lumping every human being into one obscure heap. It may seem like a good idea, in theory, helping the pleading factions by subsidizing their lack of opinion with some of your own, but the only thing blanket advice is good for is smothering individuality.”
“One size does not fit all when it comes to people, problems, love, and intrigue. One size does not fit all when it comes to dating and the possibility of more. One size does not fit all when it comes to what a man is looking for, what he’s expecting, and what you should expect out of him.”
“It’s true, some guys don’t call because they have better options or don’t click with you at all. Some don’t call because one of their most prominent personality traits is most easily described as assholeishness. And some don’t call—and they never will—because a steady girl isn’t what they’re looking for.”
“But some men don’t call because the woman they spend a couple of mundane hours with isn’t the woman you are. It’s some bland, scrubbed-down version thanks to articles like this one and the stereotypes they perpetuate. Some men don’t call because the confidence you lack is small in comparison to the vast emptiness of their own.”
“Be you. Not what some faceless Simon behind a computer tells you to be—and not what the person you’re trying to impress wants. There shouldn’t be a fucking break-in period before you can be you or an amount of time you should wait to make a move. And there are instances you should be able to give a guy the benefit of the doubt. If you’re bold, be bold. If you’re clingy, cling. Because there are seven billion people in the world, and Reed This, Sex Says: There’s someone out there for everyone. But good fucking luck finding the right one for you while you’re pretending to be someone else.”
I brought my cigarette to my mouth and leaned forward at once, stopping the recording on one last frame of my face, smoke obscuring the details.
Lola Sexton’s words didn’t directly tell anyone to pretend to be someone else, but that was the ripple effect. Sweet, trusting women would go into dates jaded by the past and a skewed sense of what every signal a man sent must “mean.” They’d discount a nervous, otherwise caring guy because he didn’t have the confidence to make his feelings known immediately. There were no hard or fast rules in love, and her column read like there were.
Not one to blog in the past, I wasn’t proficient in any aspect of it now. But after a few minutes of fiddling, I finally got the video uploaded to a YouTube account I’d just created, and I left it to find a small home in the world.
Maybe it would find someone who needed to see it, needed to hear it, and maybe it wouldn’t.
But it gave me the outlet I needed to move on.
With one last drag, I shut my computer, stubbed out the cigarette in my ashtray and stumbled to my bed, pulling my T-shirt over my head and falling face first into the covers gracelessly.
I didn’t set an alarm, and I didn’t struggle to find sleep. Confident in who I was and what I wanted out of life, I drifted off like a content baby in the womb.