February Focus: Day 14
I’m having trouble believing anyone is actually happy these days. I may certainly be projecting, but it just feels like people are putting on one big show. For whom, I do not know. All I know is, it’s an acting gig I do not want to sign up for.
The other day I walked by a Tiktok couple filming outside. The guy had his arm around her neck, and pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek as she did a peace sign and a duckface. I’d like to think they used the take where I videobombed them, turning around just in time to give a helluva look at the camera. I saw my big red jacket in the viewfinder, so I know at least one take made it. I looked back as they gathered it things up, moving immediately to pulling out their respective phones and burying their faces into them. So that adorable moment they just had was nothing but a show for the cameras. When all is said and done, it’s right back to caring about what everyone else thinks, rather than just enjoying a moment with a person you like. And I don’t know about you, but if it was my ‘job’ to portray that to an audience day in and day out, I’d certainly have hard time keeping it ‘up.’
It’s not like I think people should be alone. What do I expect, couples to never go on vacation? To walk around without holding hands? To never take photos together? Get married? Have babies? Of course not. People do these things every single day. What I’m failing to grasp these days is just how real it all is. There’s such insecurity that comes with every single relationship, and I feel like if they were truly meant to be, people wouldn’t have to try so hard to convince others it’s working. It would just be, and no one would hear about it. All the ‘advice’ peddled by random bloggers or internet personas is all fine and dandy, but if everyone’s different, how effective can it really be? What works on your husband didn’t work on mine. What an asshole, right? Well then why did you marry the poor schmuck if that’s how you feel? Maybe this all goes back to my only childom, but it makes absolutely no sense to have to fake being who I truly am in order to maintain the illusion that I’m happy with my choices. And this doesn’t just extend to couples. Chelsea Handler showed us all how unbelievably happy and fulfilled she is about being childless with this sketch. So I guess we’re all a bunch of phony big-O fakers around here.
On the whole, I like to think I’m a reasonably happy person, but I don’t need to prove how to anyone, especially not the internet. I have insecurities just like the rest of us. I just don’t have them about a relationship, because I’m not in one. That doesn’t mean I want to hear about everyone else’s. I don’t need to know what your boyfriend or your wife thinks about a subject I’m currently talking to you about. I don’t want to hear updates I didn’t ask for about a person I’ve never met. To me, that’s just signal signal signal about one’s status, which makes me think it’s doomed for failure the more I hear it turn into complaints. And sooner or later, I may drop the act and tell you how I really feel about that d*ckhead you married, since nothin’ gets me hotter than a good ol’ fashioned b*tchfest.
I hope when it’s time for me to have all this, which I submit I may never see in this life, that I’ll find the security within and not pay a single solitary mind what other people think. I truly believe what’s real just is, with no need to force it into place. I don’t need a designated day to love someone, I just will. And there won’t be any need to fake it. It will, and I will, come naturally. Isn’t that the goal of any good loving union?
balanced & fair 