I'm just a teenage shitbag, baby

Author

cooter doodle
September 23, 2023

Check on your friends who are actively trying to self-sabotage. Not me though. I started Matt Breida in Week 3 because I knew he’d score, okay? OKAY!?

Let’s get into it:

Chasing John Cusack

"And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep. She kind of half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times...it just kills me.”

― High Fidelity - from the novel by Nick Hornby, except it’s from the movie with John Cusack.

I first watched High Fidelity as a teen and this scene altered how I fundamentally wanted to be perceived.

In 22 seconds, John Cusack(read: the character Rob Gordon) made me desire the affections of brooding boys everywhere.

I wanted them to romanticize my most mundane actions. I wanted them to make all time top-five lists about my little quirks. And damnit, I wanted to rub my feet together in bed like a little cricket in the hopes that someone would see it, perceive it, love it, and maybe some day write a book about it.

So much of my youth was wasted on trying to catch the attention of John Cusacks.

But I’ve dated them, and it never satisfied. I spent my early 20’s searching for answers to ‘Who am I?’ by looking at myself through the eyes of men. Trying to see myself how someone else sees me while actively trying to be seen. (I had to read that twice, too.)

But like an audio signal that degrades when you put it through too many splitters, it only subtracted from the original quality of who I was at my core. I was losing myself in the process. I was watering myself down.

Although mostly subconscious, it took years for me to stop chasing Cusack.

What’s worse, I missed the entire plot point. The main character doesn’t have anything figured out. In fact, he’s actually a “pretentious, hypocritical shitbag”.

But to be absolutely clear, I’ve also wanted to be the teenage shitbag.

I’ve wanted to be the self-loathing, record collecting, mix-tape curator. I’ve wanted to frame my mistakes as though I was the one that’s been hurt by the world. To feel something. To feel validated in my actions.

And as much as I want to tell myself that I’ve grown. That I’ve moved past this invisible draw to Nick Hornby’s ideology of man. Sometimes I catch myself, late at night when I can’t get to sleep, rubbing my feet together.

And I’m reminded of that part of me that might always care about how someone sees me. That part of me that still wants to be seen. I can’t fully escape her.

And I hate to admit how much I hate that part of me. Like some kind of stranger, that I thought I’d left behind.

But sometimes I wonder if I smother her out, if I might lose some of my favorite parts of me, too.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I have to go rub my feet together.

Two Truths and a Lie:

A. I liked drawing eyes when I was younger until I saw an episode of CIS where a serial killer liked drawing eyes. So then I started drawing hands.

B. I used to think that “March Madness” was a period of time when college students experience high levels of anxiety studying for final exams. And one time at dinner someone asked if I liked March Madness and I told them that Biology 102 was giving me a lot of trouble.

C. I have never cried while listening to Blink 182.

Things I’d share if we were in a group chat together:

Tell your friends you care about them. Until next time. -cd