What I meant: “Really? Because I don’t feel anything. What is that supposed to feel like?”
“He was such a happy person.”
What I said: “Yeah…”
What I meant: “No, he was actually chronically prone to depression. And what does it matter anyway? He died. And he could’ve been very happy or very unhappy or somewhere in between and all three are irrelevant. Is that vague assumption supposed to make me feel better? Why are we even talking about it?”
“He was like my best friend.”
What I said: “Oh yeah! I’m sorry I’m just really out of it. What’s your name again?”
What I meant: “I’ve never met you before and you just want pity in the face of tragedy.”
“It’ll get better.”
What I said: Nothing, probably.
What I meant: “When it starts to get better it will only mean I have started the process of letting him go, and that is equally as disturbing as the tragedy itself.”
“I heard his song on the radio today while I was thinking of him. I mean what are the chances? It was him, I could feel it.”
What I said: “Wow that’s crazy.”
What I meant: “Whoever decided to assign him a song chose one of the most popular hits on the radio recently. Of course you heard it. Also, he would have never chosen Jay-Z‘s remake of Forever Young to be his song.”
“Hi I’m so and so, I met him a month ago and we’ve been kind of seeing each other. I miss him so much.”
What I said: “Oh, that must be hard for you.”
What I meant: “I’m sorry, I want to sympathize but I can’t stop thinking about punching you in the face. Excuse me, I need a drink.”
“He really loved you.”
What I said: “I don’t know about that. I hope so.”
What I meant: “I just want to hear you talk more about how he loved me because we ended on a bad note and I’m insecure about it.”
“He’s watching over you from a better place now.”
What I said: “I know he is. It’s just really hard.”
What I meant: “It’s just really hard because I actually don’t know that he is, and neither do you. I had faith in a place called Heaven but now that it matters I cannot ignore the fact that at the end of the day, I do not know what happened when he slammed on the brakes and his heart decided it was time to go. And if he is up there, then don’t you think he has nobler things to do than to watch me make an ass out of myself here on Earth? HEY, dude nodding in agreement, yeah you. Weren’t you an Atheist before this happened?”
“I’m so sorry.”
What I said: “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
What I meant: “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
What I meant: “Really? Because I don’t feel anything. What is that supposed to feel like?”
“He was such a happy person.”
What I said: “Yeah…”
What I meant: “No, he was actually chronically prone to depression. And what does it matter anyway? He died. And he could’ve been very happy or very unhappy or somewhere in between and all three are irrelevant. Is that vague assumption supposed to make me feel better? Why are we even talking about it?”
“He was like my best friend.”
What I said: “Oh yeah! I’m sorry I’m just really out of it. What’s your name again?”
What I meant: “I’ve never met you before and you just want pity in the face of tragedy.”
“It’ll get better.”
What I said: Nothing, probably.
What I meant: “When it starts to get better it will only mean I have started the process of letting him go, and that is equally as disturbing as the tragedy itself.”
“I heard his song on the radio today while I was thinking of him. I mean what are the chances? It was him, I could feel it.”
What I said: “Wow that’s crazy.”
What I meant: “Whoever decided to assign him a song chose one of the most popular hits on the radio recently. Of course you heard it. Also, he would have never chosen Jay-Z‘s remake of Forever Young to be his song.”
“Hi I’m so and so, I met him a month ago and we’ve been kind of seeing each other. I miss him so much.”
What I said: “Oh, that must be hard for you.”
What I meant: “I’m sorry, I want to sympathize but I can’t stop thinking about punching you in the face. Excuse me, I need a drink.”
“He really loved you.”
What I said: “I don’t know about that. I hope so.”
What I meant: “I just want to hear you talk more about how he loved me because we ended on a bad note and I’m insecure about it.”
“He’s watching over you from a better place now.”
What I said: “I know he is. It’s just really hard.”
What I meant: “It’s just really hard because I actually don’t know that he is, and neither do you. I had faith in a place called Heaven but now that it matters I cannot ignore the fact that at the end of the day, I do not know what happened when he slammed on the brakes and his heart decided it was time to go. And if he is up there, then don’t you think he has nobler things to do than to watch me make an ass out of myself here on Earth? HEY, dude nodding in agreement, yeah you. Weren’t you an Atheist before this happened?”
“I’m so sorry.”
What I said: “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
What I meant: “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”
I’m a late bloomer when it comes to being fast and furious. The franchise never really spoke to me until I saw Fast Five, and that experience changed my life. Shiny muscle cars, throbbing action sequences, and a homoerotic plotline between The Rock and Vin Diesel’s characters that was practically a modern day interpretation of Brokeback Mountain? Yes, please. Because I have a friend who works at Universal and has endured many a drunken soliloquy about how obsessed I am with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, she kindly asked me if I’d like to attend the Fast & Furious 6 premiere as her plus one. To this I said, “Thank you for requesting to accompany me on this journey to meet my soulmate. As repayment for this gift, you can be a bridesmaid at our wedding.”
I sometimes have problems managing my expectations when it comes to glamorous events like premieres, or birthday parties, or nights out at dive bars. I often approach these nights with 100% certainty that the stars will align and something truly magical will happen. More often than not, the most magical thing that happens is me getting home safely after having had one too many drinks, but I count my blessings. Every night out is also an opportunity to die.
Back to Fast & Furious 6, me, The Rock, our future together, etc.: I prepped for the premiere by working out a lot, and talking to everyone I knew about the situation at hand. I got feedback on what to wear–a friend’s boyfriend said “sensible, black pants,” assuring that I will never again ask him for fashion advice, and my best friend from college, said “anything that shows your legs,” further solidifying her best friend status. She also came up with the brilliant opening line: “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Stone Cold Steve Austin?” Add to this that I’d Googled The Rock’s current girlfriend and found out she is a brunette (like me). This, coupled with the right outfit and a hilarious ice-breaker, assured that I was definitely on my way to winning Dwayne’s affection. Let me just clarify that I’m not a boyfriend stealer. I just believe that people who are meant to be together end up together, and Dwayne and I are meant to be, so this was just an opportunity to plant the seed and let the universe take care of the rest.
I arrived at Universal City feeling great about life. Film premieres are generally enjoyable experiences. At the very least you are assured free food and the chance to see a movie before it’s actually out in theaters, and sometimes (as in the case of Fast & Furious 6) a Ludacris concert! Yes, Ludacris and 2 Chainz performed before the movie. They were also joined by a third performer who was wearing a really chic Givenchy shirt, but I didn’t know who he was. Tyrese emceed the whole thing. The concert took place at Universal CityWalk, which is a loud, neon sign-ridden shopping center in The Valley mostly frequented by tourists and…teenagers I guess? Honestly it’s one of the worst places in all of LA and I don’t know who actually goes there for fun, but Fast & Furious 6 is a Universal movie, so you do the math. I didn’t go to the concert, because I cannot deal with a CityWalk moment this late in life, but I did watch a live feed of the show from a bar outside the theater where the movie was showing, and can say that it looked like a blast. I was actually sad to have missed seeing Ludacris perform live, and unfazed re: 2 Chainz. We’re over him now, right? Vin Diesel also got on stage. I was hoping he would sing, but instead he did this weird thing where he’d repeat the same sentence three times in a row. He would say things like “I love you. I love you. I love you,” and, “Get the message. Get the message. Get the message.” I don’t know if he was trying to create an echo effect, or if the three-peat is just a classic Vin Diesel move, but the sentiment was sweet-natured so I let it go.
Once the concert was over, everyone filed into the Gibson Amphitheater to watch the movie itself. All the cast members took their seats right before it started. Ludacris, Tyrese and his girlfriend filed in, and Vin showed up with a huge security escort just as the lights went down, but no Dwayne! It was a little suspicious that he’d been noticeably absent during the pre-movie concert, but my friend had told me he was scheduled to do some sort of promotional appearance at a different theater, so I figured at the very least he’d be showing up for the last half of the film and the after party. I mean, come on! This is Fast & Furious 6 we’re talking about, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is top-billed talent. But the movie started and he was nowhere to be seen.
Fast & Furious 6 is incredible. I’m not even lying. Definitely go see it. It has everything: love, death, a baby, high-octane action, amazing special effects. Vin Diesel and The Rock actually fly through the air, Matrix-style during a couple fight scenes. I think this is new. They certainly didn’t do that in Fast Five. Also, it’s funny! This franchise knows how to serve its audience exactly what they want to see. And can we just talk about Tyrese for a minute? He is living the dream, one Fast & Furious film at a time. His character got the most laughs in Fast & Furious 6, so there you have it: Tyrese Gibson = loving life right now.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t like Fast & Furious 6 as much as I liked Fast Five. I mean, it was amazing but it was also hard for me to pay attention because I kept scanning the theater for people walking in and out, in hopes that they were my love: The Rock. Also let’s be real: Fast Five is a sweaty, glistening, game-changer of a movie, so it’s hard to beat. When a muscular, bald man walked in and sat to the left of the row I was sitting in, I thought destiny had finally thrown me a damn bone but alas, it was not Dwayne Johnson. It was just a bald guy in a suit.
After the film ended I was starting to feel deflated and nauseous, but had to press on because the afterparty was starting! There was a summer barbecue-themed buffet, and a gaggle of go-go dancers gyrating on a stage surrounded by dessert tables, and all the vehicles from the movie on display throughout the party venue. What’s not to love? Surely The Rock wouldn’t want to miss this. Except he did miss it. He missed it all. My suspicions that he wasn’t in attendance were confirmed when a fellow partygoer lamented the fact that he hadn’t shown up. Well this is a wash, I thought to myself. Also, back off bitch. He’s mine.
I drank a few beers and indulged in more mini hot dogs than I would have liked, I made one of my friends take a picture of me in front of the movie poster pointing at The Rock’s crotch, Michelle Rodriguez took over the DJ booth for a while and played some really basic top 40 hits. Then Vin Diesel grabbed the mic and did another “Get the message,” three-peat, which at this point I found more confusing than endearing. 2 Chainz was hanging around but he’s not that exciting anymore so I didn’t care. His chic Givenchy-wearing rapper friend was running around being tinier than I expected him to be. The most surprising thing about the party was how many cute guys were in attendance. If I hadn’t been so upset about The Rock not being there, I would have totally talked to one of them.
It was officially time to go when Vin Diesel left the party flanked by ten huge security guards. He walked right past me, and hugged a fan on the way out who completely lost her shit–like, dropped to her knees screaming afterwards. I think he and I made eye contact for a split second (he was wearing sunglasses so it’s hard to tell) and all I wanted to say was “I love that Rihanna video you made,” but instead I just waved and weakly bleated “Hi Vin.” Fail. The party was over. The go-go dancers were still doing their thing, but you could tell they were counting the minutes until they could get off that stage, go home and put on some sweatpants. The night was memorable. I got home safely. And as for me and Dwayne, there’s always the Fast 7 premiere. Or Fast 8. Or Fast 9…
My friends all think I’m crazy. Not for leaving — that, they’ve been encouraging me to do for a long time — but for having stayed with you for so long before doing so. They could see that you were good looking, a good dancer, charming enough in conversation. Everyone could see the superficial qualities you possessed. But for me to have given so much of myself to you over such an important chunk of my youth, that was insane. When I told them that I was finally going to cut it off, my friend brought out a bottle of champagne.
You’ll ask me if I love you, and I do. You’ll give me all of these big, overdone speeches about how no one will ever love me like you do — and that’s probably true, actually. People won’t love me the same. They will love me more wholly, more healthily, more meaningfully. Our love will become an unfortunate blip on a timeline, something that I look back on and shake my head. You will be a cautionary tale, and you know it. Even as you throw a dish and tell me that I will be nothing without you.
The truth is that I do love you. I am consumed by you, and partially by how badly you treat me. I have grown accustomed to always being told that what I do is wrong, that I should be doing this instead. It’s almost comforting to have someone there to dictate your life, like your mother laying out your school clothes the night before so you don’t have to think about it. But there is only so far I can get with that kind of love, so much I can allow it to take over my life before I realize that I am only doing myself a disservice. My parents would have never embraced you. My girlfriends would have never forgiven you. And I am not interested in torturing myself with questions of “What if he meets someone else?” I’m sure you will. And maybe you’ll manage to fool her for even longer than you did me.
Because I know that my love for you is something fundamentally unhealthy, something that chips away at my ego and saps at my self-confidence in order to grow something which we all know isn’t going to last. It is an addiction like any other, something that I am paying for with my personality and autonomy and future. And yes, being in bed with you gets me high. Hearing you call me your girlfriend still gives me that thrill. But it comes at far too high a cost. I picture myself staying in this relationship for another year, another three years, the rest of my life — I hate what I see. I hate how many parts of me I allow you to take with you when you walk out of the room, how many opportunities I give up on so that you will believe I really love you.
I love me more. I love the idea of growing into someone who has her own apartment, her own career, her own future that only she dictates. I want to meet the woman I become when I free myself of shitty men like you, when I allow myself to make mistakes and have flings and do all of the things that I would never be able to do with you. You tell me what to do every day because I think you are afraid of what I’ll be without you. Maybe you think I’ll realize that I could do better, or that I simply deserve better. Maybe you think I’ll look in the mirror and notice that I’m beautiful.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is already the case. Goodbye.
My friends all think I’m crazy. Not for leaving — that, they’ve been encouraging me to do for a long time — but for having stayed with you for so long before doing so. They could see that you were good looking, a good dancer, charming enough in conversation. Everyone could see the superficial qualities you possessed. But for me to have given so much of myself to you over such an important chunk of my youth, that was insane. When I told them that I was finally going to cut it off, my friend brought out a bottle of champagne.
You’ll ask me if I love you, and I do. You’ll give me all of these big, overdone speeches about how no one will ever love me like you do — and that’s probably true, actually. People won’t love me the same. They will love me more wholly, more healthily, more meaningfully. Our love will become an unfortunate blip on a timeline, something that I look back on and shake my head. You will be a cautionary tale, and you know it. Even as you throw a dish and tell me that I will be nothing without you.
The truth is that I do love you. I am consumed by you, and partially by how badly you treat me. I have grown accustomed to always being told that what I do is wrong, that I should be doing this instead. It’s almost comforting to have someone there to dictate your life, like your mother laying out your school clothes the night before so you don’t have to think about it. But there is only so far I can get with that kind of love, so much I can allow it to take over my life before I realize that I am only doing myself a disservice. My parents would have never embraced you. My girlfriends would have never forgiven you. And I am not interested in torturing myself with questions of “What if he meets someone else?” I’m sure you will. And maybe you’ll manage to fool her for even longer than you did me.
Because I know that my love for you is something fundamentally unhealthy, something that chips away at my ego and saps at my self-confidence in order to grow something which we all know isn’t going to last. It is an addiction like any other, something that I am paying for with my personality and autonomy and future. And yes, being in bed with you gets me high. Hearing you call me your girlfriend still gives me that thrill. But it comes at far too high a cost. I picture myself staying in this relationship for another year, another three years, the rest of my life — I hate what I see. I hate how many parts of me I allow you to take with you when you walk out of the room, how many opportunities I give up on so that you will believe I really love you.
I love me more. I love the idea of growing into someone who has her own apartment, her own career, her own future that only she dictates. I want to meet the woman I become when I free myself of shitty men like you, when I allow myself to make mistakes and have flings and do all of the things that I would never be able to do with you. You tell me what to do every day because I think you are afraid of what I’ll be without you. Maybe you think I’ll realize that I could do better, or that I simply deserve better. Maybe you think I’ll look in the mirror and notice that I’m beautiful.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that is already the case. Goodbye.
You don’t have the energy to feel this way anymore. It hurts and it’s a waste of time. You need that time to do other things. You need to finish your finals or work on your novel, and you can’t do those things when you’re hurting, not really. You can’t really do anything when you’re hurting, except maybe eat things from jars by the spoonful and lie in bed all day and sigh.
Before you do anything, you need to stop thinking that if you just project enough energy out into the universe, you can change the facts.
These are the facts:
You want her, and
She does not want you.
So you’re going to have to forget her sooner or later.
Unless you’re one of those types that believes in things like destiny and magical thinking, in which case none of this will be helpful.
But if you want to help yourself forget her, here are some ways to try:
First, stop finding excuses to see her. Stop thinking of times of day in terms of where she might be and what she might be doing there and stop putting yourself in her path accidentally on purpose. This will be hard because you’ll have to restructure the way you perceive your days, but changes in perception are good. It helps to keep in mind that it makes no difference to her where you are and what you’re doing there either.
Also, don’t think of her name as Her Name. Train your heart to not freak out and start crazily leaking blood when it pops up on your phone, when you say it, write it, think her name at all. Extract its significance from your limbic system. Repeat it over and over until the sounds don’t make sense anymore and you feel blissfully nothing.
Stop reminding yourself how much you want her. Not that this is the magic cure, it’s that things are only as real as the intensity of the thought you invest in them. De-intensify the thought. This is how you make things less real.
You have to start thinking she’s average. Average people aren’t disarming. No one says, you give me heartstop because you’re so delightfully average. If you’re going to forget her, you have to forget all the ways she’s different. Blank out everything that makes her Her, and then you might start to feel better.
Or, alternately, tell her how you feel in great luminous detail and let her reject you head on. Replay the rejection in your head later if you start to feel hopeful. Nothing quite puts you off something like overexposure.
The two prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck.
You don’t have the energy to feel this way anymore. It hurts and it’s a waste of time. You need that time to do other things. You need to finish your finals or work on your novel, and you can’t do those things when you’re hurting, not really. You can’t really do anything when you’re hurting, except maybe eat things from jars by the spoonful and lie in bed all day and sigh.
Before you do anything, you need to stop thinking that if you just project enough energy out into the universe, you can change the facts.
These are the facts:
You want her, and
She does not want you.
So you’re going to have to forget her sooner or later.
Unless you’re one of those types that believes in things like destiny and magical thinking, in which case none of this will be helpful.
But if you want to help yourself forget her, here are some ways to try:
First, stop finding excuses to see her. Stop thinking of times of day in terms of where she might be and what she might be doing there and stop putting yourself in her path accidentally on purpose. This will be hard because you’ll have to restructure the way you perceive your days, but changes in perception are good. It helps to keep in mind that it makes no difference to her where you are and what you’re doing there either.
Also, don’t think of her name as Her Name. Train your heart to not freak out and start crazily leaking blood when it pops up on your phone, when you say it, write it, think her name at all. Extract its significance from your limbic system. Repeat it over and over until the sounds don’t make sense anymore and you feel blissfully nothing.
Stop reminding yourself how much you want her. Not that this is the magic cure, it’s that things are only as real as the intensity of the thought you invest in them. De-intensify the thought. This is how you make things less real.
You have to start thinking she’s average. Average people aren’t disarming. No one says, you give me heartstop because you’re so delightfully average. If you’re going to forget her, you have to forget all the ways she’s different. Blank out everything that makes her Her, and then you might start to feel better.
Or, alternately, tell her how you feel in great luminous detail and let her reject you head on. Replay the rejection in your head later if you start to feel hopeful. Nothing quite puts you off something like overexposure.
The two prime movers in the Universe are Time and Luck.
