A Killer Instinct

My life, at the moment, feels a bit like an unfinished novel. To complete the metaphor, I am the apathetic author who is simply waiting for the novel to finish itself.

I mentioned to my mom the other day that I didn’t want to go after something because, “I’m just not a competitive person.” She responded casually, “yeah, you never have been.” What? I was under the impression that this was a discovery I had recently made about myself, not one that was outwardly visible to others. Apparently, when something is and always has been true about your character, people know it immediately.

Sports are thoroughly competitive—that is the entire point. Believe it or not, sport does have its appeal to me. To be honest, this appeal lies mainly in a game’s ambiance. You know, football means crisp fall weather, team sweaters, and miles of tradition. Golf inspires thoughts of a Scottish branch of my family and I remember how, in the fashion of true cultural loyalty, I should take up the game. I don’t love watching sports… I love watching sports movies.J I hate the competition of it even when I’m not the one competing! I’m a bit like my cousin, David, when I really care about a team or particular game, I watch most unpleasantly—teeth clenched, frequent bathroom breaks and cold sweats. Perhaps I don’t know the right amount of care to take about such things.

Unfortunately, the same truth about my nature applies to my career as well. I have plenty of ambition and talent (I hope) in my particular areas--I simply have no competitive nature to go for what I want. I don’t mind job interviews, but I hate the “rat race,” or the idea that 200 other people want EXACTLY what I want. If we lived in times when humankind hunted their food and ate it raw on the spot, I would surely go for the kill like every other hunter. The difference with me is that when I saw the other hunter in the reeds trying to thwart my efforts in order to get my kill… I’d simply give up the prize. Sadly, I would also probably die of starvation.

I say all that to imply that this “novel” that goes unfinished, may have something to do with this lack of competitive instinct. This is a world where others will happily take the reigns of your life to serve their own purposes. I find that I am all too often at the mercy of someone unfairness—that I am their kill. Perhaps now I am just starting to wake up to the fact that I have to fight when the cause is justified, but my nature always reminds me how much easier it is just to let them eat.

Nobody Believes You Hated When Harry Met Sally!

You know what drives me crazy? Cliché. What’s worse than that though is a nuevo cliché wrapped in a quirky quality. For example: A 21 year old, female college sophomore ranting about how she “like totally hates Rom-Coms.” For those of us not in the know, Rom-Com is apparently a much needed abbreviation for the film genre, Romantic Comedy. What makes a statement and its subsequent supporting statements so damn annoying to me is the whole “nuevo cliché” aspect of it. First of all, she is either A. being honest about her distaste for watching handsome men fall for lovely ladies in an amusing fashion, or (more likely) B. she is just the latest and (latest) in a whole slew of young women who say things in a desperate attempt to appeal directly to young men. You see, shortly after she makes that statement about Rom-Coms, she follows up by saying how much she “totally got into the Die Hard series,” or even worse, she wants to be of the art-house persuasion and proceeds to pontificate about how much she really related to Donnie Darko or The Machinist. As a friend would put it… “Pah!”

I have known chicks like this since I started college. They annoy me. They are the types who feel expressing one’s femininity is tantamount to a putting on a floral muumuu and cloaking oneself in a man-repelling spell. They don’t appear to know who they are and feel they must adopt masculine interests while still maintaining a nice rack and pleasant girlie smell. They piss me off. YOU HAVE A UTERUS… GET OVER IT! I feel like telling these girls a few things. First of all, adhering to feminist ideals is not a new or particularly rebellious thing to do. Secondly, you don’t have to be everything to everyone, especially every guy you meet… I would have thought you’d have figured that out, being a feminist and all. Thirdly, in the end, most guys are like you--they end up wanting a woman to be a woman, just like you want a man to be a man and not Mr. Sappy Sensitivity ALL the time. Yes, women like sensitivity, but a when a man suddenly has a protective or masculine turn; it is pleasantly surprising and unbelievably sexy. I imagine men have a similar reaction to random femininity, like witnessing a girlfriend’s maternal instincts for the first time.

That was a bit of a rant, wasn’t it? Well this blog isn’t called “Things Confused People Say” for nothing. I think I used to do stuff like that myself and that’s why I recognize it and why it bothers me at the same time. It’s just kind of sophomoric, not to mention, just plain painful to witness now. Sorry girls.