twenty-first century virgin
aliengirl stuck in the 'manic-pixie' trenches
I grew up on ‘High school musical’ and rom-coms, was raised on the promise that love was inevitable, practically scheduled for all of us. I waited impatiently for the day I’d get to sit under the bleachers sharing a blunt with some boy with a crooked smile. I have always been a romantic, but I’ve never been in love.
I tell myself I am too loud, too awkward for love; my legs buckle like a fawn’s, my arms — long and fat— trail behind me like a cape. I am an alien and everyone knows. They see awkward proportions, green skin. They see antennae on my head. I speak a different language. I come from a different land, where people apologize to furniture when they bump into it, where they give out their hearts, warm, red and pulsing to their lovers.
But I love love. How it smells when you pass someone in the street and think, maybe, maybe. I am enamored, not by a person, but with the very idea of loving, and being loved in return.
I speak only, of course, of love in the romantic sense, I have plenty of platonic loves— my best friends, my dog— and other little rituals that feel just as binding, like going to the movies on Tuesdays, taking long walks, ripping cigs on my best friend’s balcony and gossiping until well past midnight. These are Earth customs I understand and cherish. I record them dutifully: friendships thrive on cigarette smoke and repetition, I write. Human females love ritualistic repetition. Your friends might tell you a story in which they are clearly in the wrong and ask what do you think? and you are not to say what you did was stupid and wrong. Instead you have to hug them and validate their feelings. Say you’re right, but never do that again. Not because it was wrong. It totally was not wrong, I write.
My eyes grow wide and bright and my chest tightens when I speak to my friends, I find them beautiful, I love them, but there is an absence in me that sits sore like a bruise, and it curdles into resentment sometimes— especially now, in college, where everything is fast, even the summer is rushed.
White rabbits everywhere, running late with their pocket watches in hand. I’m running too, except mostly just into myself, clumsily, staring at the ground so I don’t trip.
Maybe my great love already walked past me as I was looking at the ground.
We were side by side on the sidewalk, close enough our arms could’ve touched if I’d leaned a little. The early afternoon sun made everything hot and sticky, the air smelled faintly of burnt rubber and gasoline, of concrete. He looked at me once and looked away. He looked back, saw my frown, my gaze stuck on the floor. I scanned the cracks in the pavement, the blots of chewing gum, some pink, some grey, some a faint shade of green. He waited, hopeful, that I would look up. Maybe he thought I was shy. Maybe he thought I was ignoring him. Maybe he thought nothing at all. He left when I didn’t lift my eyes from the ground.
I’ve never had a boyfriend. Just crushes, or so-called situationships (the ‘talking stage’ of the devil, they will steal your light and also fuck that really skinny girl you looked up to in high school) that died once the initial excitement was over. I’d chalk that up to me being insufferable but I think I’m actually really funny and cool so it can’t be that.
A lot of the time, I am the one to pull away. It’s usually when I hear the you’re not like other girls, you kind of look like Ramona from this movie…Scott Pilgrim… Or worse, you for sure have daddy issues, you’re so mature for your age, blahblahblahblah!!!!
Note: human males classify women into categories, like trading cards. Movie character they found hot. Movie character they found ugly. Gingers. Various porn categories. Women reject these labels, but the males persist.
It usually takes about two weeks for that to happen. In those two weeks I take notes: Human males love the L-word. Not Love, but Lesbians. Human males will ask you if you have fucked your girl friends. If you say no they are disappointed, if you say yes they call you a whore. You can never be right when it comes to human males, I write.
A couple months ago I flew to Zagreb to see my best friend dora 🎀. By then, my attitude toward love and sex had shifted: summer meant freedom. I promised myself I wouldn’t be the one used; I’d be messy first, leave first. I wandered, drank, smoked, laughed. I forbade the L-word (the real one. Love.) from entering my thoughts, and it worked. I wasn’t crawling for attention or bending over for a smile.
And my summer went by like that, I wasn’t thinking of falling in love, I only thought about having fun. I had a problem, though: The more I detached myself the more I got the manic-pixie dream girl treatment. Men love to (physically, most of the time) attach themselves to you when you don’t want it, then they act heartbroken when you leave. They also will try to convince you to not leave by using the L-word. They will take it back if you stay.
Now the summer is over and most of my friends are going out with guys they can talk to and be with, not just have sex with and I am not. I am scrambling around, looking for a guy I won’t have to tell I’m actually a normal girl. Yes, my hair is pink. I’m just like every other girl. Why do you want me to ruin your life? I think you just need a therapist. No, I am not qualified for that, I’m literally just some girl. I do not care about your ex or your mother.
It never works when I try to convince them but I keep doing it. I reiterate how normal girl I am. I think I try to convince myself I’m lovable, not just from a distance, not just platonically.
I love love, but I never get it.
I watch humans as they interact. I gather information. I write down: Human males like to embarrass themselves in public to impress females in the same way male birds dance. It doesn’t seem to work for the humans. Maybe they should get colorful wings and dance.
I imagine falling in love is less like the movies and more like tripping on a sidewalk crack, but in slow motion, and instead of breaking a bone you break into giggles. I have practiced the fall many times in my bedroom— in the bed I let myself fall, slow and steady. My long, fat, cape-arms wrap around me. My body is cushioned by the pillows my mother embroidered. I wait for a human male to appear. I wait for a human male to get on one knee and put a rock on my finger. I am partial to sandstone. He never appears. I imagine he does. I imagine he looks like Christian Bale in Batman Begins.
I imagine a lot of things about love. Since I have never had it it can take almost any form I want. A warm hug, a blanket on a cold rainy day. Those shoes all of your friends say are really ugly. Hot chocolate. Wildflowers. That book you read at fifteen that nestled itself in between your ribs and your heart, acting as a sort of bulletproof vest. The cinema. Christian Bale, a lot of the time. Most of the time, though, it takes the form of my dog, or my best friends.
One day I’ll know its true form, and then I’ll stop imagining. I’ll stop having to say I’m a normal girl, because he will not see antennae and green skin, he won’t see a caricature, he will see me. I’ll stop taking notes, I won’t need them.
this is so so beautifully written, I love it!♡