A haircut and some self-actualization

After I started that interesting journey of online dating, I discovered a couple of things, and after a haircut, these things were further realized.

Last week when I wrote, I said that I didn’t discuss matters related to my name or stuff with the guys I talked to from that online dating site. I did not lie about who I was but I did lie about my name. I did not really have a choice. If according to Facebook there are 3 people in the whole wide world with my name, all living in different corners of the globe, it is pretty darn easy to track me down. While my profile is set to private and all, a simple google search can return a lot of things about me, …academically related nonetheless, but I seem to have some kind of problem with such prying. So I don’t know if this excuse is good enough, but I lied to them about my name. Every single one of them.

So today while I was talking to one of them, he suggested we go for coffee. I was retarded enough to say yes and gave him my dorm phone number, which I think is much safer in this case for protection of privacy. Here’s where the problem comes in though. I find this other guy I have talked to way more attractive and compatible than him and I have no clue why I am leading him on like this. And now he has my phone number and the promise of a date. What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t do this.

Sometime last week I quickly shook off all the feelings I had about the guy I mentioned in my last post. Without actually meeting someone in person, I can’t begin to feel that we have a connection. It just does not work that way for me. Since then, other guys have approached me who were as “desirable” as the guy before, yet my hormones or whatever, stopped reacting to any of them, and I realized, I wasn’t taking this seriously at all. Maybe the time hasn’t come yet where I take online dating seriously. To be honest, from the beginning, it had been nothing but a purely intellectual experiment.

I am tired of women trying to be a certain way to attract men. I was ashamed to look at myself and see that I was doing the same sometimes, not to the degree that most other women do, yet in a way I do it in a way in which I am never completely satisfied with myself, and always feel I have to measure up to the likes of models to be in the appropriate league. I decided to myself, the hell with it all, I will free myself from this desire of wanting to be in a relationship because I feel like I am so close to one and desperately seek and need one (even though in person you wouldn’t know that).

I went to an expensive salon, and got my hair cut the shortest it has been in the last 10 years.

No it wasn’t a buzz cut. It’s like feminine short hair.

The reason that I feel that it would free me from yearning to be in a relationship is that it was a metaphoric shedding of everything feminine I have tried to conform to since I was a little girl. Freud would say it was my way of becoming a woman and potentially trying to attract a man. All these years I have done different things with my shoulder length or longer hair to define myself, perhaps somewhere in the back of my head, with the hope that it attracts someone to me that way. Now with my hair cut short, I feel this burden of femininity has been lifted from me, and I am free to exist for who I am and I have nobody to impress but myself. I am no more the girl that can just indulge in random experimentation without any emotional contact. I am sick of treating my heart this way. Sure, I am a human being with my carnal needs, but I will only satisfy them in the right conditions. No, I don’t mean I am saving myself for marriage, just that I won’t give it all away to some random guy.

Right now, I like myself a lot. More than I have done even in the last few months, when I was feeling very positive about myself. People have complimented me hugely after my haircut. An instructor actually stopped in the middle of the lesson and announced it to the class when she saw me. That was highly awkward, but just goes to say how much of a difference it has made.

I don’t think most guys “dig” girls with short hair though, so it’s like, hey it’s cool, you’re not into me, we can just get to know each other as people, not as friends with benefits or anything like that. If it develops into something more, that’s great, if not, that’s okay too.

I came to accept the fact that throughout all my life, I have struggled with femininity. When I was young, I used to assert I was a boy, and was basically very androgynous, if not a boy living in a girl’s body. In time, I accepted my femaleness, yet I could never be like the other girls, that would be just betraying myself. My efforts to be accepted as feminine would be characterized by my hair, which was kept at least shoulder length while my behaviour remained and still is largely androgynous.

I just don’t care anymore. I will not try to be all pseudo-girly and try to get the boys. Not many boys like short hair. That’s okay. I like it. And for now that’s all that matters.

The most climactic yet anti-climactic weekend of my life

If there was one word to describe my existence, it would be anti-climactic. I just realized that. I am the girl that’s almost reaching her goals, and sometimes the one who surprises herself with her own abilities but never quite lives up to her own expectations that change as her self-perception changes from being in the absolute bottom to something a lot higher.

A prolific indie musician from the UK who shall not be named came to my town this weekend and I went to his show. Earlier I had contacted his record label people for an interview for the school newspaper however they told me last minute that it wasn’t gonna happen. I was pretty bummed out, but I went to his show anyway. A part of me wasn’t expecting to get in since it was a 19+ gig, and I am not yet 19. However, they didn’t bother and I got in fine as did my friend, who also isn’t 19. Once we got in, we were so thrilled with the fact we could actually be there and that was enough.

Without expecting to though, the night got much better, at least beyond what my rational thinking would predict. It was a small and pretty intimate gig. My friend was quick to point out to me that I was the only person of colour there. I laughed. I am always the token brown kid. There were some other bands playing before the British indie musician started (well all of them were British); and by that time, I was right at the front, about 2 feet away from the mic. This caused a lot of awkward eye contact. Well it was awkward and delightful, but the music was pretty fucking great. I feel bad I can’t discuss the music because I can’t name the artist. Why that is I’ll get to in a moment.

I came to the show knowing that I might not get in, and I was already feeling bummed out for not getting the interview. However, once I got in, I didn’t feel too bad. I was ecstatic actually.

After the show, I went to the washroom, which was kind of adjacent to the backstage area. When I came out, I saw the British indie musician just standing around with his merchandise. For a few seconds, I hesitated, but then I went straight up to him and introduced myself and asked him if he could give me a time for an interview. He isn’t one of those extroverted and sociable musicians, and is probably one of the most awkward person I have spoken to who is also that attractive. It was adorable how he stuttered and mumbled to himself. He was so oblivious as to who I had spoken with and readily said I could interview him. He gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him in the morning.

Then it came to me, what sort of a celebrity gives away his cell phone number to a random sketchy brown chick at the backstage of some hole-in-the-wall venue? Really now, if I was a creepy stalker, I could easily use that to my advantage. It made no sense to me. I wouldn’t have imagined him to give me his number in a billion years. It’s hard to actually illustrate how surprising this is. There are some people who are really big in the indie world, and have their fair proportion of girls dying to sleep with them, whether or not the musicians themselves allow for a groupie culture to flourish. This guy is a shy guy from the English countryside. It’s hard to think of him as the groupie-encouraging type but if you search up his name on Google, you will encounter quite a few blogs/fansites with a large number of females drooling over him.

He was kind of expecting me to stick around backstage but it was really late at night and I thought it would be best to head back home. It was an amazing night. All the cute awkwardness made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. At the same time, I went “what the fuck” every 5 seconds when I thought about the fact that he just gave me his phone number.

My friend who was with me while this happened just stayed silent and awestruck the entire time. She had no words for the events of the evening. I didn’t really either.

The next day I called him in the early afternoon. Silly me, I should have known, people who follow the rock and roll lifestyle kind of stay out pretty late and I kind of woke poor British indie musician up with my phone call. I apologized and then asked him where we should meet up. He welcomed any suggestions since I was a local however, I had nothing in mind at the moment so I said I would call him later.  When I did call him though (a few hours later), he was busy with shipping his equipment off at the airport and he apologized profusely for not realizing how hectic the day would be and told me that it’s unlikely he can do the interview in person with me. That’s where all that excitement came crashing down. No more interview. I thought he was being very kind and considerate. He leaves town tomorrow but he gave me his MSN and said that I could “conduct” my interview online.

This is still very weird for me.

I have the phone number of a musician that I only have seen on Youtube, who lives on the other side of the Atlantic. I also have him on MSN now. What the fuck? What are the chances of this happening to a person like me?

What surprises me more is that I am no stereotypical groupie female. I can’t be that because I just cannot pass myself of as one. I am not so attractive that random men just give me their phone numbers after I have talked to them for 2 minutes. I never dress provocatively as one would expect from stereotypical groupies. This particular time, I was dressed quite casual/sophisticated in a feminine way; best I have looked in the last month, but nothing close to a groupie. Really, I am single in real life. I don’t date much. But apparently this particularly attractive and talented musician just happened to give his info to me.

At the same time, due to whatever he had to do, he couldn’t actually do the interview in person with me. That’s totally okay. This to many people might not sound so surprising at all. Guys in bands are known to be sometimes a little too friendly with their female fans, but this one is noticeably introverted and I am not fucking Aphrodite, and the dynamics are just not like that of the traditional groupie-musician. But for me, one who has never had this sort of exciting stuff happen to them, I find myself suddenly being so questioning of it. Why me? People say these things when bad things happen to them. I say it when good things happen to me as well.

Maybe sometimes good things don’t happen to me because I am afraid for them to happen.

Who knew this poor girl will have the unsought title of “Almost groupie” bestowed to her by her dear dear friends?

Nah. I am not like a 10-year-old who wants to marry a Backstreet Boy. I am quite the opposite. Yet something that a lot of females want happened to me when I hadn’t expected it. Perhaps a lot of things in life are meant to be this way.

No I am not floored by his beauty and talent and spend my hours daydreaming about him. I had a strictly professional approach and it paid off darn well apparently. I admire him, and from the half an hour that I spent with him, we seem to get along just fine. That’s just that.

Was this what my gut told me about all along? That this was about to happen?

Regardless of the triviality of this event from a certain perspective, it has restored some great energy and confidence in me. I want to pass it on to everyone around me and help their lives become energized as well.

Final conclusion: Everyone is way more than they ever know.