February 7th, 2010
The Theme Park.
I have theme days. It affects how I dress, what music I listen to, what conversations I have and how drunk I get. Sometimes I channel Monica Gellar circa mid-nineties Friends episodes and wear completely unflattering clothes for the fun of it. Sometimes I spend an entire twenty-four hour period listening to Irish folk music. Sometimes I sit and talk about only candy to everyone who crosses my path. I have never had a sober day. But that is neither here nor there.
I am fascinated with trying out all different types of subcultures on offer to me in popular culture. I have iTunes playlists where Dolly Parton will follow a Limp Bizkit hit(?). I can wear argyle but act emo. I often use big words to discuss stupid topics. To categorize myself as one thing is, in my view, incredibly limiting. So when I see people making permanent changes to themselves, I have to wonder how they know that particular theme is going to last a lifetime.
“A tattoo on your face lasts forever, you know?” I have said between wearing a tutu and reading the dictionary.
“Forever isn’t that long.”
“You know when you are sitting in a really bad movie full of ugly people and you want to poke a fork into your eyeball because it feels like it is lasting forever?”
“Yeah.”
“Imagine if it actually was.”
My first ever ex-boyfriend often criticized my outfit choices and the amount of money I spent on shoes.
“Unless I am using your money, I really don’t think this has anything to do with you,” I would say while prancing around the bedroom in heels and a top hat.
He didn’t listen to me and continued to lambaste my life choices. Which, I suppose, is fair. I didn’t listen to him either and frequently bought pairs of shoes instead of dinner. It called them my “Fuck You” theme days.
It never occurred to me to change what I did or what I found enjoyment in just because my [then] boyfriend had a problem with it. I never tried to change him until I changed how much time we spent together, and when I decided that I didn’t want a relationship with a constant theme of aspersions, I left it. I reasoned that if he didn’t like who I was, he didn’t have to be around me. I would never try to change a person to fit them into a category I wanted. Who would I think I was? Who knows, it changes on any particular day.
There is a girl in China who is undergoing plastic surgery to look like Jessica Alba. Apparently, her ex-boyfriend (EX), loves the star of such cinematic classics as Into The Blue and Never Been Kissed so much that he has put a condition on her to look like Jess and then will reignite their relationship. It was one of the craziest things I had ever heard. Until I read the next paragraph and found out that She was going to go through with it.
I have days when I want to look like Jessica Alba. And I am sure most of the people who wake up beside me wish that they could downright demand it. But no one ever has the audacity to request it. I would be even better at asking boys to leave than I already am if they did.
There are so many things in the world. People, activities, songs, outfits, choices. Everything is, essentially, endless. So to put a condition on one person, or one thing, seems limiting by definition. We all do it in various ways. We put conditions on ourselves all of the time. Some people call them “morals”. There is no problem, really, until you find yourself putting a stipulation upon another person. Who do you think you are?
Telling someone to stop wasting their money on shoes they don’t need may seem like the most harmless thing in the world. And it is, relatively. Some people may even just consider it conversation. But it isn’t the shoes that are the problem. It is the theme of entitlement that is.
“I’ll stop criticizing you,” my exboyfriend said when I told him that I was revoking his attribution in my life. “I didn’t really mean it.”
“No you won’t,” I said. “And, besides, I am not going to give you a condition to be with me. Criticize all you want. I just may not be around to hear it.”
Plastic surgery is a totally different concept to changing your fashion style every day.
Some people say it is just like brushing your teeth. But I don’t think that those people really understand the concept of brushing ones teeth. Either that or I have been grossly misinformed and teeth cleaning requires surgery and a two month recovery period. There is a place for it, of course, as it really does signify scientific and medical evolution. But if someone is changing their appearance for someone else, all it really represents is a decline in humanity and independent thought. And the extremes can be married together because whether it is permanent physical changes or just eternal character changes, requesting something of someone else is a topic that almost defines immoral. And anyone who does it deserves to never be kissed.
Finding someone to accept you for who you are on any given day is one of the most challenging things in life. We are all filled with so many quirks and flaws that are all so subjective, even we have moments ourselves when we love them and instances when we hate them. But the moment you can accept you for you, the demands of other people really do just become conversation. One that, unlike plastic surgery, will never last forever.