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If (when) I have absolute power of a nation (hopefully one with an ocean view), I doubt I will remain noble for long. And I defy anyone to do the opposite. When one is given ultimate freedom, especially in instances where dictating a society is concerned, ego rapidly takes over and all of a sudden you are feeding people to crocodiles because they stole some much needed bread.

I firmly believe that I, and everyone else, would eventually become extremist given the situation. Hell, I already know many people I would like to feed to prehistoric reptiles.

 

And I wonder why I am single.

 

Complete idolization can have similar effects. In social situations, where there is an unbalance of power, aspects of a character can (will) become extreme. And one enjoyable scenario involves an impressionable teenager, eating up every world about your mystical and exotic adult existence. Because, jeez, one night stands always sound fun in theory.

 

Despite evidence to the contrary that I have had it with teenagers this year, I have become the unsuspecting friend of a sixteen-year-old girl I work with. She loves asking me questions about my life and I revel in having an audience who finds sophistication in the phrase, “And then I tried to remember his name.”

Talking, at a superficial depth, to a teen enables you to justify every single thing you do. No matter how stupid. Because they are yet to experience it, and understand what it is like to drink scotch out of the only clean cup – a coffee mug, they reflect a naïve awe that my parents have long since lost.

 

And this interaction makes you believe that you are much more interesting than you actually are.

 

“You’re life sounds so interesting,” 16 said to me when I took her to lunch. “Do you really eat sushi every day?” She had that look of fascination, as if I had just said to her, “And then after Mr Big leaves, I dust my Fendi bag and pour myself a cocktail.”

“So you enjoy being single?” she asked after telling me about her two-year long relationship with a nineteen-year-old sign-writer (Yes. Nineteen. Shush. Details.)

When she asks questions like this, I never want to tell her the reality: Which is, for every brilliant day of selfish freedom, there is another of loneliness where all you are is horny and reading a book written by someone who died long before each of you were born. I could never shatter the illusion and tell her the truth. Because then she will know how hard it is to be an adult. And I won’t have someone who thinks I’m cool.

 

This self-indulgent act reoccurred on Saturday night where, dressed as a Las Vegas bride at a costume party, I met a priest who consistently laughed at my jokes about the clergy. Having somebody laugh at the things I say (or, incidentally, write) is just another version of power I enjoy. And another step closer to making me drunk enough with it to put a down payment on a country.

Everyone has something that gives them faux courage. I know a guy who becomes euphoric and confident when a girl ignores him, because it results in him having to try. I don’t like such challenges, as I am easily distractible, and therefore enjoy it when someone makes it effortless for me to shallowly impress them. Like 16. Or like the priest.

 

After only twenty minutes of laughing at my (naturally, hilarious) jokes, Priest was called across the party by his friends.

“I will be back in a second. But I am going to kiss you first.”

We didn’t stop kissing for the next six hours. Which makes me wonder: Maybe with ultimate power, I would do something nice.

 

 

 Post By Salium.