20nothing.com

I have a crazy neighbor. I am not exactly unique. Everyone in West Hollywood has a crazy neighbor. I am probably somebody’s crazy neighbor. I have been known to pass out in my door way, make-out for hours on the front stoop with various different people and drunkingly sing until all hours of the morning. Shit. Maybe I am someones horrible neighbor?
Crazy Neighbor was given such a moniker when she started sitting on her stairs and taking speaker-phone calls. Such an act is not exactly unique. But her loud conversations started to develop and, eventually, craziness was introduced, I couldn’t stop listening and suddenly I knew more about Her than I do about myself.
“I have started dating someone new. He is in Hell’s Angels and has been sober for thirteen years,” was what got me interested and made me put aside Facebook Stalking.
“I want to be a standup comedian,” was the funniest thing she has ever said.
And, “He said he was leaving his girlfriend for me,” was when I decided that, maybe, we have something in common other than just our address.

Urban living is saturated with Urban Myths. Out of all of the possible things that could happen to Us, like Zac Efron moving in next door and needing a cup of sugar, the one that seems to sound the most believable is the possibility of having the power to break up a relationship.
“I have met the most brilliant boy,” so many of my girl friends and Crazy Neighbors have said. “He is amazing. And funny. [And sober].”
“What is the catch?”
“He has a girlfriend. But he said that he is leaving her for me.”
It seems like such a romantic idea, the concept that someone you like would like you so much that they would upturn their life and change their address for you, that optimism keeps the myth alive so that someday, someone, will prove it to be true.

It isn’t and it never will be. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (aside: I don’t), but Urban Myths sit under the God of Zeus for a reason. If there was any possible chance of there being truth to them, they would never have the suffix of Myth to begin with. A word that means “make-believe” by definition, and if they were to occur, they would then be merely random romantic stories that are more of an anecdote than an actual notable event that makes one stop and actually listen.
“That is a very unromantic way of thinking,” my girl friend scolded me.
“Interesting,” I pondered. “You think that lying is romantic…”
The truth is that, in the event that a relationship is broken up because of overbearing feelings for You, the interim drama will be so unavoidable and the developments so slow, that an abundance of free time will be available for you to have another relationship in the meantime. This reality isn’t unromantic. Breaking up a relationship is unromantic. Hollywood has just made us think differently because, well, love conquering all sells more action figurines than the truth does. Which is a shame. Rodin’s “The Thinker” would look so pretty sitting next to faux-Robert Pattinson in Toys ‘R‘ Us.

I was recently pursued by a boy with a girlfriend. Not willing to mail my morals to a different address just to get laid, I insisted that he had to make a choice. When he chose me, everything I have ever thought was thrown into disarray.
“People really do leave their relationships for you,” I actually said out loud.
When he returned to his girlfriend, I returned to my initial instinct and listening to Crazy Neighbor debate whether it is safe to mail coffee interstate.
In the interim of The Breakup and The Reconvening, I instinctively sensed that such an outcome would happen. Risking something comfortable for something new is just as mythical as Moses, romantically speaking, and so I took everything with a shot of scotch, knowing that I was probably being lied to.
“I never lied to you,” was the funniest thing He ever said. He had just spent over a month lying to his girlfriend, the person he actually claimed to love. Unicorns will ask to borrow a cup of sugar from me before I would expect anyone to believe that The Other Girl is treated better than The Girlfriend. In reality, I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. It is a truth that may hurt. But so does a lie. At least hurting for something real is more rewarding.

Of course, my one experience with an Urban Myth does not produce enough conclusive evidence to declare them to be bullshit. It is merely an example. I have, in fact, heard stories where a love was born out of a difficult situation involving a third party. The very nature of falling for someone else while you are involved with someone else isn’t, of course, impossible. It isn’t a chemical reaction that defies science. However, to be mislead into thinking that it is easy, and romantic, is the biggest lie of all. Because, in the event that a relationship does break-up, it isn’t because of you. If Your relationship ends up working, it is because the previous relationship was already over. You were simply a catalyst for motivation, to the reason. If the relationship stays together, which it more often does, you were just an exciting anecdote.

Romance isn’t dead. It is just misunderstood. It is time to kill off the Hollywood idea of mythology being romantic because it isn’t romance at all. I hate to be the bearer of bad news (aside: I don’t) but having something that is real is the most romantic idea of all. We have been conditioned with ideas, myths even, and so we get upset when they don’t work out. But they can’t work out. A miracle, the idea of the impossible happening, would not be a miracle if it actually happened. It would just be an event, maybe notable enough so that everyone stopped and actually listened.
Girls sit by the phone, expecting someone to call or something out of this world to happen. The fantasy and the Urban Myth gives home that something magical happen. When, in reality, just having someone listen to you is what is really unique.