Growing Up and Moving On

Edit: Ok I’ve written this entry and it’s SO all over the place that I want to diagram it for you – Account of three people I was jealous of in college and why, broken up by a discussion of how I used to feel about myself and why, the fact that I got over it (with a recent anecdote to prove it), and then a return to the main point of the blog, which is me chuckling at the expense of one of my former objects of jealousy (no offense to him intended!).

I was sitting here, between quite impressive pairs short programs from Torino, thinking about college and a few of the people of whom I was TRULY envious (there were only like three). One of them, an American guy (French father) from Beverly Hills ended up, oddly enough, becoming a friend of mine. He was a cyclist/track frat boy who appeared in GQ (it was a really boring article about Ivy League frat boys) who I was absolutely awful to our first two years of college. He was loud, show-offy, and I found him totally despicable and quite jealously-worthy. I remember my girlfriend sort of trying to coach me through my moments when I'd, like, seize-up if he got in the elevator or otherwise flaunted his "better in every way-ness" (she was EXTREMELY tolerant of all of my mental issues...most of which I am thankfully over!).

Two VERY bad moments related to him:

I was on my way to econ class (when you see how many of my bad memories relate to economics you'll probably understand why I sought solace in art history and ditched so many econ classes!) and I saw him in the distance. To contextualize, between the ages of, say, 16 and 22 I wasted a good portion of every day finding things to hate about the way I looked (from body, to skin, to body and skin, to hair…) and THANK GOD I managed, I think really with the help of a really supportive ex of mine, around December 2003 to just WAKE UP and stop losing my life to wishing I didn’t have one. I think about SIX YEARS of sometimes grave misery and how pointless it was and it’s just really sad…there were times when I had to have a no mirrors policy, because that was the only way to let myself forget about how I looked.

To contrast that with my current relative stability (and I didn’t think I would blog about this, but it’s relevant here as a positive point, rather than a description of something negative), a week ago today Shakira and I had brunch with someone who I don’t think either of us will be seeing again, who showed up to meet us at the Four Seasons totally plastered (to the point that he was spilling wine, falling down stairs grabbing onto people, etc.) and swinging wildly in mood between feeling like it was ok to sexually harass me (I’m talking physically grabbing me in front of people in the restaurant and making EXTREMELY inappropriate comments about the ONE time a LONG time ago that he got so lucky…) and being extremely mean and diminishing. Imagine someone wiping his drunk hand down your face, telling you that you are sexy and beautiful, and then following that up with something like: “I don’t know why I think you’re so sexy when you’re actually sort of ugly.” That is NOT an exaggeration. It was a literal laundry list of my faults, and Shakira sat there in shock while I was basically dismantled. Now, to be clear (since I totally have a backbone and quite a lot of ‘tude), if it had been just the two of us, me and the Ass, I’d have thrown a drink on him and walked off after one nasty comment. The problem, though, being in a group three is that the perfect 10/10 model for social gracefulness and class kind of undergoes a paradigm shift – when you’re one and one, you should be boldly confident and storm off…when you’re there with a guest, you need to keep it under control, be placating but firm, and basically demonstrate that you are impervious to the other person’s nonsense for the duration of the encounter (rise above it) because what does your friend do when you storm out? Storm out, too? He made an ass of himself and, in his drunkness (and his insistence to pay even when I gave the waiter my card) cost him almost $400 at brunch, so too bad for him! Anyway, a little over two years ago my OWN obsessive self-condemnations would have done me in, let alone someone making a laundry list of all the worst things I tell myself, but that day, I handled myself PERFECTLY. I wasn’t even upset after the brunch (although I was a bit surprised someone could be so ugly…and I’m referring to him, of course). I admit that later in the evening my defenses wore down a bit and I maybe did some snickers binging for comfort, but I wasn’t about to walk in front of a bus, and I can still look in the mirror and at reality without having to blink or feel bad about it (I am what I am! The end!), so that is HUGE progress.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I’m not physically perfect; I’m great in a lot of ways. Less great in others. Sometimes I’m confident. Sometimes I’m less so. Usually, though, I’m as balanced as I should be and that’s FINE at almost-24.

Back to the story : ) So I’m walking to econ class, and I see him in the distance. Trying to avoid a self-hate trigger (but I’m sure staring madly from afar), I tried to dash up the stairs in front of me so I could turn the corner to class before him and have him out of my sight-line (and also in 2nd place in some kind of neurotic car race to class I’d subconsciously constructed between us…that’s healthy: “You’re hot and oblivious to my jealously, but I’m the winner because I can walk faster!”). Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention to my feet, and SOMEHOW my impeccable balance abandoned me and I fell into such a heap on the stairs (which is weird because it’s only like 4 stairs!) that I remember three people rushing over to me to see if I was ok. My leg was bleeding THOUGH my pants and this funny (and very typical, if you know Columbia’s Registrar’s office) sort of big black woman just said to her friend, amazed that I was still ambulatory: “If that had been me, I’d have stayed down.” I was DETERMINED to go to econ that day. I remember that I’d spilled something on myself at lunch and it was the perfect reason to ditch class (I can’t go LIKE THIS!) but I’d told myself that no matter what I was going…well I guess obviously after my fall I didn’t go.

For the second awful moment related to him, he and his friend (who, oddly enough, is one of the characters in my Arabic book! HOW WEIRD IS THAT!? -- they did a new DVD edition last year with new actors and HE is one of them!) were sitting outside the steps to the International Affairs building where we had econ class, and being "elevator peeps" (a phrase coined by another friend to refer to the people we've seen in the elevators in the dorms hundreds of times and seem to shadow but who we don't know) when I walked past him and his friend, anticipating in my head some kind of humiliating and jerkish comment (even though he had NEVER interacted with me before, nor had I ever seen him insult anyone...this was just my insecurity demonizing him and inflicting senseless dread upon myself), and he said: "Going into class already?" What I would later find out was kind of an insecurity -> eagerness on his part I interpreted to mean "You ugly nerd are you going into class 20 minutes EARLY? HOW LAME!" and so I looked at him and said, in a snotty voice that did not at all reply in turn to his rather civil tone: "Yeah. I am. If that's alright with YOU." Sort of taken aback, he just said: "Um. Yeah." (Poor thing, he must have been totally confused by my attitude!). I then proceeded to give him the DOUBLE bird (the finger with both hands) and said "THANKS!"

Luckily for me, he didn’t see my fall on the steps, and he didn’t really remember that I was the guy who was such a bitch to him outside class, when, two years later, we had accounting and finance together and, for whatever reason (read: His gaydar subconsciously beeping when he was around me, even though I didn’t even know I was gay, and him doing, and it is subconscious – poor guys – the “I am uncertain of my sexuality and don’t know it yet, so I’m oddly drawn to someone gay, even if he doesn’t know it yet, because I internally crave exit from the closet I don’t yet know I’m in and might never be able to leave” that I now have seen SO MANY TIMES…especially in Cairo!) he always wanted to sit next to me. He decided that our distant French ancestry, and the fact that the region his family name is from and my family name is from are next to each other in Central-South France that we were “brothers” and we became decent friends. It was an awkward dynamic, in that I was always confused and skeptical of his being friends with me, self-defensively condescending (although less and less so as time went on), jealous, and not wanting to grudgingly admit that we were total opposites but could be really good friends. I remember filing daily reports with friends who I expected to be equally stunned at the odd phenomenon: “And today, he actually TOUCHED MY CHEST and said that I had impressive pecs! I mean WHAT IS THAT? He’s gay, right?” Someone should have told me *I* was lol. In the end, he called me a few times while I was working at my law firm and he was working at a real estate firm, but we were bother really busy and I ended up not calling him back. Still hope he’s well, though, and wouldn’t mind catching up with him sometime (although I do hope, if he is gay, that he doesn’t struggle with the closet his whole life, as I suspect he may).

He’s #1. #2 and #3 insecurity people from college were an inter-related pair, because they comprised what I’ll call the “gorgeous European haute-bourgeoisie library-dwellers who are all econ majors and smoke outside the library while talking on their cell phones and planning trips to each others country villas and Ibiza.” Ok so anyway, there was a GORGEOUS (in the “sometimes gorgeous model and sometimes sort of brutish” way) Italian guy and his differently-but-equally gorgeous “roommate” (I now look back with skepticism), a French guy who, for all the Italian was the kind of six-foot beefy, was more of a slight super-defined but facially PERFECT (like picture the head of one of the Roman senators in the Met Museum) French guy. The Italian lived on my floor Freshman year, and I’m trying to remember why, exactly, I’d ever had discussions with the French guy. It’s really odd that I can’t remember in what context we’d spoken… my girlfriend’s best friend had slept with him…and of course I was made uncomfortable by rumors of his four hour marathon “only stop to get a drink of water and keep going” abilities [Ewww! Yuck!]…and I knew another girl who used to go and flirt with BOTH of them and come back to tell me about hanging out with them in their dorm room with them both only wearing boxer-briefs!...but why I ever spoke to the French guy and in what context really escapes me. Anyway, I do remember exactly HOW he spoke, and I do remember being invited, through a mutual friend (WHO? This memory gap is so weird!) to go clubbing with him, and I also remember that he was doing XTC…and I didn’t go…I also remember that what I hated MORE than the fact that he got to be French, and have really tan and freckless skin and REALLY blue eyes, was that he was one of those people with such defined triceps that they ALWAYS looked flexed (mine are now quite nice, for the record ;p).

Well anyway, the whole point of this blog entry WAS going to be that I googled French guy, just to see what he was up to, and I found something that TOTALLY made me laugh. I mean, let’s be clear: when we really grow up and gain confidence in ourselves, we don’t need to look down on others to get over our demons. If I’d googled him and he’d become a French youth ambassador or Olympic biathlete or something (speaking of: my Ricco didn’t win today but we are wishing him luck for later in the Games!), then I’d probably think “Wow, good for him!” but this did make me laugh…a lot…because it’s EXACTLY how I remember him. I guess what you should take from this blog entry is that you now know a LOT more about my “down” times in my late teens/early 20s, and you also will get to read a hilarious idiotic comment (although I make no profession of an ability to judge his OVERAL intelligence) by someone who (used to be) gorgeous and who I (used to be) really jealous of. Follow this link, and look for the quote by someone from France (do a cntrl+F search for “France”) and look for the guy with the initials J.F. (don’t want to say his name, because it feels kinda mean).

VC