Lesson Learned: Less Boys, More Video Games

For years, I had no idea what I wanted, in terms of boys, while proclaiming passionately that I absolutely and completely did.

Ironically enough, this led to me defensively constructing the image that I was an individual who not only knew exactly what she wanted, but knew how to express it, and even how to express it in a clear, articulate, eloquent manner, even if that manner might have sometimes included dramatic flourishes.
[Examples include having argument in a rainy parking lot in which I got to stomp off towards my car immediately following a speech to drive off unsteadily into the darkness (true story) and being only semi-kidding about running away with a paramour from an ultra-Romantic, ultra-unconsummated love affair of mine (yeah, that one’s true, too). ]

So upon entering any kind of romantically-tinged relations with me, a boy expected that I would know what I wanted, so that if he so chose, he could offer those items, and that we could then build an emotionally stable, physically exciting, mentally rewarding relationship together.

Clearly, those relationships were hard to come by for me, and after exasperating conversations, arguments, and confessions, it came to my attention that clearly, I had no fucking clue what I was doing.

In this state, there is obviously no way I could engage in any sort of emotional relationship, and so for the better part of this past half of 2009, I set about fixing myself, finding myself, enjoying myself, and mostly, realizing what the hell it is that I really wanted from the male individuals that allegedly wanted something from me.
I was not imagining that these gentlemen, indeed, wanted something from me other than brief flings, whether emotional or physical. Here come the quotes.

“Well, you’re a hard one to pin down.”
“I’m going to be honest here, you’re like the ultimate emotional tease.”
“Amanda, you’re a mess. You have no idea what you want.”
“Sometimes I just feel like I don’t know you at all. Who is Amanda Garcia, seriously?”

These are quotes, with minute adaptation, from various gentlemen, who have, throughout various points in time, admitted that they wanted to be involved with my person in some romantic or generally emotionally attached manner. Rather dismal to read all in a row, so I apologize, dear reader. This is not a pity party, I promise– in fact, rather the opposite. After years of being told I am very much the stereotype of a crazy, emotional, spontaneously unstable girl, therefore resulting in these multiple relationship and commitment issues, I’m starting to realize that hey, maybe it’s not just me.

First of all, I’m not even going to try to answer who Amanda Garcia really is, as that’s basically a question that I’ve been working on for the duration of my life and still haven’t come up with a succinct answer to (although Twitter has required me to come up with ‘Hannah Montana meets Brett Ashley’ as a proxy).

And yes, I am a little bit of a mess. I can somewhat agree with that statement–my hair will never be coiffed perfectly, I will always spill my soda, my socks will always have holes, I will never apply liquid eyeliner with a professional precision, and my laugh will always be a touch too loud for the venue I am giggling in. These are facts.

But lately, although I tend to love the dramatic tensions and romantic idealizations of my (usually) unrequited relationships with gentlemen, I have, for once, “got my shit together” as stated earlier by my aforementioned dip into finding out and celebrating and enjoying ME, Amanda Garcia, and what I needed/wanted/liked/hated/etc.

In this manner, then, I figured out, with startling precision, exactly what I wanted from certain individuals, and exactly how much I wanted them. Believe me, this was a bonafide revelation in the life and times of A. Garcia.
The ironic twist, of course, (there always is one!) is that as soon as I had figured out exactly how to sort boys in general, which ones I wanted and which ones I did not, which ones I loved, and which ones I hated, and which ones were clearly only infatuated with me because of some vague ideal they created in their minds, which ones I would never date because they’d never understand the satisfaction of beating a RockBand song on Expert in the 90 percentile, etc, the most important individuals affected by my romantic decisions, for lack of a better term, freaked the fuck out.

I was, however, eerily calm and nonchalant. My articulate arguments and confessions were coming from a real emotional place. They were supplemented with examples, with sources, with quotes, at times.
I wasn’t confused. There was no vague wording that allowed for me to contradict myself later. I wasn’t scared of a cross-examination argument, because I had nothing else to hide behind.
I had decided what I wanted and when I wanted it, and that was that.

Except for the fact, then, that these certain boys, people I still continue to care about on some level, have yet to respond to my conclusions. With an honorable mention to a male who left a half-assed attempt response to a quite eloquent email of my true feelings and inclinations towards him by leaving me a voicemail and then never calling me back again (even when I gave him the benefit of the doubt and called back, giving up my personal pride [which I assure you, is monumentally hard for me particularly]), the message is still crystal clear.

For as long as these boys told me how confusing I was and how I didn’t know what I wanted, amazingly, it just turns out they were just far better at hiding all of that insecurity, instability, and general lack of strength to decide if they wanted me enough to just fucking go for it.
Welcome to the club, gentlemen: you also don’t know what the hell you want.

But this time around, you can count me out. After all, all the time I spend waiting around for you to finally want me back in the way I need to be wanted would be far better spent on mastering Metallica’s “Battery” on Rock Band. On drums. On Expert. With my eyes closed, why not?

Now that’s a goal I can put some effort into, not to mention impress people at parties with. Obv.

– A

Because Apparently We Grew Out of Wanting to Spice Up our Lives

I used to be an avid fan of the Spice Girls, along with the entirety of my generation’s female portion.
Even though Ginger was my ultimate favorite, the whole gang was spectacular to fifth-grade me– they were fearless, powerful, independent, ambitious, and they had a penchant for glitter that has yet to be matched by any musical artist since.
More than anything else, however, they supported “girl power,” an absolutely ludicrous idea that females should support each other loyally and unite together in the face of a supposedly male-dominated world of cutthroat competition, furtive manipulation, and outright fabrication and deceit.
Weirdly enough, it seems that the only individuals capable of such items towards girls are girls themselves.
To quote one of my favorite people ever in one of my favorite movies ever, “It looks like there’s been some girl-on-girl crime here.”

I believed in this notion of girl power, of divine sisterhood, if you will, until the second semester of my sophomore year, in which I somehow found myself facing the girl who’s boyfriend of almost two years had been in my bedroom barely a week before, who’s text messages filled my inbox, and who’s DVDs filled a shelf on my desk. No, she had not invited me to have lunch with her to cause me bodily harm (although due to the fact that she’s a good head taller than me, I wouldn’t have blamed her for thinking about dropping me to the ground with one punch and calling it a day), or even to publicly humiliate me in the Bell Tower by yelling obscenities at my person (I’m sure that stage had already happened privately).

She had invited me to lunch so we could talk. So we could properly introduce ourselves. So we could end all social awkwardness. So we could sort out all the lies he had clearly told both of us. So we could both decide that we were better than him. So we could even maybe, sort of, a little bit, be friends, even though we had both effectively dated the same person for the same two or three months.

Naive as I was, I spilled all, laid down all of my power cards, gave away secrets apparently he had only told me, and let my guard down enough to even answer her most probing questions about my life, in general. I mean, after all, we were both girls! We were in this together! We were both highly intelligent, smart, ambitious, attractive young women! He had done us wrong! We were better off without him! We were even maybe going to go shopping for boots and watch all of his DVD’s together! Also, I mentioned that she was certifiably taller than me and that I’m not particularly athletic, right?

I can sill paraphrase so many manipulative statements– “I guess I kind of ‘won,’ but I really sort of lost because I have to deal with him? We’re still best friends, you know?” or “I always kind of considered you his second girlfriend. Is that weird?” or “But you seem so put-together. Why would you even put up with him, of all people?”

And so it became obvious eventually, that after our conversation, she had clearly continued dating this person, clearly told him everything I said and used it against him, and clearly, I was seriously dumb. We never went shopping, we never watched movies, and we never became friends, although there was a period when I came back from my semester abroad (where I maniacally hoped I’d come back to find her and this boy married, because then finally I’d have to just get the fuck over the whole situation) where she tried to pretend she was genuinely interested in me as a human being and not as the walking, talking, cowboy-boot-wearing alleged reason why her relationship was still less than satisfactory.
To this day, I put on the loud, unabashedly rambunctious and ridiculous persona of the homewrecking dirty mistress she believes I am and proceed to get rapidly drunk while in her presence at parties. At press time, I’ve not gotten harmed, although if looks could kill, I would be gasping of knife wounds in intensive care. At least we’re civil, right?

But I am not necessarily blame-free either– I, for one, absolutely cannot stand Ellen Page.
The mere mention of her would send me into some sort of half-formatted string of insults followed by some un-evidenced tirade and general defamation of her as a human being. Seriously. I get worked up.

It’s not because there is something inherently ungraceful or untalented about her acting ability, it’s not because I find some problem with her life philosophy or her career choices, and it’s not because I want her boyfriend, or because I believe she took mine. Plain and simple, I’m jealous.

A slightly elitist 21-year-old petite brunette with big brown eyes, a love for garage bands, and a deadpan, sarcastic, slightly snarky style? Wow. Sounds kind of familiar, minus the fact that I’m not actually in any way Ellen Page, nor probably could I be, but the fact remains that she’s on the cover of magazines kissing Drew Barrymore and I am not. (There’s also that whole thing about her being Canadian, but whatevs.)

It may sound ridiculous to use my example as a celebrity, but it’s the same amount of energy being completely and utterly wasted. And if physics has taught me anything, it’s that energy can not be created or destroyed, just changed in form over and over again– in no way do I want all of that negativity haunting my life, thanks.

With all of this being said, I’ve been lucky to accrue 1528 and a certain bespectacled amiga (who recently has provided a clear friendship benefit with the adoption of her dog), and I don’t think my unconditional love for the four other girls in this house is something that anyone is really questioning the strength of, so that’s that.
I will turn over a new leaf, though, and admit, begrudgingly, that I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Juno,’ a movie I claimed to have boycotted since its release, but which I finally viewed this summer.

As for the Spice Girls, the spunky Englanders may now be having Eddie Murphy’s babies and releasing strange solo efforts and posing as fashion muses to Marc Jacobs and whatnot, but their message is still true.

It just would have been nice if we girls wouldn’t have ditched the ‘girl power’ mantra when we abandoned the trading cards and the Chupa Chup lollipop collector tins.

I mean, after all, platforms are totally making a comeback. Yeah, platforms.
We’ve really got no excuse.

– A

Baby, I’m a Put-on-a-Show Kind of Girl.

This blog has pretty much certified that I will never again date, flirt, or sleep with any male who knows of its existence and also just so happens to be coherent enough to put my Twitter feed and posts together to realize that, indeed, I am the, uh, not-so-mysterious “A” part of 1528.

I guess I thought it might be sort of fun for the gentlemen that I have crushes on to also know about this personal outlet of romantic escapades and frustrations, and part of me even thought that it would be great when trying to date someone seriously, because any issue I couldn’t actually say to his face (clearly sidetracked by the way his fingers fit mine so perfectly and the oh-so-elusive increase of forehead-kisses in my life) I could write here instead, therefore avoiding that awful, awful habit I sometimes have of being a girl and having issues with boys and wanting to talk to them about it candidly.
(Unfortunately, my frank discussions, while initiated with good intentions, seem to always lead away from the road of making out, cuddling, and general getting-lost-in-each-other’s-dashing-good-looks-and-charm reverie, and more towards the road of Serious Conversation About Where This is Going territory. [Yeah. No one gets laid after those kinds of conversations. Trust me.])

Instead, however, I believe that boys are generally backing away from me, afraid that their shortcomings and issues will be laid out in digital print, maybe even complete with a Google-searched image of cartoon speech bubbles. And to be honest, I can’t really blame them. My most recent ex-boyfriends have been covered in excruciating detail, an on-again, off-again paramour has been vaguely profiled, much to his chagrin, I’m sure, (and that of his are-they-or-aren’t-they girlfriend/ex-girlfriend) and, let’s be blunt here, “A” comes across as a snarky, sarcastic, self-righteous bitch with a bit of a Narcissus complex and whole lot of self-inflicted problems with the male gender.

To quote a male friend of mine, “So last night I read your blog. I don’t like whoever the hell ‘A’ is, because it sure as anything isn’t you.”

Au contraire, mon ami, my media persona is definitely a part of me. I wasn’t exactly making up the crush on Nick Jonas (yes, admittedly, this is unfortunate for me), nor was the spirited defense of smart, funny, social girls who wear push-up bras something that I thought up in my imagination. Clearly, these entries come from a very real person with very real thoughts with very real (and ridiculous) obsessions who doesn’t always try very really hard to mask things she is frustrated with.

But it’s not always as simple as that, either– I don’t walk around stabbing boys in the heart with five-inch stiletto heels like my persona probably would enjoy. Nor is my backpack always holding a handle of rum. There are even times in my real life that I have to study and make sure I don’t fail out of my senior year,  although based on this blog, all I do is lounge around my room in a kimono, communicating with dozens of male admirers, persuading them to come over and sleep with me. I also don’t spend my time generally not participating in daily life and instead playing Rock Band. (Well, that last one might be more true to my actual schedule than I wish it was.)

However, I must admit, that for all the assumptions, I find it quite delightful to hide my reading-glasses-wearing, old-movie-watching, Spanish-ham-eating, Star-Wars-Convention-attending self within the majority of my posts to this blog, which clearly, confuses much of my male audience. (My habit of using the phrase, “Dude, I know!” in a pitch and tone eerily similar to that of Spicoli’s in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” has also managed to confuse those around me, but that is a different problem entirely.)

No matter what I may or may not be typing for the public sphere, however, I must acknowledge the gentlemen who have been mentioned before, are again mentioned in this post, and will be mentioned in the future. Know that I’ve (mostly) adored your company, your words, and your actions (especially if your actions included attempting to give me a piggy-back ride at any point in our acquaintance), and that it’s not to be taken too personally.

Gentlemen, all I can really guarantee at the end of the day is that I will generally ask all of the essential first date questions, I will make an excellent spooning partner, I will definitely offer to pay half, I will most likely not ask that you leave your girlfriend for me, I will be the first one to admit than I am more than a little complicated, ridiculous and/or crazy, I will not mind tell-tale markings on my neck due to the suctioning function of your lips, I will always appreciate your handsomeness more in khakis and collared shirts, and nine times out of ten, your parents will adore me.

As for the rest? I’ll try not to blog about it.
But you’ll have to be beautifully endearing, and I’ll have to be fantastically infatuated.

Mostly, though, you will have had to make me pinky promise it.
Which can usually be accomplished with the help of a) Jose Cuervo, b) witty texts, c) Wii marathon sessions, d) fast food, e) private slumber parties in my silk sheets or f) any combination of all of the above.

I mean, I’m not that complicated. Geez.

– A

All That and a Swiffer, Too.

I have spent much of this summer unemployed, technically.
While that has led to my already documented heavy usage of alcohol, and an excessive amount of television watching, it has also led to a love for having the entire three floors of 1528 entirely to myself– no one else’s music, no feet running up and down the stairs, no random rushes of water from various bathrooms.

Most importantly of all, there is no one to get in my way while I throw my hair in a ponytail, throw on my only pair of sweatpants, get on my hands and knees and thoroughly scrub every crack and dent of the entire expanse of our bamboo-wood  kitchen floor with nothing but a bucket of hot soapy water and a 3″ x 5″ sponge.
Much to my chagrin, I often live for these few hours where the bike marks, the shoe scuffs, the food stains, and the general muck and dirt we all track in is scrubbed mercilessly away by my bare hands. In fact, my last raid of the kitchen included soaking various metal grates and holders of the oven and stove, something I vaguely recalled my grandmother doing when I was younger, and which, really, is rather silly considering the fact that none of us are spilling tons of things on the metal burner hardware anyhow.
My obsession with cleaning has also led to an entire reorganization of the living room, including the huge bookshelf where our board games, DVDs, textbooks, magazines, Wii controllers, and nail polish bottles all come to rest. Other semi-OCD neat freaks will be glad to know that every shelf is now properly organized by purpose, and I’ve moved all electronic gaming equipment to another well-sorted location close to the consoles themselves for better functionality.
Perhaps the worst behaivor exhibited by my new-found affinity for the work of 50’s housewives? I have even caught myself making small piles of my roommates’ things and then even transporting these piles of belongings up to their bedrooms, lying them gently on their beds so they will see them and put them away in their rightful places. This has happened on more than one occasion, I must admit, and I doubt it will suddenly cease happening.

I cannot stress how much pride I have come to take in all of these horrifying acts of domesticity.
For example, a normal question like, “What did you today?” inspires an incredulous reply that I have thankfully never actually recited out loud, which goes something along the lines of, “Can’t you SEE what I did today? The floors are GLEAMING, everything smells absolutely stellar, I had to take out the trash and now my pants smell like YOUR banana peels, and you should notice how all of those coffee stains are magically gone from the counter– do you even know how DIFFICULT day-old coffee is to get off of concrete counters?! Of course you don’t, and now you’re going to go and put crumbs all underneath the oven again where I just cleaned and GOOD LORD are you SERIOUSLY trailing all of that mud in here?!”

Yeah, it’s been a little scary, to say the least. Most terrible for me personally is that for all my talk of mistresses and my utter lack of desire for matrimony, it turns out I’ve actually got a good-wife-gene in there somewhere, although it often gets overpowered, thank goodness. Thinking of exploring the fact that I’ve also been cooking and baking more often, for instance, is starting to make my stomach churn, and I’ve never felt something so reassuringly wonderful as the sheer suffocation my body prepares itself for, the longer I talk in earnest about becoming a housewife.

You may be getting to me, Betty Draper Housewife Archetype, and I’ll admit that I envy your beautifully suited husband, but I maintain that my role be the one entertaining that husband on weeknights in the city where we’ll do it on my mark-free kitchen floor. And I can bet that I’ll be enjoying scrubbing every inch of said floor the next morning, housewife-gene or not.

– A