HIS LUCKY CHARM

Have you ever come to the realization that everything you do, you do addictively? First and foremost; watching movies, or series, which starts as leisure, a fun, and stimulating activity with a lot of gazing and gawking, but after 6 hours of it, you suddenly notice that you are admiring the show wishing it was your life. And you succeed in making it your life…only you aren’t actually living in a world of marvelous Mrs Maisels and night kings, but are just a sore loser spending his life staring at a screen. And what’s worse, you actually do feel sore in your muscles??

How is that possible by the way? Feeling sore after not having moved for 6 hours. Maybe it’s your body nudging you to exercise by projecting that excruciating feeling onto your brain - or it is that your muscles are reacting to whatever they can make sense of the potential shit you're watching. Or they might be raging that you’re wasting your life away in your sad little room, which was supposed to give you freedom, but all it resulted in was that you now lock yourself in the room even if it’s just a regular afternoon and no one else is home.

Let’s see what other things do I carry out addictively? OOOH, this is a good one. Dating.

I have never ever been in a relationship long enough for me to even wait for the first glimpse of someone attempting to say they loved me. No, no. Being a serial dater comes with benefits and restraints. Well, you do try out dating a lot of different types of people: men, women, magicians…, people who want to paint you or write a poem about you, those who give you a ring with miniature Jesus portraits on it, or people who lend you not only a disco outfit which they haven’t washed in years but also a fun STD to make sitting on public benches during the summer heat just way more fun.

I sort of casually dated this guy who was the kind of mysterious and into communism “as a concept” idiot that girls, who said stuff like “I need something different, after all, I’m not like other girls”, fell completely head-over-heels for. Now, I’m not saying I was falling for him, we mainly just talked about Dosztojevszkij’s Player (no, I somehow didn't see that as a red flag) and my admiration for every Shrek movie except the last one. So we talked and walked and he didn’t kiss me at the end of the date. I was disappointed because I drank all that beer and froze my legs off wearing a skirt with super thin, but super flattering, wild tights in November for not even a little bit of action? I even “accidentally” bumped into him as we were walking because I am oh-so clumsy and tipsy from my 2 Heinekens. He said he had a great time, but his last bus was leaving. He then hugged me for a weirdly long time with the typical smell of my hair that engraves my perfume in his brain forever so that he thinks of me whenever someone wearing the same scent on the street passes by. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and he never asks me out again, we just see each other at parties when he talks to me as if the two of us shared some top-tier and mischievous secret. He also texts me relentlessly about how he thinks pop culture is ruining his life - I’m guessing that’s why he moved to the Netherlands to study media and culture. Anyway, later he finally invites me to the weirdest date I’ve ever been asked on: a metal silent disco on freakin Valentine’s Day. I was like sure, but that sounds like so much fun that I have to invite all my other friends - after this proposal, I had to make sure that the guy was sane before I went anywhere alone with him again. Funnily enough, the party was a hoot, especially if you enjoy pretending that you like metal music, the guy however would not dance or talk to me; he was just staring at me like a puppy wanting to bone, I mean A bone. So after a while, I made a big announcement that I will use the ladies’ but am fine do not need a sisterhood advocate’s babysitting, and voila: after I stood in the stall for just enough time for him to believe that I actually peed, but not enough time that he thinks I just took a dump at the toilet of a metal disco on Valentine’s Day, there he was waiting for me. He was, if you haven’t guessed it till now, a chain smoker so, as the perfect segue, I asked if he wanted to get some fresh air. As a true communist he rolled his Camel cigarettes, so while he was licking and rolling that disgusting paper he pulled out of his aroma-filled coat he put over my shoulders (that was actually very gracious of him) I moved closer and closer and gave him flirty, but of course not desperate - because timing my bathroom pace definitely saved me from that. And still, nothing. He kept going on and on about consumerism and globalization - while still at the freakin metal silent disco on Valentine’s Day drinking Heinekens. So I gave up and just had a great time with my friends instead: I figured I can spend my time more productively than trying with a man who isn’t interested. 

And then Covid hit and as a true Eastern European, I instantly traveled back to Hungary because our healthcare is famously so much better than the Dutch one. After a couple of weeks spent in quarantine, I suddenly got a text from him at 2 AM saying: U up? I was like fuck my life dude, I’m in godforsaken Hungary and there’s a pandemic going on. I really wouldn’t come for your booty call even if I wanted to see you naked. And he told me the funniest save I have ever heard from a guy: “Oh no I am texting because I needed to ask what your favorite number was.” I was like what the heck, but said it was 8. He said thanks and 5 minutes later sent me a picture from a fabulous gambling parlor with him holding a bunch of tokens and said “I knew you’ve always been my lucky charm.” He then proceeded to tell me how he thinks we are like the couple in the Before Trilogy, “passing each other in space and time having meaningful conversations and oh by the way; being soulmates.” I was too stunned to tell him that I genuinely just wanted to see if he continued talking pretentious bullshit even during the cigarette after sex, so I just said it was a long time ago and never had a live convo with him again. 

But that made me think. How in my right mind could I think at some point that I was actually interested in this man? Sure, I liked the attention I am human after all, but I remember telling him I loved Bukowski regardless of him being a huge misogynist - and that’s dedication. Lying to a guy just so that our opinions don’t clash is something I thought I would never do and still, I masterfully executed it for someone who I more than often even felt repulsed by. Hard to guess why right? And then I realized. It was because of my chic momentary addiction to dating. And no, I’m not one of those fratboys who only like “the chase” because a) I’m not a man, and b) I recall being genuinely interested in finding out who this guy was along with his smelly coat and pretentious metal cigarettes. I had to spend my time getting to know him, coming up with scenarios to what prompt might give him the courage to ask me out, and what opinion of mine would make him think: Wow, this girl is so special, let me invite her back to my - probably awful place with a single bed in it because it’s “more convenient”. I got caught up in this charade completely organized by my own madness because thinking about him meant that I had something to think about. Something other than my own needs, ambitions, and mental state. Boy, do I wish now that instead of going out with that awful guy, I went to therapy! But that’s just one of the perks of having an addictive personality, you only realize you’re in an addiction cycle after you already switched to something even more cuckoo. I am not sure which one am I in as of now, but I really hope it has to do something with knitting or dating a psychiatrist.