I previously figured my 20’s were no more disorienting than my discovery of Tom Sawyer on the big screen. After all, witnessing Tom slyly show off is just as heart-warming as the whiskey we so elegantly funnel. Basically, I wanted to be Tom Sawyer, yet, I wanted to date Tom Sawyer. Or, at the very least, enlist in his pirate gang where girls weren’t welcomed. But did I only desire to join his gang because my pee position said I couldn’t? That very philosophy (‘in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain,’ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) introduced to me by cunning little Tom in the first place. And did I truly want to date Tom or was I masquerading a more blushing crush on the cute boy from “Home Improvement” who others, presumably with cable, culturally referred to as JTT? You see. Those head-scratchers effectively turned my 20’s into the lesser, head-tilters.
Now; I’m still so sure. Buzzfeed people endlessly dote on lists about the greatest confusions,problems, thoughts, what-have-you’s a 20-something digests (verb specifically chosen to suggest our problems lie in our drinking habits) when their well…20-something. Today, I’m joining the hard-boiled dads who unsympathetically suggest we 20-somethings are not so much confused as we are idiots. Although, because I’m maturely aware that all my what-have-you’s can be decoded by self-affirming I’m an absolute idiot, I consequently believe I’m a genius and the exception to this age-causing idiot epidemic. And that’s when I conclude that debating whether I’m an idiot or a genius is the realest problem I’ve faced in the first 4/10 of my 20’s. Specifics matter here.
If you are looking for an example to my recent confusion cure, I’ll give you one. Or many. I change my mind about specifics.
Number One!
I fell in love. Or so I thought. I’m kidding; I did. I’m a firm believer in, “if you must question whether you are in love then you just got your answer.” I was in love and not confused about it. So, for all you cynical, romance killing jerks I’ll say- “you are an absolute idiot” to that. But where I’d actually like to point my confusion-curing saying is the phase in which I truly and arrogantly believed I’d fall in love just once and that would be it because I fearfully paralleled love to the dishing of compliments. The more someone dishes, the less meaningful it is. I’m onto you, Ellen.
Anyway, I lingered along waiting for this inexplicable love, luckily so entertained with myself I never completely bit the bait of others (the fact that I’m the catch in this story should go without saying, I just quoted Tom Sawyer for goodness sakes…but reading the comments on celebrities’ Instagrams left me with faulty faith in the internet’s collective IQ). I anticipated he would lure me in, which he did, so easily in fact, one might change ‘lure’ to ‘reel’ (no trickery needed for that fisherman). And after I proved the catch I claim to be, he’d decide not to slaughter me and just take care of me and love me.
Well, guys, he slaughtered me, and soon, offensively soon actually, went fishing in Lake Tinder, fancying the local catch from there instead, as I lay gutted, yet still breathing, nurturing a pathetic desire to hanker around with zero attempts at flopping my way back into the opportunistic and proverbial lake. And after some friends kicked my fishy, dramatic, ass back into the lake for me (do fish have butts? discussion for another day) I found my bearings and laughed at myself; “You are an absolute idiot.” 1. For thinking so highly of yourself 2. For thinking one love is all you get. 3. Making ties between gutted fish and your love life. Lessons learned. Problems solved.
Number two!
Ordering Domino’s. Drunkenly, soberly, doesn’t matter because both have happened and it always results in a giant slap of “You are an absolute idiot.” Davanni’s exists for many reasons, people, and an alternative to Domino’s is a big one. Lesson not actively learned but the logistics are definitely understood.
Number three!
Thinking 23 is old. What an idiot I am, and quite frankly, not only being wasteful in what I’m freshly deeming “the best years of our lives” (sorry, college) but I’m offending my future, wrinkly self.
Okay. I’m bored with relaying examples and “only boring people are bored” so I gotta find a way to un-bore myself, as an emotion and human. Remember, when you (not me, I’m a genius) 20-somethings are confused just think of that one friend’s dad who, although scary, knows his shit.
A Lame James Franco 