The following piece is inspired from
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
...
Q
Trust me, it's not like I do it on purpose or that I am chasing a self gratifying end of feeling a certain sense of accomplishment. I don't even know what I do is because I want it. That I want it so bad. I don't realise it while I am engaged in the process of attaining it. What I am saying is, I don't even realise I did it until I am told that I really did do it. Of course, no body can point it right out but yeah, after a little thinking, I realise I did it again. Not that it was my intention but yeah, I did do it nevertheless.
Q
Honestly, I think you can call me insecure... what the hell, I
am insecure which is why I think people around me feel like they should hold me and tell me it's alright. Not that I don't appreciate it, I really do but more than that, what I really feel is satisfaction. A sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing people love me and care about me, just that, I think, I mean I am not sure but maybe it's not as pure as these words make it out to be?
Q
How? Well, I think it may be because I
really enjoy it. I get high on it. I like being important but I guess more than that - more than anything else, what I really cherish is the drama. The fake concern and I doubt that they are aware of how fake it is. I mean, it really gives me the pleasure.
Basically what I am saying is, I enjoy the attention.
Q
..but I think it is probably a little more serious than that. A lot of people enjoy attention. No, wait. Everyone enjoys attention. Second rate celebrities, little girls in pink skirts, sportsmen and so on and so forth but I enjoy attention to the point of it being the only thing that concerns me. Everything I do... yeah.
Q
What pisses people off, I think
[1], I mean this is something I gathered after an ex called me selfish, is that I am truly; most innocently unaware of my needs. The need of feeling important, that is. I mean until now of course.
Q
Yeah so now that I realise it, you would think I feel evil but really what I feel is just helpless.
Q
You know what, I'd clean up your poop with my own hands when you're sick and yeah, I wouldn't even make a face while I am it. I'd smile at you and feel great that I could take care of you because I love you but what I would really, really appreciate is not your genuine thanks or your unconditional love in return or for that matter have you clean my poop when I am sick. However what would really get to me and move me like nothing else is when you would tear up before ten people and say you love me because I care for you like no one else ever could. Yeah, I basically want them to know, not that I wiped your butt with my bare hands
[2] but that I love you more than your own mother does. That I am willing to take care of you no matter what. That I am really doing everything out sheer concern and a whole lotta love.. for you. I will take pleasure in knowing that you show me off to your friends like you would show off a vintage
Chanel dress and I will love you more for not only allowing me but also acknowledging and making me out to be the one truly, madly and foolishly in love with you.
And yet, after all this one sided giving from my side, at the end of the day, it's not just your attention I want, I also crave your friend's attention and her brother's attention and yeah, you know.. him, her, him and her, her, her, him, him all possible permutations and combinations or whatever that is.
Q
I must admit something, I am willing to do anything for you to feel comfortable around me. I want you to feel like you've found a friend in me, a lover in me, a confidant. I will love it when you make me an embarrassing T-shirt that reads 'private property of so and so' and I will tell you I love it and yeah, I really do. Sometimes I will tell you I don't want to wear it but what I want of you is to make me wear it anyway. I want you to feel like you own me. Know that I am yours. I don't want to be your inspiration - fuck "inspiration". I am not here to inspire anyone. I just have this worm that gnaws at my very existence and makes me feel an almost urgent need to feel genuinely important to others. I want to be that little thing that you do everyday like it's something scared. I want to be as precious to you as a prayer and all the hope you put into it. I want to be significant for you. I want to have a superstitious value in your life. I want you be with me every second of my insignificant life and I want for others to know of it.
Yes, I will do your laundry and surprise you with breakfast in bed. I will bring you your juice when I get up to get myself some water and I will do all those little things that make you feel special. That make
you feel important but what is really happening here, and you don't realise it because you're too fucking dense and think I am too much into you, which I am, I admit; is that you're serving the same need for me..
.. and before you go all judgmental on me, don't you see, we're in this together? As one? It's all pretty mutual if you ask me. I make you feel special and you make me feel.. special.
Q
Yeah, I think my ex called me selfish because she knows of my need to feel important and is aware of my knack of fetching attention and what's the word here.. inconspicuously?
By now I am sure you are taking my "condition" and my seriousness to this seemingly trivial need of seeking attention as perhaps a
paraphilia. What you have done is.. your little mind which cannot understand me, has made you judge me. You think I should visit a shrink but I'll tell you, I doubt I am anything more than just normal.
Q
No, I don't want your sympathy. I want you to pity me and feel guilty for doing so because you think it hurts my pride.
While we're on the subject, I think pride is an overrated concept and its brothers ego and self esteem are much the same. One who has some, takes things to heart and lives a life of misery, generally speaking. It's not even one of those good-guys-have-it-bad kinda things. I think it's worse than that. It's true, I have conquered my pride and have none.
[3]
Q
Sometimes it's like, after everything that we've been through together, of all the times I made you feel alright and after all the times you made me feel alright, your yeses and nos don't matter to me after all. I will just sit and stare at you and you will assume I am feeling something. Suddenly, you will start doing all the talking and then just when you think everything's gone I will say something like "I love you" which I obviously mean with all my heart, you will come crashing down into tears and you will hold me and kiss me and tell me we'll get through this and I know we will because I will in that moment do something really ordinary like wipe your tears with my favourite T-shirt and you will melt and tell all your friends at the sleepover what happened last night and how I just make everything okay by being me.
There, what you just did there, that makes me love you all the more.
Q
Yeah, I get discovered all the time. I mean people aren't foolish enough and I am transparent enough so yeah, I am discovered. People come to know of my needs but that doesn't bother me much. What does bother me however is the end and what people make out of it.
Q
Usually, even after we've been too long together to know exactly what the other wants and even after you get tired of my antics or maybe because you think I try to "impress" everyone and seek attention and we have a falling out and we stop talking, uh,
you stop talking because it hurts too much to see me not care, I will make you believe that I still care and I swear by the Gods, I will only say it if I mean it which usually in those desperate moments, I do. I will tell you that I love you and I still remember what you told me one night when we were watching
Sienfeld and you will tell yourself to not say something mushy and stupid but I will keep telling you how everything you ever told me still matters to me. I will tell you how I remember the night you got drunk you told me you hated me but then hugged me all throughout the night and you will tell me you remember it too and when you gather up all the courage to tell me you still love me (like a forbidden secret), I know it's a hug moment and I feel up to it and I know you are in need of a warm embrace too but uh, that's something I don't do most of the times. If I do it however, it doesn't imply you're special. It just means that I ditched the rule but I often try not to bring in such distractions when I am making a heartfelt speech. What I mean is, I will cherish everything you say and talk to you the whole night through. We will share feelings, talk about the past and everything that we were. I will trust you with my emotions and tell you that I am often unsure and I need people's approval to get me going. I will tell you how my life is what it is because I met you. I will tell you how I love my current partner a lot but we don't trust each other
[4]. I will tell you how carefree I felt when I was with you and how I still think that you're the best thing that ever happened to me and admit it, with sadness in my voice, that I will never stop having feelings for you no matter how cold you get towards me and I will say this not to comfort you because I know you feel bitter that I left you for another but because I really won't ever run out of feelings for you. I will also hold back my tears and confess that I did everything I could for you but perhaps it was not meant to be.
I will tell you everything I should and yes, I will be honest but you will not. You are too sore and your ego won't let you say any of the things that are going on in your head especially that repetitive 'I love you, please come back to me' but I understand all of that you feel so I will just look at you and try to hold onto that image of you like a photograph that you never let me take because you thought you were not good looking enough for pictures. You'll look at me too but you're strong so you will leave after it starts getting unbearable for you to know I am not yours anymore.
Q
Yeah, all that will happen. I make it happen so of course, when one of your good friends asks you "what happened to the two of you? You guys looked perfect", you'd probably just smile and say "it's gonna be hard to get over this one."
...
I am not sure if they think they're being toyed with emotionally or that they are giving in to all my schemes and everything that I planned from the start but you should know that I am just mostly honest. More like utterly honest- so much so that the people I am dealing with don't have an official reason to complain.
I will cry when I see you cry for a friend who lost her father but I will not do so in front of you. I will hold back my tears from falling
but one of yours friends will tell you later about how I couldn't stand
the sight of you in such selfless pain. Obviously, because you're you and just like me, you want attention too, you will ask me subtly if I really did tear up
seeing you cry the other night and obviously, because I am me I will tell you most truthfully that yes, I did tear up and I would've cried if I were not man enough and that it was not your friend's loss but the sheer sight of you fading away
in her grief that made me weak.
Here, I will have to mention how you love me a little (being humble) more than I love you and of course, knowing how you are, you'll feel bitter about it. I don't know why one would assume I am a bad person. I notice people, I know them yet I don't humiliate them and ignore everything apparent. Like in this case, I will notice how your expression changes. I mean you felt a little glad that we don't have faith in one another but your expression changed to awful when I said I was the one with the upper hand in the relationship.
