an overstatement

commuter: an individual who frequently travels between two places and fails with awe-inspiring accuracy at fashioning friendships of any sort; socially inept to the point of loneliness - a point that drives said individual to the car (parked far away from the others) to read a book... and not interact for fear of humiliation and rejection.

yes, i do commute. and yes, i am guilty of eating the majority of my meals in my car when the few people i do communicate with regularly are m.i.a. i also must admit that the above definition is an overstatement. the fear is real. as is the rejection. but the language is elaborate and inflated like a muscle-man suit on halloween. it is okay, i get it. and i realize that people are unaware of how exclusive their groups really are. they live with each other. eat with each other. study with each other. skip class with each other. etc. etc. etc. and i admit that i am largely uninvolved in this community that many rave about. i want to. not out of desperation, because i do have solid friends whom i spend time without outside of this school. not out of a need to be the center of attention, because i cannot withstand such a pressure. but out of a basic human longing to get a joke you are telling. and laugh with you. but there are so many of you, and only one of me.

don't get me wrong, i am not throwing a pity party.*

i am quite happy - satisfied with both my schoolwork and current relationships. but as i was waiting for time to pass between university registration and lunch (a whopping forty-five minutes), i came across this passage in "a tree grows in brooklyn":

And Francie did cry [...] because she was lonesome and nobody wanted to play with her. The rougher children found Francie too quiet and the better behaved ones seemed to shun her [...] So in the warm summer days the lonesome child sat on her stoop and pretended disdain for the group of children playing on the sidewalk. Francie played with imaginary companions and made believe that they were better than real children. But all the while her heart beat in rhythm to the poignant sadness of the song the children sang while walking around in a ring with hands joined.

my teachers, in loopy cursive, would always comment that i worked well independently. and it's true. i am rory gilmore at chilton during her second year. and i sit alone at lunch. and it bothers me some. but this is, as emily gilmore would put it, a habit i learned from my parents. who taught me, without words, the finer points of a hermit lifestyle. the advantage of not having friends over, mine or theirs. solitude was encouraged. there were too many children. and paychecks were stretched. and time was noisy. and they never set the example.

but i am going to try and burst out of this shell, no matter how lame this hermit metaphor is.

and i may make forever friendships. and i may get your joke. and you may even get mine.

*and please, i beg of you: do not befriend me because you read this. go about your business and feel no pity. or ugency to smile at me and ask me to sit with you when you see me scrolling through my phone. thank you. :)

p.s. today was good. i promise. i just felt introspective. and the length of this introspective post is so unbearable i will not read it through for misspellings. enjoy.