To-do lists make the world go round

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So often, we settle. In a new career, a new city, a new apartment, we find ourselves stranded in a life where we can’t just call someone up any time of day and go “hang out” like we used to. Making new friends is incredibly intimidating, and even just finding the time to nurture something can be far too taxing. But we fear loneliness, we fear being excluded — so we fill our lives with acquaintances. There are coworkers, whom you talk to, but you probably wouldn’t hang out with if you weren’t forced to socialize. There are neighbors, who have the alluring convenience factor, but often not a lot of substance. There are friends of significant others, who come into your life peripherally and rarely become deep friends of your own. Our lives become filled with brunches, happy hours, dinner parties, and cocktails with people who are nice enough, but with whom we wouldn’t share a secret. With whom we wouldn’t cry. With whom we wouldn’t laugh until our stomachs ached. They are simply people to move around with, people who fill your life and your social calendar, people with whom you pass some time because to not do so would make you rude, would make you strange.

We can go weeks, even months, only being around these people. We can get used to the idea that going out is as much about networking and maintaining appearances as it is about actually enjoying your time. There is a resignation to the general idea that socializing can often be work in a different form — a way to maintain the polite and potentially useful connections you have formed elsewhere. Getting a beer with someone after work hours is something you propose because it seems appropriate, because it’s simply what you do. So what if the conversation’s tedious? So what if you have nothing in common? This is what adults do, right?

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I wanted to be the cool bad girl. I wanted to writhe and do headstands in the hallway while singing songs and escaping the trappings of What I Was Supposed to Do. To be part of a crew, tied together by secrets and daring and adrenaline and beauty. This is how deeply the hooks of the Sexiness of Debauchery are lodged into my brain. All from being younger and remembering what it was like to lust after that smoky elusive forbidden thrill of doing that which you are not supposed to do. … Because when you are that young, unless you are given the gift of vision from someone older and who you respect and who gives it to you straight and who actually seems to be pretty fucking cool themselves, you will very often buy this tempting lie. … if you want to truly rebel — then get as smart as you possibly can. There is no rebellion like intelligence. None. Circling the drain of perpetual intoxication because you’re not enough of an interesting person to have a personality without it and you need that kind of courage will ultimately make the people around you pity you.