Some people know where they belong.
Typically accompanied with a strong sense of identity, this “deluxe package” model of human being knows themselves well, knows their role in society, and has full confidence that they are in the social circle that’s a right fit for them.
Gee, that sure sounds nice, doesn’t it?
As you may have guessed, I don’t consider myself to fall into this category. I’m not a completely lost soul, but I definitely feel like a wandering one.
I’ve lived most of my life in gray areas, hoping to fit in somewhere, while at the same time scared Scheiße-less of actually fitting in. Amongst my cool friends, I’m the nerd; likewise, I’m the cool kid when surrounded by nerdier amigos.
Another example would be that I can’t decide if I’m urban/hipster, or rural at heart. Knowing my luck, I’m actually–heavens forbid–a bougie suburbanite. Egads. Perish that thought.
While I think I secretly thrive on not completely fitting in anywhere, I have a strong desire for predictability and stability, and this keeps my soul restless with yearning for a community to call home.
Not too long ago I was listening to a podcast called Three Questions with Andy Richter. If you’re not aware of who he is, he is probably best known as Conan O’Brien’s late-night comedic side kick. In other words, a funny guy.
In this particular episode he was interviewing another comic. If I haven’t pointed it out before, let me do so now: when the muggles aren’t around to hear, comedians will refer to themselves as “comics”. I’m not sure why I find this so humorous, but I do.
Anyways, both Andy and his guest were recounting what it was like to realize that comedy was where they belonged. In both cases they described it as “finding [their] people”, and how wonderful it was to feel like they finally belonged somewhere after having struggled to fit in their whole lives.
Hearing them talk about it that way made my heart long for the same thing for myself.
And then a surprising thought caught me off guard: “Hey wait…am I a comic? Is that where I truly belong? Is that where I will thrive, live my #BestLife,1Term used ironically. and feel truly alive?”
With all the self-psychology I find myself dabbling in, you would think I would know myself pretty well inside and out. Turns out that there’s always more under the surface yet to be discovered, and sometimes it can come as shock to one’s self-image.
What I haven’t mentioned is that I’m not alone in my quest for this thing called “tribe.”2If you have to ask, it’s a A Tribe Called Quest pun. Collectively, the Boss Lady and I have been at a loss for awhile as to how we could rebuild our social circle, now that our lives are dominated by children.
Last year when our eldest daughter started kindergarten, somehow we ended up sending her to what I describe as a “daycare on a farm that got out of hand.” As you may recall from the tale of Two Lukes,3Since you didn’t read it when you were supposed to, here’s the link. it was a rather small enterprise, dominated by rascally preschool youths and culminating in a kindergarten class of only 6 kids (33.33% of which were named Luke).
Also key to this story is that the farm/school was in tune with an educational philosophy that shares the same name with a certain grape + nut salad. If you’re not familiar with it, I can sum it up in one word: fairies. For some reason, adherents to this educational model tend to be unusually preoccupied with pretending fairies are real.
Now, I don’t have time to go into a deep dive on that topic right now, but the important thing to note is that we were entering a culture that embraced approaching the world with child-like wonder.
While this had it’s pros and cons, it did leave us wondering…
“Is this where we would finally find ‘our people’?!?”
It was bound to be an adventure full of self-discovery.
The first half of the school year was rather unremarkable, but early in January I got a chance to fly solo and scope out potential kindred spirits. The husband of the woman who ran the school was hosting a Dad’s Night Out on the farm, where us dads of the students were to gather and relax by drinking beer, enjoying a bonfire fueled by a previously full-of-life Christmas tree, and shooting flaming arrows at bales of hay.
I was on the hunt for someone to whom I could say, “You look like a man I could be a best friend with,”4https://youtu.be/wIeHb8_-GPg?t=24 and I was my usual optimistic self about my odds of success.
My first clue that things weren’t going to live up to my expectations was the beer.
It was sort of a beer pot-luck, where we were instructed to bring “six of [our] favorite beers to share.” I arrived alongside two other dads and we struck up a conversation while we were putting our alcoholic contributions into the cooler.
Dad #1: “Oh man, I can’t wait for you to try this Dark Chocolate Coffee Porter I brought. I just know it will bring you as much joy as it brings me!”
Dad #2: “Super. And you guys are going to love this rare IPA my wife got me for Christmas!”
Me: “Well, here’s six randoms beers that I know I sure the hell am never going to drink, but for some reason were in my house. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to pawn them off on unsuspecting schmucks. Enjoy…”
And then as we achieved critical mass, one dad started sincerely asking how everybody’s days were going, and each response was met with a chorus of “That’s great!” “Awesome!” & “I’m happy for you!”
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help thinking to myself “Why are you ----- so positive?!?” Naturally, I found myself having a really hard time trusting them.5Related reading: Fiddy Percent.
It was becoming clear that I was definitely the Negative Nancy of the crowd. Or perhaps the unpleasant truth was that I’m just a big ol’ dick-head at heart? A real dick-heart, if you will.
Anyways, this trend continued as we migrated to the bonfire to continue conversing.
Dad #3: “So I took my toddlers camping in the middle of the summer…”
Me (under my breath): “What the ----- is wrong with you?”
I could hear a couple of other guys within earshot of my comment stifling their chuckles. So maybe I wasn’t the lone “realist” in the crowd after all. That gave me a brief glimmer of hope.
Later on, one guy brought up the local CineBistro,6One of those trendy new cinema/restaurant combos where the bring the fancy food right to your theatre seat. and I guess we were on the general topic of how nice it was. Anyways that must of inspired me to comment on my experience of how luxurious I personally had found it to be.
Only weeks earlier I had taken the Boss Lady there for our most recent anniversary. So, that had two implications:
1) it’s nice enough for an anniversary date, and
2) that evening ended pretty favorably for me, ergo if the place can warrant some anniversary action, then it’s gotta be REAL nice n’ fancy.
But, in my mind, the was an asterisk next to point #2, and for some reason thought it absolutely necessary that the gang understood that there was a confounding factor in my observations.
Namely, Aquaman. Yes, I was smart enough to take her to a movie that I knew would, er, “prime her pump”. I probably could have taken her to the shabbiest theater within 200 miles and still have achieved the same result.
So I suppose I felt innately compelled to share this key detail for the sake of full disclosure. That led to this whole tangent about our insidish joke about how the Boss Lady is attracted to Jason Mamoa because they look so ----- alike.
I mean, when you get down to it, we tend to love no one more than we love ourselves, right? It’s okay though; there’s at least a little Narcisse in all of us.
And objectively speaking, both the Boss Lady and Jason Mamoa are ----- beautiful people. ----- gorgeous, the lot of them. I mean, I think both have the potential to tempt many a person to try to play in both the baseball and softball leagues, if you get my drift. Or maybe I’m just projecting?
Fortunately, that whole last bit was not part of my campfire monologue. Instead, at the behest of an active listener amongst us, I rambled on about how for the longest time we had joked about how we were the karmic universe’s bizarro answer to the Khal /Khalisi power couple (from HBO’s Game of Thrones)…a dream which we finally realized the Halloween just the year before, as seen below.
In the midst of all this, I realized this crowd probably wouldn’t appreciate what essentially amounted to me bragging about how I coat-tailed off of Aquaman’s hotness to get laid. So, hoping that my tales of GoT cross dressing would be interesting enough to satiate the masses, I never circled back around to the original point of the story.
But! I didn’t anticipate these ----- being such attentive and sincere listeners. As I let my secondary story trail off into my signature ellipsis, one of them, perhaps the most positive of the bunch, piped up.
“Oh, I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to interrupt you talking about your wife and CineBistro with my questions. Please, continue.”
Shit. These elephants weren’t forgetting the story I had promised them. So I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to workshop my punchline for when I tell a tale that apparently is only interesting as long as it stays in my head.
You know, play it off as a boring pointless story rather than an inappropriate recounting of my intimate relationship with my wife (as if talking about it here is any better).
“Hah! You thought story was going to be much more interesting. Joke’s on you!”
That got a modest response from the fellas, but it didn’t take much recollection and introspection to realize that I hadn’t exactly nailed it, either.
This guy was showing sincere interest in me. His baseline was to assume that if I valued the thought enough to share it out loud with strangers, then it must be valuable and worthy of hearing. You got to be one well-adjusted human being to be just flinging around respect for others all willy-nilly like that.
In stark contrast, ol’ Captain Dickheart over here was essentially mocking and shaming him for being an example of an upstanding citizen of society.
Shortly after that incident, I bid the male cheerleading squad adieu and headed home, having had my hopes of finding “my people” crushed under the weight of all the positivity.
I’ve heard that some people often act out in less-than-desirable ways because they’re refusing to acknowledge a particular aspect of their identity or desires.
The whole way back I quietly rode in the passenger seat, with the inescapable curse of unpleasant self-knowledge behind the wheel, a smug grin plastered across his face.
I had uncovered a solemn truth about myself that evening.
No, it wasn’t that I was a closeted comic.
It was realizing I was cynically repressed.7Cynically Repressed was the original title of this post, changed only to avoid the humiliating experience of premature punchline.
Content created on: 23 October 2019 (Wednesday)
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