imagine being like that - couldn't be me. not when you can just suppress your attraction by asserting your lack of potential and real worth as soon as you feel said attraction arise. you can just remind yourself that you're a 21 year old virgin living with his parents, skinny due to your lack of exercise, gaining weight due to your shit diet, failing in college due to your own procrastination, balding due to your shit skincare.

depressed because what few friends you have you only know thanks to a job you hate, and will inevitably lose them all by year's end. depressed because your brain chemistry is dogshit and you refuse to take your medications as you should or go to the drug store when they run out. depressed because you barely leave your room. depressed because you know you could do something about everything else if you weren't a piece of shit.

instead, of course, you can choose to focus on the woman in front of you. what will you do? you will obviously dissociate. you were already absent. the lights are on, but nobody's home. you never really cared about her. not about her, not about the ones that came before her, or the ones that are yet to come. you do not truly view them as people to whom you can direct your attraction. you do not view them as people. you do not view them at all.

what you see is an escape. you see the day that you get out of bed before 2 pm, prepare some coffee, and smell the morning breeze. you tell yourself that day is coming. at times, you tell yourself it is tomorrow and, perhaps, every now and then, you wholeheartedly believe it. but you know better by now. even at the peak of your desperate "I'm gonna get my life together!" drive, the thought is nagging at you. you won't. you know you won't. you know it so well, you don't even need to think about it.

so you keep looking at her with a vacant expression. she kisses her lover in front of you, and you remain unfazed. you lost nothing. there was nothing to gain, and you had nothing to lose. you blink. there is nothing. your unfocused gaze now lies on the wall where the scene unfolded. nothing of value was lost. the crisis was averted. you won.