My One Sided Love Story

I contemplated many titles for this post.

Some of the contenders were: "Yes, I am a stalker" and "I'm only psycho for strangers." But I ultimately decided on "my one sided love story" because directly calling myself out for being insane in the title just felt too easy.

We will start from the beginning.  Everyone has their celebrity crush, so naturally mine was bound to be a DJ. I stood inches away from an array of celebrities this past summer and didn't bat an eyelash. Put me next to a DJ- someone catch me when I faint.

The level of obsession reached when I discovered this particular DJ has hit me one other time in my life. That was when I was 14 years old and watched the movie Twilight. Robert Pattinson was it for me. I didn't need anyone else in this world as long as I could come home from school everyday and rewatch his performance as Edward Cullen.

The undying love I had for Robert Pattinson was not something I grew into after continuous exposure to People magazine articles and his films. It was an immediate and all-knowing kind of love. No one could ever come close to replacing him. My teenage loyalties would always belong to Rob.

But then I hit 18, and with maturity and some developed brain cells, I moved on. Electronic Dance Music was my new after school addiction, and Rob just couldn't be my end all be all once Twilight was no longer a past-time.

Insert Porter Robinson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at3FPJaAwoY

I heard this song on the radio, downloaded it, and listened to pretty much nothing else for weeks (to the dismay of all family members). My brother, also a fanatic, then off handedly mentioned that Porter lived in Chapel Hill, was a year older than me, and was discovered by my-then favorite DJ, Skrillex.

All of this being said, although my obsession for Porter was not immediate, it was more than mildly concerning once fully developed. 

The fixation started one day when I was doing homework at Starbucks. A guy walked in wearing leather pants, a pony tail with the sides of his head shaved, and an anime printed shirt. I kept staring at this person because his outfit made him worthy of a few seconds of thought. He clearly wasn't from here, but my main feeling towards him was jealousy. I would wear leather pants all day every day in the winter if I didn't live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina where out-there fashion makes people glance nervously over at you like you are some kind of serial killer.

When I finally caught a glance of his profile, everything clicked and that's when it was over. I furiously googled pictures of him and after confirming that it was indeed Porter Robinson, I immediately mass texted my family members and whichever friends were unlucky enough to be in my recent messages.

Many urged me to talk to him, but I can barely gather the courage to talk to acquaintances, much less someone who is inducing hyperventilation, so that was a no-go.

I think the worst thing about this random sighting was what happened afterwards. I probably spend thousand(s) of dollars a year at Starbucks- the addiction was already out of hand. But suddenly I found myself there whenever I had a free thirty minutes, needed to study, wanted to catch up with someone. I was always there, in a cute outfit, just waiting for Porter's return.

And the problem is, he did return- more than once. Each time he showed up, the freak out would become more intense. My chest would feel like it was about to explode, my face would turn beat red, and I would creepily peer over at him between the texting freakouts I was having to my mom and brother.

The third time it happened, my mother called me and told me to "grow a pair and go talk to him." So I did because my mother can be very intimidating.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, you're Porter right? I love your music.

He stops, looking incredibly taken aback. (This time he was wearing a skirt over jeans- yes actually.)

Porter: Hey, yeah I am. Sorry that surprised me, no one in Chapel Hill ever recognizes me.

Me: Yeah your outfit kind of gives you away. You aren't blending into fratland too well.

The conversation continued about Chapel Hill's general fratty aura, being townies, and about how he was on his way to Trader Joes. And this is all you need to read to understand how the rest of the conversation went (Start at cheese??):

Shout out to Shand for indulging my desire to talk about him. Since our conversation I have seen him one other time, and that time I thought I was actually going to have a heart attack. The physical anxiety was at an all time high.

So I did what I needed to do, and in August, I impulsively bought a ticket to see him play in NYC. I had no flight, nowhere to stay, and no one to go with. But it was Porter, so I knew I had to be there. While I was unable to make it to the DJ booth this time, we did sneak up to the VIP floor (I recruited Alex and Sam to come with me- but be sure I would have been there by myself if I needed to be).

My undying loyalty to those I don't actually know is truly remarkable. This is especially the case considering how emotionlessly I seem to live the rest of my life. The thought of referencing the real-live "love" word about anyone I have been or will be with on this blog makes me want to run to the nearest toilet and vomit. Three cheers for emotional maturity. Physical affection also makes me uncomfortable- I will only hug my mother out of dire necessity aka after she takes me shopping.

The overall moral of this post is that being fixated on a celebrity is totally fine. Until they live 10 minutes away from you, and you keep running into them at Starbucks, which causes you to start living in Starbucks.

So I hope we have all learned our lesson, and if you need me for any reason- you know where to find me.

Until next time.

-F

Music Festivals and Resting Bitch Face: How They Don't Mix

As a college senior, I feel like I'm at the age now where I should start having a very legitimate grasp on who I am.

The idealized perceptions of myself that used to float around in my head were cute; until I started finding myself in situations where I volunteered to cook or babysit some horrific child. When you're known for trying to cook pasta without water and being able to hardly tolerate anyone under the age of 15, lessons are learned fairly quickly.

So how, two weekends ago, I found myself lugging a cooler and 50 pounds of camping gear 1.5 miles from the car to a campsite happened, was clearly the outcome of a complete mental lapse. During my post-Vegas delirium in April, I purchased an "all access camping pass" to an EDM festival called Tomorrowworld in Atlanta, Georgia.

Before the reality of the c-word (camping) hit me, Tomorrowworld was like a sequel to Ultra in my head. Crop tops, straightened hair, crazy makeup, and all of the EDM I could ever hope for were in my future. My fabulous self in my fabulous outfits would float between stages, raving my life away, posing for my next profile pic.

Actual Life: Sweat had unstraightened my hair, stained my dress, and melted my makeup off. I was letting out small sobs disguised as tired gasps lugging my camping gear from the car to the campsite. The hair straighteners, bottles of beauty products, and plethora of shoe options were life's little joke on me as I stared at porter potties and a shed with a few shower spouts. Alex was treking next to me, and staying true to our dynamic, she used her air intake to breath while I used mine to complain.

I managed to pull it together and put on a happy face for Friday night's shows despite the trauma I had gone through earlier in the day. The tents surrounding us were full of bearded men holding totem poles with penises at the top and others who looked as if showering was a once a month occurrence anyways. Everywhere you turned there were boobs, questionable tattoos, and more boobs. Totally my kind of people.

The commentary Alex and I received throughout the weekend was enough to deserve its own blog post, so I will go ahead and summarize. Men calling us "babies" tends to be a theme wherever we go, and Tomorrowworld was no exception. This would be humorous if it were said in a protective brotherly context, but its usually used in a pedophilic sort of way, so that's always good.

It would be natural for you to assume that I am about to embark upon another paragraph of men complimenting us. However, the comment that was directed towards us the most was "smile, are you even having any fun?!"said by some drug addled twitching 30 year old.

The woes of resting bitch face syndrome.

I have battled this disease for many years now, and I think Alex can say the same. A cashier adding a "cheer up, it can't be that bad," as they hand me my receipt is far from abnormal. A typical occurrence when I make a new friend is them telling me they were under the impression that I severely disliked them before our friendship blossomed. I told my soccer coach in high school that if the team was unhappy about how he was running practice, they would come and talk to me about it. He snorted and assured me that the other girls would "shit themselves before trying to talk to you, you look so mean." This being said, genetics have dealt me a difficult hand when it comes to expressing any form of happiness.

By day three of a music festival you are exhausted, your entire body hurts, and pain is permeating your being just as much as the pleasure of being there is. It's like a bear's body in the last month of hibernation- energy is being pooled from whatever internal reserve is left because the normal sources are completely dried out.

We found that it was sometimes easiest to just stand and stare at the light show to give our knees even a five minute break from the bouncing. And you know us, we were wearing combat boots and converses because cute overtakes comfort. I don't think Orthopedic shoes could have saved our joints that weekend.

The encounters would typically start during a calm part of a song when the crowd would take full advantage of a break from the dancing. Some weirdo would still be convulsing and jumping ten times faster than the beat, and we would idly stare because hey, its kind of funny.

 Example:

When the confrontation comes, you realize that your lack of enthusiasm is an actual offense to said person who is confronting you.

"We are all in this together, mann. Relax, feel the music, BE the music. You look like you hate your lifeeeee."

They start gyrating awkwardly while still staring at you, waiting for a response.

"What do you mean, we are happy?" Put smile onto face and force your limbs to move with the beat.

The person starts dancing around you, waiting for you to join into the fun with them. You do so for thirty seconds while expending further energy trying to keep a smile on your face.

After going through this process, your scowl actually ends up ten times worse than it started because you have even less energy that you did when you were standing there contently staring five minutes before. And the process repeats itself with a new over-enthusiastic druggy.

Story of our weekends.

Tomorrowworld ended up being a learning experience on many accounts. I will never step foot into a tent again, but I want it to be known that I am going to declare myself an avid crusader of the hotel industry as opposed to admitting that I am not cut out for the outdoors. 

At moments, I considered asking for some of whatever the weirdos were on, for the sake of being left alone. I then thought better of it after realizing that simple addition is a struggle with my current number of brain cells, so who knows how I would function with even fewer.

Next weekend I am returning to NYC because apparently the smell of garbage permeating the air and homeless people on every street corner is an aura I have become addicted to.

So until next time.

-F