Confidence

I went to a short Philosophy of Film exam today, I passed well enough.
Anyways, the exam started at 2:10 and I was walking into the building and room at 2 after some last minute revision at the Uni cafe. And I was tailing a bloke I see in Uni to the room, we didn't talk. Got into the small room and almost all the seats were full, only snug spots between other people were left. I don't really talk to any of them at all, probably just the usual nod now and then at lectures.
I went to jovially fit myself between two people, the guy on the right someone I respect, just because he's not full of himself, and the girl on the left being someone who I've concluded has so little confidence in herself that she's turned it into a...sort of...absolute distrust in everyone else. The way she walks in front of other people and her facial expression, many would see her shyness and her basically, probably 'envy' of everyone else for having so much confidence. Now, she's not overweight, not "ugly", no facial tumor, no nothing yet why the lack of confidence?
Anyways, lets just say that she uncomfortably fidgeted and avoided eye contact at all costs when I slotted myself in between them.

Meanwhile the guy I was tailing had some sort of problem and was told to wait by the tutor while she handed out our exam papers. Now this guy has always been shy as well, always had his head down and shoulders slouched everytime he came to lectures late to sit off to the far side by himself. Always looked like he was in a hurry when he walked, probably to avoid social contact.
Now his stance while he stood by the door was something to note. I've always had an extremely good eye for people's eye movement, facial expressions and entire body stance to the point where I can tell what people think of me within seconds. The eyes are my favourite. And I'm good at controlling my body, for example when I need to lie. To the point where I've thought about studying human behaviour at Uni but ultimately don't have the commitment.
His stance consisted of him with a half-hearted back to the door frame facing the open side of the room, with the class facing forwards. Head hung low, with his right hand in front of his waist, moving it around to pretend he was occupied. I would have to have another look to detail it more. The point is, he couldn't do the exam for some reason, he became an outlier, an outcast to the rest of the class who was watching him wondering what was going on. His head was definitely down hoping no one was staring at him.
I felt so sorry for him, absolutely no confidence, no friends at Uni, and here he was being watched by the whole class cos' we had nothing better to do.
Eventually, the tutor said he would have to come back tomorrow to do the exam and he walked off, probably hating the world that much more. He was as normal looking as they come as well, no acne, no nothing etc.

WHY? Why do people lack such self confidence? I thought I was bad, but I'm the 'centre of the party' compared to them. Now I can imagine the aforementioned girl having friends outside Uni (maybe she's just moved to Adelaide?) but I doubt very much that that guy has any genuine friends. When ever I embarrass myself or get into stupid situations, I've always got a group of people I can talk to and laugh about the situation with, but when you have no one, it must be absolutely terrible. I think it was Hank Rearden in Atlas Shrugged that said something like 'The most deprived man is the one without a goal'. Screw that, swith 'a goal' with 'friends'.

So what to do? Know anyone that fits these two descriptions? Work? School? Uni? Throw em' a smile now and then, a 'hi', let them know they're alive, that we're all made of the same dust and atoms. And soften your eyes. Be genuine.

Hetero Metro

I haven't been out to town for a while. By that I mean going out and having drinks and a biggish night on a Friday/Saturday night etc. And I was glad I went out last night, being dragged by a good friend.
Now I wore a plain white long sleeve shirt with fake buttons at the collar that had a small cut into the chest so that some of my chest hair was showing :D. Suffice to say that I've gotten into good shape of late and put on a lot of muscle mass in my upper body so it looked really good on me. I feared that it was too good and I asked my friend if I was dressing too metrosexual. He and I are really aware of this phenomenon and after a laughable 2 minutes standing in the car park, I decided it was just a $14 dollar white shirt, and we went on our way to meet a group of friends.

An hour passed, and after compliments about my shape and a few beers, the pub/club started to fill up and some more friends of ours showed up. That was the point where all my fears of me being too metrosexual disappeared. Two friends of ours were wearing cardigans over their tees, tight jeans and ridiculously overpriced leather shoes. And were constantly attending to their hair every 2 minutes. Apparantly the ratio of exposed forehead to non-exposed forehead had to be tended to by using two hands to simultaneously spike the top hair and fringe the front hair.
Now I've known these boys for a long time since high school, we're all tough, we play footy, but why was it that I couldn't stop thinking of them as girls? Like...seriously, is this what it's come to now? Granted I'm very late on noting on this but, is this what girls these days are attracted to? Feminine, not just feminine but ridiculously feminine guys?

This trend was seen often throughout the night as i saw cardigan after cardigan. If they were actually fashionable and not just part of the/a trend, i'd be fine with it. But they're not.
Too.
Far.

"Hi I play guitar, can I buy you a drink?"

Start Rant;
What is it with young bands and people these days that seem to be so 'cool', so 'wow', so 'musical'? There are way too many idiots that pick up a guitar, yell out some barely in tune vocals, set up a MySpace profile, randomly add anyone, get so much attention and have people saying that they're great.
This is a fucking stab at all you 'musicians' who have no talent and call yourself a 'singer/songwriter' for the status. I have a friend who fits this particular description and everytime he shows me a new song, it's the same four chords badly played but in a different rotation from the last song he showed me. The lyrics are terrible, the singing horrible. Yet he gets called great!
I must digress, the musician inside of me is at the forefront of this anger. Maybe it's because I listen to so much alternative music, maybe it's because I listen to instruments/lyrics/melodies in a song, maybe it's because I actually know how to restring my guitar (some devoted 'guitarists' don't know how to), maybe it's because I work so hard on my music before even letting anyone else hear it, maybe it's because I don't walk around with my cock out saying "Hey look at me I sing and play guitar". Honestly, there must be some other aspect of life that you excel at, please, for crying out loud, just leave music to us.
We true experienced don't walk around telling people that we play guitar/sing/make songs because that's way too fucking obnoxious. When questioned, we may remark that we do, because if you're song sucks (it pretty much does), you just look that much more of an idiot to those who aren't wooed by lame songs.
Even just saying that you're in a band is a bit stupid because the usual connotation of being in a band isn't hard to detail. "You're in a band? You're so cool". Yep, that's pretty much what they want to hear, and what they actually hear.

Really, there's a difference between people who are in it for the music, and others that are in it for the status. Usually, you can tell in a heartbeat. 'For the music' is hard to exactly detail but if you don't go around telling girls you're so great, you're usually in it 'for the music'. I feel as though myself and others are being slapped in the face everytime some punk who just learnt guitar gets credit for being a musician. Girls included! Some of the worst offenders I've seen have been girls who use their looks to get attention. Perv now, judge the music later.

The lesson? Next time you hear someone say they're a 'singer/songwriter' (and especially if their clothes are way too fashionable or 'hip'), be doubtful, be extremely doubtful. The ones who don't say that are the future of music.
End Rant.

And I'm pretty much an idiot...

So a few weeks ago, I built up the courage to ask a girl out who works a few shops down from me in a mall/centre. She's the shy type (some overestimate themselves, she underestimates herself), incredibly attractive without the need to try to be and a few years older than me (the age is more attractive than the other two...I think). She has a habit of blowing the hair out of her eyes and thinking that no one notices, which I notice and adore.

But in short, she let me down nicely (she had plans, awww) and I like to think we could be good friends at least. I don't talk to her much, mainly because I'm incredibly shy around girls I may have feelings for.

Anyways, as I was shopping at the local supermarket kilometres and kilometres away from work (yes, I drive a lot) after a long day at work, who do I see but HER walk past me in that supermarket. Now she didn't see me cos' she was looking at the shelves, and I .....stupidly didn't say hi. Once the amazement that she was actually at the supermarket that I live down the road from and the whole 'omg that's her' dealio cooled down, I realised how stupid I was for not initiating conversation. It seems my whole life is based on 'should I shouldn't I' moments. And not being able to approach her and just saying 'hi!' just makes it worse. The mere fact of discovering that she lived in the same area that I do should've made it that much more easier.

Arghhh, and then I couldn't find her. I lost her between the veggie and dairy section. Damn veggies. Why why why Crispy. I could've been 'that guy who's confident enough to talk to me and throw me a smile even though I rejected him', but I'm just 'that guy who tried to ask me out weeks ago'.

I don't want to blow smoke up my butt (is that in the right context?) but I am fantastic when talking to girls, girls that I know I don't have a hell's chance of being with in a relationship. Some of my best friends are some of my best mate's girlfriends who I can chat to for ages about....crap (the basis of any good conversation). I don't lack self confidence, I've talked in front of hundreds of people at youth conferences, my part time job entails me to be vibrant and energetic to customers, I push around and give lip to blokes twice my age (and my weight) in football, I make and produce music for crying out loud. But when I meet someone I'm interested in, suddenly I have Social Anxiety Disorder and I'm reduced to a small, scared child. Which makes me come across as a complete weirdo. Gah!..women...

Yes I know, life is short and moments like these are but small, small, small, insignificant events. And that I should take life by the reigns and own it blah blah. You don't need to tell me.

...Oh snap, I forgot to buy Lipton tea, what else could go wrong!?

The Romance of Facebook

So I got this close friend, who loves his girlfriend. Now 'love' can be debated here, cos' it's his first girlfriend (he has a mild social anxiety thing going on when around girls), she's 18, and he 20. When he says 'love', I always hear it as 'excitement'. Cos' I honestly believe that he's just so excited about having a girl like him back that he'll say he loves her, he'll let her buy a dress with no monetary limit, he'll tell B and I that they are actually engaged after 3 months of going out, but shhh, it's a secret.
In my mind, no ring, no celebration, no letting any parents know of it; means no actual engagement buddy. It's not existent, no matter how emotional you get when you talk about it.
Now these two use facebook to always tell each other, and the world, that they love each other. And to me, so much use of the word 'love' strips the word of the actual meaning. Like, isn't saying 'I love you' the pinnacle of a relationship? Something that one doesn't take for granted? Call me old fashioned but you don't say 'I love you' just because the both of you like each other very much.

So what's your point Crispy? I don't think they're mature enough to be throwing the L word around. Now I'm only 20, going on 21 soon, but I've had to mature way before my time through a series of past events and circumstances, and I sure as hell won't say 'I love you' three months into a relationship, in front of all my facebook friends..., upwards of 5 times a day. YES! The advent of facebook on mobile phones makes it even easier for them to do it.

Now I think He is being used by her as a sort of, trophy boyfriend. Because when she's with him, in the same room, she'll still log onto Stalkbook and say 'I love you (name)!'. Then she'll have a back and forth comment convo with her girlfriends about how much she actually loves him. And this doesn't phase Him at all, why would it? He's finally got a girlfriend, she 'loves' him, case closed in his opinion.
Now to take this to a higher level. When they're together, her feelings for him and what they do together is not nearly as important as the post she's going to make on facebook about it. Think about it, how many times have you been with someone you love, and you've been looking at messages on your phone, or calling other people, or, making a Facebook 'I love you' post to the person sitting right next to you. (Final example may not apply to most people) Don't be a dick (pardon the language) and ignore the person you love to check your tweeter or whatever it's called. Screw Social networking sites I say, screw the person you supposedly love for crying out loud! Put your phone on silent/in the bin and enjoy the time you've got with them. And DON'T use 'love' so much, you're ruining it for the rest of us.