matthew , i am confident that it was not an intentional slight. by her letter, it is quite obvious that she is very thoughtful, and i seriously doubt that kind of a person would just not respond, or stand you up. she either did not get the email, or there was simply some sort of miscommunication. i understand your anxiety as well as the disappointment, but really, you shouldn't expect that the "worst case scenario " is at hand here. you will see.
Oh, no...I was trying to end on a positive note there at school (I just got back "home" to my little hole in my parents' house...and I am only 28, so that isn't at all pathetic)...that was the nice letter I got from a girl in my other class that I mentioned yesterday...not the girl who I received no response from. The beautiful woman/Columbian human rights activist is married (there is a lucky man)...and she is a genuinely good person.
Things got a whole lot worse as I walked around trying to feel numb as possible...there is a lot of construction in Montreal right now (as Lou Barlow noted) and particularly along the stretch along de Maisonneuve towards the closest record store...the contruction has most of the sidewalks blocked off and you have to walk out into one of the busier east/west streets downtown and it snowed enough that there is slush and it's slippery and all and I half prayed for myself to get struck down by a car from behind...I feel that wretched...and it isn't being snubbed...it's the long stretch of terror and horror, disappointment and destruction and depression, failure and misery, anxiety and lack of confidence and self-loathing and loneliness and shame and everything that surges over my mind in deluge with every petty instance of my shameful waste of life like the snub... where is the light? In one kind letter? Kind words from you people thousands of miles away? That can only carry me so far...and it has...but I am losing this battle.
I dragged myself back to class and I felt temporarily relieved that the others had not met up without me and that they came in individually. This was dashed in a matter of seconds when one girl spoke to the other who I had been spending time with and she asked "about tomorrow" ..."should I call you?" "We were going to meet at _____ metro..." etc. The girl I had been hanging with, but who has seemed to brush me off the last week or so, seemed uncomfortable again because I was sitting right beside her. They had plans to go to the Biodome tomorrow...an idea I introduced the girl to and she seemed excited to go... but here she was with plans to go with others, discussing in front of me, quite clearly trying to look away and clear me from her peripheral vision (guilt) as she spoke softly of it...not softly so that I could not hear her, but softly as to sound "unenthusiastic" or "noncommittal". When she ended up saying, "I don't know..." I said, "Well, they do have penguins." and she said softly, "I know"... I felt like I made it clear that I was quietly 'upset', but not being a drama queen about it...and pretended to be strong, which I am the furthest thing from. She knew we had "plans" not mapped out, but plans nonetheless. And, it wasn't that the plan had been co-opted that really hurt, it was that there was no effort whatsoever to even include me, not even to address the fact that we had the same plans...it was as if I wasn't there and, if anything, she was saying good-bye. I didn't bother to press...what is the point in asking to be included in something you aren't invited to? Perhaps she wasn't the one who brought it up originally to the other girl and didn't feel she could invite me on their outing. I am not sure what the chances are that this was a pure coincidence that she was invited to go out with some people to go to the same place I had suggested...I do not believe the Biodome is a hip place to hang out at...
It felt like a goodbye said with silence and a cold shoulder.
I half expect her to pull out of the later show we have tickets for this month...she was the one who suggested Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and that's like a real show and real price of $23 and the following Friday...xbxrx was a band she knew nothing of except now about their "notorious" nature...and that show is a mere week before she leaves...it would be an $8 loss and nothing more and she could state a plethora of reasons why she cannot go...exams, getting ready to leave, "being scared", not feeling like it...god knows. It's just that everything we didn't have expensive tickets for since mid-March has been cancelled and contact has dropped (which she has cited as her having to work - though it seems clear that she has been busy with others and has not cut contact with them like she has me, but increased it) ...she hardly speaks to me and everything seems grey and distant. It was like a corkscrew in the guts.
And it ain't just this, clearly...
It's just when you have so little to hold on to, it doesn't take much.
I want to get so fucked up I forget who I am again.
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