I'm a very strong believer in the idea that God gives you the rope with which you hang yourself. My life in general has been a testament to this, but one particular experience stands out head and shoulders above the rest. The story of Gigi.
I met Gigi through a curious series of events involving a Frenchman and a Vietnamese woman, a Mazda RX-7 from the 80s, a few Neo-Nazis, and no small quantity of Nitrous Oxide in the village of Clinton BC. The first time I saw her was at the Frenchman's birthday in Amman. It was a surprise party which I didn't expect to be invited to, at a person's house who I'd never met before, with people I'd never heard of. By virtue of Jordanian timing, although I was about 20 minutes late I was one of the first people there, which gave me ample time to meet both Gigi and the host.
Following the arrival of the rest of the guests, a few beers,and a round of Drinking Jenga I was forced to conclude three things. The first was that Gigi was cute, the second was that she probably liked me, the third was that she was almost certainly a virgin.
It strikes me as the case that virgins above the age of 25 give off a certain aura, not unlike that of a shelter dog. A curious combination of please, please touch me, and never ever come close to me. I tend to choose the latter for both as my fucks-given meter is rarely anywhere near full enough for either commitment. Keeping with that spirit, although a small part of me was tempted to play ball with my balls, the greater part decided it was a bad idea to be so ballsy, so I didn't take her phone number.
It was a few months later when saw her next. It was at a farewell party for the Frenchman and Vietnamese woman, as they were leaving Jordan. As is customary for me at these events, I spent most of the time telling extremely off-colour jokes, getting embarrassingly wasted, and making poor decisions. One of those poor decisions was taking her number, all while so drunk that I fumbled my phone, dropping it on the floor as she eagerly saved her digits. The clarity of sobriety clashed with the crassness of drunkenness over the following months as I texted and ghosted her a couple of times. Inside you there are two wolves, and one of them is almost certainly retarded.
Months abortive texting went nowhere and before I knew it, New Years Eve had come along. One of my resolutions was to stop being stupid about women. To make better choices and actually try going on a few dates, especially with women who seemed interested in me. By that logic I decided to stop being a bastard and ghost her properly. I am ashamed to admit that a substantial reason for this choice was her use of the dancing woman emoji, which I consider the mark of a weak constitution and mental disturbance.
Further months passed and loneliness grew, but I considered that I had done quite enough to this poor woman, and should probably focus on other avenues in life. With that focus I gained a certain mindset, and a rather unhealthier grindset. There's a point in life where the usefulness of desire puts itself at the forefront of one's thinking, and that selfsame desire provides both the push for living life on your own terms, as well as the drive for accomplishment.
It was with that primacy of desire that I began to lose touch with myself, and with why exactly I was living life on my own term, and what particularly that life consisted of. As everybody knows, self-reflection of this type is basically a direct expressway to depression and I began to feel like even the things which I was supposed to enjoy were fundamentally misery inducing. This led to the customary self-destruction, extreme drinking, and chain-smoking, which itself prompted me to have long think about my life and how it had been going. With this thinking I realized that I had managed to forget that I loved the things that I was doing. I wasn't doing these things out of desire to have them, or build skills, or show off, but out of love for the thing itself. If I didn't have love, or at least appreciation for these things, then why was I devoting my time, portions of my life, to accomplishing them? Whether it be my work, social life, family, or artistic expression. What was I but a vessel for love of the world, expressed and explored in the form of my personality?
I also concurrently managed to acquire a rather large stock of mushrooms of the variety which don't taste great, but provide a person with a certain enhanced sense of personal fulfillment. These had nothing to do with the above, I promise.
The stock was larger than what I could reasonably consume on my own without risking a permanent case of being-kinda-weird, so I decided to make them into chocolates for easier...transport. Walking around with a bag of dried mushrooms tends to be a poor idea under the best of circumstances. One day while visiting my mother she informed me that she had dinner plans and I reasoned that I'd have the apartment to myself, and it would therefore be the perfect opportunity to infuse some chocolates with some mind-enhancers. She's got a nice kitchen, I have no regrets. Except for one. Well, maybe two.
In the interest of experimentation I decided to have 1/3 of a chocolate, which turned out to be far, far stronger than I had anticipated. Also, it turned out that my mother having dinner plans did not mean she was going out for dinner. A subtle difference which speaks volumes, and meant that I had to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible before the guests arrived.
My mother arrived before I had managed to abscond and took her time laughing at my misfortune. It struck me then that teenagers get kicked out of their moms' houses when they're fucked up, but adults kick themselves out. Although my dad's place was a short walk away I was fully aware that any conversation with him was not going to end in my favour, and so I had to find myself a different escape route. Luckily, I've surrounded myself with people who are great and true, and I was picked up by a friend who let me ride the rest of the wave at his place.
The next day I got a surprise text from Gigi in the evening inviting me to have a drink with her group at their usual haunt. With the clarity provided to me by my recent epiphany, I decided to go over there and check it out. There was nothing wrong with spending time with interesting people, and there was no reason to run away from cute girls or shelter dogs.
On an unrelated note, it had also been a very, very long time since I had seen a titty, and titties are nice.
I immediately noticed upon arriving that this woman was eating me with her eyes. Every time I happened to look at her, she was already looking at me. She was also still really cute, maybe even cuter than when I had seen her last. The night was pleasant and the company was appreciated. Who doesn't like being oogled ever once in a while anyways?
It was with that in mind that I decided to stop being an asshole and send her a message in a couple of days. The delay seemed to be reasonable as firstly, I didn't want to seem too eager and secondly, her group was heading to a farm the following day for a good time which I suspected was going to be made substantially better by the six chocolates I had provided them with.
A few days later I sent two messages; one to Gigi asking her out for a coffee, and another to the host from earlier on in the story who had become a friend of mine, asking him how the day at the farm had gone.
He responded almost immediately, thanking me profusely for the experience and raving about its intensity and how good of a time everybody had, stressing that I had helped no less than four people lose their virginities that day. At first I was elated. Truly, I was embodying the spirit of free love and helping people feel, and share, that love. Immediately afterwards I had a sinking feeling as I put two and two together
God not only gave me the rope with which I hung myself, He had me weave it myself.
That evening Gigi replied politely,but quite firmly, that we would only see each other in group settings, which basically translates to "you played yourself."
