I Don't Suppose You'll Become a Unicorn in the Next Five Minutes: An Undeliverable Speech

Hey, You

Allow me to embarrass myself for a moment. It promises to be, at the very least, brief (he lied) and amusing (at least for one of us).

In the following barrage of gobbledygook, should you feel at any point the need to gag, wretch, sterilise your personal affects, sterilise me so as to ensure I never reproduce (for the sake of the biosphere, my future students and all my enemies) – should you feel the need to emigrate, change your name, grow a beard and/or punch me in the face, fret not: I completely understand. And, pre-empting a subsequent apology on your behalf (adorable and unnecessary as it always is), rest assured: it’s quite alright. In fact, I won’t even blink. In fact, if I were you, I’d almost definitely do the same. In fact, I’m very likely to do the same.

However, should said gobbledygook find you in a moment of inhumxn endurance for outrageous bullshit, I thank you in advance for your patience. Truly, it means the world. Also: Did you know that you are really smol?

Also: Did you know that your voice – surpassing birdsongs before dawn, Jacob Collier’s harmoniser, and even Rocky’s little NASCAR growls when he bolts down the passage leading me invariably to his food bowl where he awaits my prolonged affections to inaugurate the commencement of his dinner – is the most charming sound I’ve ever heard? It’s the sound of autumnal sunrises and monkeys’ weddings; a bubbling kettle promising tea, the last chord of a masterpiece.

Surely you know this. You must. How could you not? You speak every day. Which is impressive. If my voice were a fraction as beautiful, I’d sell it, immediately, and invest the profits into the proliferation of a global post-scarcity commons, then genetically extend my youth by several centuries, giving me the time to finally finish my fucking novels.

You, on the other hand, know very well that one’s voice is the most powerful thing one has, whether it’s sounding or silent, and that the right voice in the wrong hands is a) a poor choice of metaphor on the part of the author, and b) dangerous af. Thus it’s improbably fortunate that you have your voice. That is to say that your particular voice is in your body belonging to your particular character; which is to say you have a superpower and I’m so glad you’re a hero not a villain; which is to say: once this is over, don’t ever let me speak again – all I want to do is listen to you saying things.

What am I doing? This is the real question behind most of our lives, and for present purposes, also behind this untimely explosion of verbal diarrhoea. Marvellously, unlike the former existential version of the question, this particular iteration of What am I doing? has a swiftly gleaned, objective, verifiable, incontrovertibly scientific answer, immune to the distortions of cucks, SJWs, feminazis, politically correct liberals, and whatever other right-wing slurs you choose to dredge from the sewers of the internet:

You know very well that, on a 110% purely platonic level, I am blissfully in love with you. What you do not know, although I’m sure you must suspect by now, is that on a romantic level, I am equally, hysterically, radiantly, hilariously, seismically smitten.

There. I said it. Fucking finally. Can I have a round of applause? No? Well, that’s alright. Because I’m not done yet anyway – forgive me – and clapping before the end of a performance is intolerably rude. Then again, I have no standards.

Then again, maybe I do, because I am in love with you.

That was a rhyme. I know, I do this all the time. (He lied, and winked.)

he lied. and winked.

– rupi kaur

The truth is: if you thought this was embarrassing already, buckle up. For this arc of tempestuous feelings – at times mirth and giddiness, at others perilous nausea, and mostly a strange ease, as if both aching under the weight of the cosmos and too reclining on a cloud, urinating upward and giggling at the golden spray – all this began years ago, all the way back in 2015. (Cue: flashback sequence to the sounds of chimes.)

It’s First Year, Linguistics. The mousy Professor Sean Bowerman’s drowning in his jersey again, while making me laugh at the non-word ‘plurg’. He says the word doesn’t exist because it doesn’t have currency. But I exist, and I too am usually broke. Moreover, I’m laughing, which means I must exist. (I laugh, therefore I am.)

“Call me Geffen… Plurg Geffen.”

Meanwhile, a womxn with hair like shadows and eyes as deep as the ocean sits several rows above and to my left. I am petrified. But little does she know. (Actually, she knows a lot – just not that I’m petrified.) Honestly, I don’t really know this either, not really, not yet. You see, when you’re petrified, you can’t know anything. There’s just frigidity, an inner winter whose permafrost spreads from neck to navel, until all you are (or I am) is a floating head, numb with the dream from which it is quite impossible to wake.

As she entered – and I swear to god – she glided. That shouldn’t be, but it was. Her stare dims lighting to sepia, soothes concrete to mahogany. The lecture theatre becomes a lounge, and all I want to do is hear her say interesting things. Or even boring things, because boring things become interesting things when she says them. I sense I’ve reached a new tier of existence, and I wonder whether I’ve always been so consummately pathetic.

Then I retreat into my psychic home: I resolve to delight in the fact that

a) a person with such a compelling appearance actually exists, and

b) that I can appreciate this without rehearsing the loathsome antics of courtship which, above all things, bore me to tears. Or at least they would, were I not so utterly bored that I could not find the emotional energy to cry.

I believe this is how I crush on people. From a distance, adulating in the philosophy of it momentarily, and then depositing it in a mental Recycle Bin, where it turns into novel material for later on. Ctrl + z, Ctrl + s.

Needless to say I was absolutely delighted (see: fucking mortified) to discover that you were actually a mutual friend. On one occasion, I found myself sitting beside you in the lecture theatre with two thoughts rollercoasting down my neural pathways:

a) Don’t screw this up, Nick! and

b) I think I’m dying.

These, of course, I hid under several layers of affectation: that I was deeply absorbed in the fundamentals of morphology; that I was pleasantly charmed by your acquaintance, but otherwise focused; that I am far too emotionally mature to subduct under the influence of post-adolescent infatuation.

Lying by omission, you see, means telling every other possible truth. Because, of course, I truly was all those things. It’s just that you’re exceptional, and I couldn’t bear to admit it. To myself, let alone you.

On another occasion, I was far less fortunate (see: the luckiest fool alive) when our lecture was cancelled. You suggested the cafeteria, and I vomited my brains into my lap. Or at least that’s what it felt like. We enjoyed the opportunity to continue a more extensive introduction. We exchanged our respective literary loves; I euphemised “My father and I are very different people”; you confessed “I never know what to say when people ask me about what I listen to”. Whatever we laughed about, it felt good.

We started WhatsApping: mostly about books and cats, but also haikus, which have since become something of an institution. Occasionally. Speaking of which: I wonder whether the fact that we started emailing means we were behind or ahead of our times. (Time? Times?) Or rather, I wonder what it means for me. You’re always ahead of your time. In my own life, I have the distinct sense that I’m running late for all the wrong things.

In any case, I remember a short-lived (though no less distinctive) rolling joke about my destiny to one day “become a book”. I believe the joke died when, while organising for a group trip to Stellenbosch, you confirmed: “Oh not to worry. We’re taking my boyfriend’s car.”

Amazing!

And (cue: face palm), of course!

Reasons Against Doing This

Because I really shouldn’t be doing this.

1. Other People

At this point, the brain chef dumps new ingredients into the emotional broth.

Celebration. I almost wanted to congratulate you. In fact, a part of me remembers/ imagines myself doing exactly that. A romantic bond is (or at least can be) such a gentle sunshine.

Relief. Because, yoh, crushing is stressful.

Amusement. Because, all in all, I quite enjoyed the way our story had begun: a secret crush that would now coast into bolder platonic comradeship.

Which is exactly what happened. Over the years, we’ve grown a lot closer, in prospering platonicdom. We’ve dated and fallen in love with other people several times, and any romantic curiosities towards you on my part vanished. I came to love you, which is a far more fulfilling feeling than a crush.

However, like a starlit comet, this was not to last. In fact, this first avoidance of romantic interest (the brute fact of Other People) was only the first among many reasons (ten according to my calculations) accounting for why I have hitherto suppressed this saga of serenity and silliness. Allow me to rattle them off:

2. Gross, I Want Someone

Admitting my love for you proves difficult for the simple reason of self-embarrassment. Surely I’m above this, I think to myself. Here I am, exhausting this poor womxn with my inanities, when I already have a perfectly solid friendship with her this thus far. What’s wrong with me, making such a fuss with my desires? In my mind, I have equated developing romantic want with moral dilapidation.

It’s humiliating to think that I am, in fact, wanting something from someone else. Granted, it’s hardly the substance of the feeling, overall. Just a small part of it. The vast measure of my style (see: pathology) of love, as I have felt it, is a kind of relentless urge to kindness, a way of somehow listening to what someone is, and finding the perfect psychosocial choreography to harmonise my own flourishing with theirs. (In this sense and in no others, I am actually a capable dancer.) The desire for reciprocal affections has always been relatively small by comparison. But I prefer it when that part is even smaller than it is now.

This just in: Nick used “small” in its un-Tumblr-ised form. Amazing! Moving on!

3. Don’t Press the Big Red Disappointment Button

Strangely, I don’t fear rejection. The concept seems incoherent to me. Rejecting a romantic proposition is not so much denying someone’s genuine desires as it is alerting them to the fact that the thing they desire does not exist. It’s like someone asking: “I don’t suppose you’ll become a unicorn in the next five minutes? If you do, I will too.” The other person responds, “No, I won’t. So you won’t.”

The proponent, in this case Me, envisions a collaborative arrangement of sharing moving, intimate experiences interspersed with giggling and standard struggling-with-life in some kind of healthy balance. The recipient of this proposal, in this case You, explains that this has no basis in reality. The fantasy requires us to overlook the recipient’s feelings, so to attempt the arrangement anyway would mean suppressing very real contradictory feelings on their/Your part. The only valid response is: “Okay, thanks for letting me know. Glad we avoided a total disaster. Don’t worry, I’ll show myself the door.”

So I don’t fear rejection.  But I very much do not like the prospect of disappointing you. I’m convinced that you receive these sorts of propositions regularly, and you’ve grown weary of this endless litany of gibbering buffoons who fall for your charms, among whom I, once merely a close friend of yours, now number.

Drat, you may think, another good friend of mine who turned out to be an infatuated manborg who falls in love with anyone who doesn’t mock him for crying about trees all the time.

I really hope I’m not crying at this point. If I am, I have to do a penalty push-up, and frown until my beard triples in length. If, of course, I’m not crying, I get to sing “Aaaaaay!” directly into the camera. (It’s a Singing in the Rain reference. We can discuss it later. Or not…)

4. Intruder Alert

You know me: I hate overstepping my place. This differs from the previous fear, for it’s self-directed. Disappointing you means burdening you with feelings of disappointment (he said, mansplaining the obvious). Intruding means burdening myself with guilty feelings. Both of these are yuck.

5. Why’d I Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated

I also fear that, in some parallel universe, where somehow this weird splurge of almost-tolerable meta-analysis actually precipitates our descent into coupledom, your life is measurably more complicated. You find yourself berating yourself for not being the Right Partner, or some other incarnation of brutal self-talk. Misplaced as these toxic voices are, they seem to persist in every universe – and I know them too. I would never want to give you a lens through which you imagine yourself as inferior. In the anarchist commune that is our consciousness, we are all Enough. But if I had to prove that to you, could I?

6. These Knees Were Made For Walking

But were they made for loving?

I’m not sure I could manage it myself. I am reasonably good at a few things in life: writing, my health and several other things which do not include cricket, baking or origami. Moreover, I have chronic pain syndrome, I’m an unpublished author and demonstrate the kind of self-involvement which leaves me totally unsurprised at the idea of opening my room as a museum entirely about myself, and happily visiting it all day, every day. A lifetime pass to figuring out what the hell I am.

I just about survive academic life, with a smattering of students (God save them), and my waking hours pretty much preclude all nocturnal activity. Outside of weekly forest walks, I’m essentially a hermit, and I pull out of almost every meaningful space I join. How could a romance be any different?

7. Don’t Knock Over the Friendship Vase

Bringing up all of this jeopardises a glorious friendship that means so much to me. A Buddhist in me reminds me not to hold attachments in a dynamic world, and to show compassion instead. She’s an awfully lonely Buddhist though, and I wonder if she’s ever fallen in love with You.

8. I’ve Stopped ‘Cause I’ve Got Enough

(Boom! Michael Jackson reference!)

And the question remains: What is it that I want here? What is it that I could want here? Have we not a generous, supportive, humorous, adoring, literary, politically illuminating bond? I think we do. And since I have the promiscuity of a fern – which is to say I’m just frondly, that’s all – it can’t be for the sex. What mystery entices me toward You? This I cannot answer in prose. So since we’re already on the humiliation train:

once you asked me to join you on the bed. I yearned to first purge my mind of want, and body of head, yearned in such gales! All was airborne: shed my mortal imperfections, scrub my skin of selfish predilections.

this never happens to me: you know that? so few summon my branching arms, cradling an autumn soul: shivering. Invincible.

you love the soy crispy. (no broccoli.) you drink Coke, call Israel a colony. it takes real charm to get me this lazy, to choke, and sing about you like Macy.

I laugh: at having to tell you someday.

“Our pasta is delicious, by the way.”

9. This Isn’t the Nick I Ordered

Perhaps most incriminating: What if this does play out into romance, and I’m a lousy partner? What if between my syndromania and your depression, neither of us can cope? Being a partner means being a companion. Can I do that? Really? I can’t even kick a punching bag without upsetting my lumbar curvature.

10. Giving the Evil Eye

Finally, and I’m glad I saved it for last: the most embarrassing of my reasons. You are terrifyingly beautiful. Please stop it. It’s genuinely intimidating and I keep losing my train of thought. Were you not such a fascinating person in every other respect as well, I’d have to avoid you for my sanity.

Wait a second… What’s that subheading looming on the horizon? (Cue: sparkle effects everywhere!)

Bonus (Meta) Reason:

You matter more than us. I can live a lovely life without Us. I don’t need our yet-imaginary romance, I don’t even need our friendship. I can cope without those.  But without you…? As in, without you in the world? Well, let’s just say I’ll need a few more system upgrades before I can wrap my head around that one.

I’ll not be the harbinger of more complexity in your life. So then once more: what the hell am I doing?

Reasons For Doing This Anyway

1. Brain Drain

Suppressing a secret this big and this lovely is exhausting. It’s not a burden too heavy to carry; it’s an element too light to be retained by Earth’s gravity. Like oxygen atoms, they keep rising, and hence a breathable atmosphere. (Cue: flashmob rendition of the Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song.)

2. These Are a Few of My Favourite Things

Step aside, Julie Andrews! I’m not done yet! Embarrassing myself with you – and I mean You, not Julie Andrews – is one of my favourite things to do! Yeah, I’m a cringy geekozoid. But for you, I’ll put it in writing.

3. Smells Like Teen Irony

On some level, this is such a joke. I’m making a case against what I’m already doing, in the act of doing it, only to then justify it post hoc, by arguing against the case (i.e. the piece itself). If you’re a fan of irony, you’re in the right place. I’m a walking B-grade romcom! Look at me go!

4. Cowabunga!

I have nothing to lose! Fokol! I’m only going to be alive for a little while in this postmodern pantomime of private lizards and public lavatories. I don’t have time to be afraid!

5. The Lesser of Two Awkwards

One way or another, I’m gonna say this. I know I can’t stop myself, so it’d better be in person than over a text or something, where I’m pretty sure I’ll get it wrong. Or at least, worse.

6. With Great Power

There’s a sense of duty here, isn’t there? Feeling something so genuine, something so pure – it’s not something I can throw away. But even if I could, it’s not something I should. There are only so many good things I can do in this world, and like smiling at strangers, I’m pretty sure this is one of them.

7. Peas in a Pod

The chance to hold your hand, bring you tea, read you bedtime stories and be your big spoon (unless you want me to go little spoon) makes this worth it.

8. The Pursuit of Happiness

I just wanna help. And if being closer means I can ease some of the strain, can brighten your shine just a little, I will. (Whips out energy saver bulb.)

9. Life is Fucken Short

#yolo #nuffsiad

10. Okay, One More Thing

I’m a huge dork. All of this could have been a massive waste of time, because you could simply respond, “No!” But I did this anyway, and I’m proud of myself for being honest.

Bonus Bonus:

Sometimes in life, the treasure of a moment itself – one good scene – can turn a B-grade romcom into a classic. I don’t actually know if that’s true, but in this case it is. At least for me.

Concluding Remarks

I love you and I don’t care who knows. I usually don’t hear much from my inner romantic, so when I do, I listen to him like Debussy.

I’m not afraid of the bogeyman, I’m not afraid of my feelings, and I’m not afraid of you. So hit me with your best shot. Fire away.