I started a book club. Sort of because I love reading but mostly because I needed something to look forward to on Monday nights since The Bachelor ended. May seem like an unnatural transition going from a slutty 2 hours of people making out in hot tubs to 2 hours of discussing literature with your peers, but it’s somehow felt like a very logical transition for this group. Our first meeting was last night. There are about ten girls who have committed, and we were all sending excited emails back and forth about how pumped we were for our first real meeting. Then, about 5:15, the other emails started rolling in: “I have to bail… I’m covering that story about the DA who was shot today…” and “May be late, may not make it. Waiting on the producer to approve this New York Times ad…”. I spent about 30 seconds feeling cool because my friends sounded important, then moved on to deciding whether or not to cancel. We ended up cancelling “official book club” for the night, and just getting together at whatever time anyone was available to eat pizza and hummus (weird?), drink wine, and talk – and it was awesome.
We talked about work, friends and boys, but we landed on a topic that stayed with me even after they left. It had to do with the show Girls. If you haven’t seen it, it’s based around four girls, all in their 20’s, sorta almost getting it together in Brooklyn, NY. It’s very funny and sometimes sad and pretty-all-the-time honest. We suddenly all had a lot to say about the show. A couple people really felt for the girls who couldn’t seem to get their careers together, or couldn’t find the discipline to motivate themselves. Some of us felt for the girl who was insecure about her love life, her weight or her parents. But ALL of us felt for them. We talked about the various controversies that the show has inspired (not racially diverse enough, the lead isn’t pretty enough, it isn’t true to life, it’s too true to life…) and then one of my friends said “You know, the show is technically a comedy…”. Her point was not that show isn’t funny – it’s really funny. The main character is a self-absorbed, poor, insecure but overconfident shit show. But it’s pretty true. Which is kind of not funny. We 20-somethings hear all the time that we’re at a “selfish” point in our lives, which I totally agree with. It’s not that I don’t think about other people or care about other people… but I’m really focused on myself. I don’t have anyone else to be responsible for right now (except my guinea pig) and it seems to require ALL of my focus just to get ME through the day. It takes everything I have to budget enough money to pay rent, to make sure I’m wearing jeans without holes in them, to try and maintain a rat-free apartment, to be in a healthy relationships and friendships. These are all literally issues I’ve dealt with in the last 2 weeks alone and every one of them felt semi-world-ending. Which is why it feels like every episode of Girls should end with the hash tag #FunnyNotFunny.
We have to laugh, because as soon as it’s not funny, no one wants to watch it. Not because it stops being entertaining, but because it starts feeling sad. And embarrassing. Not for the characters- for us.
In one episode last season, the main character Hannah (Lena Dunham) crosses paths with this hot middle-aged man who lives near the coffee shop where she works. She wanders into his brownstone one afternoon talking about weird things like using his trash cans to avoid getting in trouble and drinking lemonade with this super ill-fitting romper on while she sits on his Cloroxed kitchen counter. They end up doing it – like a bunch of times – and playing naked ping-pong. It’s weird and confusing and probably one of those “really good stories” for both of them. Then, as she’s about to leave a couple days later, she asks him to ask her to stay. She wasn’t going to, but she does – she asks him to beg her to stay, so that she could have had a time where someone begged her to stay. So he does, half-heartedly. And she stays. And she talks – about everything. About what a mess her life is, and how she sometimes (often) doesn’t feel pretty and how anxious she is about how “things will turn out” and all of a sudden, he doesn’t think it’s funny anymore. And every girl who’s ever opened up just to have someone shut down got it.
We all do it. Vulnerability is a sticky thing and people have really strong reactions to it. We want people to open up to us, but it’s really uncomfortable to watch someone be vulnerable. I experience it most when I’m dating someone. I ask them to open up and be honest with me, but I also expect them to man up and have their shit together. I don’t want to hear that they’re “too scared” to apply for a job or “overwhelmed” at the prospect of how their life will turn out. I want to say “grow a pair and send your DAMN RESUME!”. Which is a sure way to shut them down. I think everyone’s guilty of it. And yet we keep pushing to be vulnerable ourselves, because that’s the only way we get anywhere, the only way we make meaningful connections. But there’s always the risk of it ‘not being funny anymore’ and getting a big ‘ol wall put up in your face.
Every girl last night got it. They totally got it. And even though most of them didn’t know each other before they came over, every single person gave each other a hug before they left. We didn’t solve anything, or even say anything new. We just all realized that everyone else “got” a hard thing and then we were friends. It was cool.
We’re currently in the process of re-scheduling actual book club, I’ll keep ya posted.
- d
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