If you really know me, you know I’ve never read the Harry Potter series (or Dickens’s Great Expectations for that matter). Sometimes I’m left out of conversations with my friends about why that’s so Slytherin, but other than that I’m not convinced there is an integral part of my life missing. I also survived four years at Queen’s University and never bought Ugg boots or Lululemon pants. All I really lost there was not having cold, soggy feet and a perky ass (augmented by pants, anyway). For the most part, I’d like to think I’m not one for succumbing to hype.
Similarly, I’d like to think that I keep myself open to new experience. Just the same, it could be said that I simply think too highly of myself. In any case, I’m like a poster child for NBC circa the age of the “The More You Know” PSAs. I’m a firm subscriber to believing that you can’t make an adamant decision unless you know all sides to a story.
In the context of commitment, I’ve previously said that I don’t have very many favourites. Furthermore, within in the context of knowledgeability, I can’t call anything the best because I haven’t seen, heard, tasted, felt or smelled enough to be that authority. So I’m always on the quest for something new; something in the untried arena so I can expand my opinions, my palate, my knowledge and not be stuck in the same old, same old we all sometimes fall danger to. What this lends itself to, for me anyway, is having a much keener sense in what I know I don’t like because at least then it’s tried, tested and true.
Insofar as I don’t subscribe to hype, I do have a lifetime subscription to the expectations I create for myself. And sometimes what fate has in store for us makes me laugh and just reminds me that while knowledge is power, it’ll never live up to the fantastical delusion we would rather create for ourselves.
It was Toronto Fashion Week a few weeks ago and I found myself at the highly hyped (whoops) Thompson Hotel at an invite-only fashion party. I’m still peeved that I haven’t made it on to the rooftop yet, but it’ll happen – guaranteed. While I was standing outside waiting for my plus-one, I was standing with a few smokers: one woman to my left and two men to my right. Please see below for a script I couldn’t have written myself had I tried:
[Woman on my right starts calling out to one of the men to my right]
Woman: Mike! Mike!
[Upon receiving no response, she walks over and says]
Woman: Excuse me, is your name Mike?
Man: No, sorry
Woman: Are you an actor?
Man: Yes, my name is Shane.
[Bystander (me), who has been eavesdropping the entire time, takes a closer look at the man standing three feet from her]
Woman: Oh you just really look like my friend Mike.
She then skulks off to finish her cigarette; he returns to conversing with his companion – I, on the other hand, jump on my phone and send a multi-blast out “Uh, I’m pretty sure I’m standing next to Shane West” right now. The best answer I got back was “Um, where are you? 2003?”
Let me tell you a little something about Shane West. Along with Joshua Jackson, he is someone I was convinced I was going to marry when I was in the tenth grade. I knew everything about him: hometown, age, height, dating status. I absolutely agree with you that it’s quite pathetic, but a gentle reminder that 23-year-old yuppies were also once 15-year-old bored suburban high school girls. I would even fantasize that I would meet him when my family went away for vacation to Aruba or Puerto Rico and somehow we’d go sailing off into the sunset. If you had told me that I would be see him standing outside a hotel eight years later while I was attending a fashion party, I probably would have laughed in your face.
And isn’t that just how it works? You dream of these exotic and storybook meetings, but then when it happens you’re standing outside wearing shorts on a particularly chilly October night and there’s cigarette smoke surrounding you. To assuage the build-up to the answer to the question you want to know – I didn’t talk to him; people I tell this story to in person are disappointed to that I didn’t. But maybe I just wanted to preserve the last of the fantasy. What if I did talk to him and he was a complete idiot (the odds may be high)? Really, I think I was more afraid that I was say something stalker-esque and embarrass the hell out of myself. The odds of that were exceedingly probable.
Perhaps then sometimes the less you know the better. But in the spirit of new experiences I broke one of my cardinal rules and agreed to go on a date with someone I’d met at a bar. It was back in the glorious days of the Leafs pre-season (i.e. before all the losing) and I went on a date with a Maple Leaf. In a mixed bag of expectations, some were met; others were exceeded (kind of like a performance review –but isn’t that what first dates really are? But I digress). He talked a lot less about himself than I expected. We ended up discussing (or I discussed) the over-prescription of medication in Canada. I swear to you, and I swore to him, that is not my A-game first date material nor something I figured I’d discuss with a pro-hockey player – he asked my opinion, okay? Plus, he can do math; fine, simple arithmetic and yes, I did watch him add the tip and total the bill. (Obviously just so I know he’s not a bad tipper.) We both like to round to the whole dollar! Squee, that’s what real love is made of. Ha. In terms of vocation, I’m going to say that I’ll strike profession puck bunny off the list though. But hey, at least I know for sure, right?
Whether you have had celebrity crushes or have gone out with someone whose paid job is to work out for four hours a day, you may also have great fortune of having the elusive One That Got Away. I am one such fortunate person and not too long ago he told me something, though not dire, suddenly makes him seem imperfect in my eyes. I guess when someone you’ve built up as virtually ideal in your head and in reality he isn’t, it sucks (in lieu of a poetic word) to know that perception is also deflated. One excellent friend told me that knowing we probably aren't as perfectly matched as I had imagined will help me move on from always wondering what might have been. Another superb friend reminds me that no one is perfect and it’s impossible to hold someone to that standard.
And in a world of great expectations, maybe that’s what we have to temper – the fact that we are all human and with that comes its imperfections. Actors, athletes and all those past and future that may capture your attention and perhaps your heart are all just people searching for someone who meets and/or exceeds their expectations too.
I choose to take the same approach I do to everything in life be it definitively finding my favourite restaurant in the city or the best cappuccino or figuring out what I might want from a partner in life. You have to try on a lot of suits to find the one that fits you best. Unfortunately there is no life tailor who can custom-make one for you (yet). In the mean time, I’m hell bent on having as much fun as possible trying to figure it out; it sure makes for a better blog entry.
