The first day of summer, I laid down on my driveway. With my back on the hot concrete, I felt connected. It was peaceful, until I forced myself to get up. The image of my friends getting to my house early and laughing was too strong. They were late, in the end, though, which just shows how stupid it is to expect something early. And to get up.

Earlier that day, as I drove home from my final exam, I reveled in the pretentiousness of calling Pete and manipulating him into bringing Col over to my place, so I could go get CDs while avoiding loneliness. Why CDs? Since I’d gotten paid off for letting my parents get me Confirmed. I don’t even believe in Judaism.

They got pissed, when they realized what I’d done. My friends. On Col’s suggestion, we started driving around town, being 16. We stopped at the beach (ever since the morning a month before when I did so at 7 a.m. with a hangover, I’d found driving along the beach pacifying and I figured a rising moon worked as well as a rising sun), got out, stood a few feet from the waves, and Col and I drew it in, recorded it. Pete bitched about sand. Col began talking about action, not thought–ignoring the consequences. To illustrate, the three of us walked into the Gulf of Mexico–fell face forward into it, sucked in the salty water, submitted to the waves.

(I’ve found since then that there’s a problem with just taking action: it doesn’t solve anything, All it does is change your set of problems for a new one, which can be just as difficult. The only reason it feels good is a certain euphoria induced by apathy. Not giving a damn is fun, at least as far as I can see. Except, of course, in the end, someone calls you on it, asks you why you did what you did…there are always reasons. But if you don’t take the time to step away from everything and figure those reasons out, then you just come off as a total idiot when you sit there and say "I dunno…." Trust me on this one.)

Three weeks later, I’m sitting in front of the Lilly Library at Duke University, listening to a Led Zep cover band, having just heard a lecture on Lacan. All I can think of as the sound thumps through the grass and my body is whether or not when I fall in love I only want to be the center of the universe, and I reject it. I don’t want to be a center. I want to be a part.

It isn’t just love, though. Or it is, but love in a more general sense, friendship and such. In France two years ago, I tried something different. Instead of trying to attract people who like loners, I tried to be sociable. It worked, over and over again and though sometimes the friendships gained this way seemed false or inappropriate, they existed. Suddenly, at TIP–an academic summer program at Duke that’s not at all as lame as one might imagine it to be–this summer, I realized the flaw…by trying to be sociable, I don’t come off as myself, and I misjudge who I should approach. Sure, my dorm group liked me, but I wasn’t really part of it. There were times when I wasn’t sure I could be around them. As the term went on, I began to see how I wanted to know people who that method would never work with; by the time I had this epiphany, it was too late. Friendships, I thought, were set in those first few days which I had ignored. The worst was knowing how irreversible my mistake was. I was a 4^th year. I don’t get any more of the chances I squandered.

In my despair, I decided to make my screwup public, and so I told everyone who bothered showing up for Closing Ceremony. I did it to show my appreciation of all the truly amazing people at TIP. It came out as self-pity or a cry for help and maybe it was. I got teary hugs from people I didn’t know, suggestions of other chances for the same experience. Inside, I cry. I’m not bitterly distant from the TIP community now. Being a part of something is being there, and not inside myself.

I was an uncertain first year TIPster who didn’t go to the dances since I knew no one would dance with me. I was a misanthropic second year who sat in the corner of the dances playing Risk with other nerds. But I thought something changed, after that, when I went to France with Shorecrest. I thought that I could really change how people saw me by accepting others as who they are instead of holding them to some ridiculously high faux-intellectual standard forged in my own arrogance. There, in Chalon-en-Champagne and Paris itself, I felt a part of a group–a group that not only had lots of cool people, but older cool people–as a freshman, nothing felt better than hanging out with sophomores and juniors. It was fun. And I came back, and when I had the opportunity, I used the same technique; I acted confident and friendly, and most of time I ended up not sitting in the corner playing Risk when I didn’t want to. But when the real pressure came, I’d go back to the way I was before. I tried to hide it, pretending I really wanted to stand on the side at the Homecoming dance sophomore year since I wanted to feel depressed watching the girl I was infatuated with; since, after all, romance is pain. Still, when a girl’d drag me on the dance floor out of pity, I complied willingly. I thought that was a major change in attitude. At TIP this year, I figured out what I’d gotten wrong. See, I expected the same thing to happen as happened in France, and at Drivers Ed, and at Youth in Government, and at State Thespians: I thought I’d be able to have friends simply by acting confident and quietly friendly. I screwed up, though. Instead of making friends, I’d go off to my room to read and while sure, I’d have the door open and cool, slightly rare music playing and the occasional person pop in the room, I knew it was wrong. These people were too smart to fall for me. I’d changed one small thing, my ability to enjoy things for what and when they are, but I hadn’t made any major changes to my personality. Bored, I still go off and read. Lonely, I still sit in my room moping. I’d succeeded in fooling myself, which is the worst part. I should have realized it wasn’t that easy. It took one hell of a long time for me to figure it out.

I sat out on the quad the last night of my last year at TIP, writing some of this, and that’s when it really hit me. All these people saying goodbye, talking for the last time, signing yearbooks, having a good time–and there I am, sitting off a bit, writing not because I was trying to ensnare the moment with my pen but because there was no one talking to me. I don’t like who I am, I don’t like trying to be popular (and failing), so how do I change? That’s my question now. It strikes me that this is something else of Lacan, something I wish I could disagree with from something more than an intuitive notion of right and wrong, but nevertheless I’m trying to find something to identify with. Do I want to be a writer? Do I want to be a gamer? Do I want to be a web designer? An amateur philosopher? An intellectual who reads lots of good books and totally ignores the lessons of them? A playwright? Should I convince my parents to pay for guitar lessons and try to be a musician? I could always try to lose weight, and then identify myself as thin–or better yet, maybe that way I could finally get a girl and identify myself as "boyfriend." Or, more likely, stalker. Fuck identity. I should try being happy. It’s scary that happiness could include things I’ve never done or even heard of, but then, for all I know, figuring all those things out could make me happy itself. I don’t know why I feel so optimistic. I really don’t know why I’m trying to be happy.

Junior year taught me some more things. Realizing there’s a problem to solve and wanting to solve it doesn’t solve it. Only action changes things. I have friends who tell me to act more on impulse, and I have to admit that often when I do so, it works. On the other hand, the real lasting effects seem to come from thought…seeing that happiness was my goal, not popularity, was important. I define "social life" now as having things to do on the weekend. The corollary is, school’s not fun. As high school’s progressed, I see it more and more as a game. The school gives you structure–honor systems, grades, activities, required course loads, bells, pep rallies, tests, report cards–but in the end, it’s almost entirely meaningless. The petty knowledge I gain in school holds no value to me. Sure, there are teachers who I enjoy learning from, and I would never say that I’m learning nothing, just that what I learn will in the end do nothing for me. It is, for the most part, not the type of knowledge that makes me a better or more well-rounded person. It is not the type of knowledge that gives me a high-paying job. It is not the type of knowledge that sets me on the path to higher learning, or that sets the patterns of education that will allow me to grasp more important lessons. High school education is more of a way to prepare us for the next quiz or test or exam and when it only serves the structure instead of the student, it has no context, and, really, no meaning.

Socially, I’m still acting like it’s TIP. I’m quiet and shy and while I might go do things, I sit there quietly, attentively, and rarely participate. I’m nice and honest and ethical and sweet but never the focus of attention. Don’t be fooled, though, it’s not silent, modest confidence that needs no flamboyance–hell, it’s the opposite. I’m unsure of myself as ever, if not more so, and shyness and brooding get me no further here than they ever have. A year after I spent the Homecoming dance staring at a girl like a lovesick puppy, I spent the Homecoming dance staring at the same girl like a lovesick puppy and then stared at the ceiling, bored and depressed, when she left. My life is exactly the same. Smack in the middle of my adolescence, I can think of few more horrible things than that. Until recently I thought I was a romantic, but years of passive-aggressive rejection have beaten that into submission. I’m almost pragmatic, now. I lost some weight, thinking maybe she’d go out with me, but no. Then again, if I lose some more, I’d at least be thin, and maybe I could get someone else. Because no matter what anyone might say about people caring more about who you are than what you are, that just isn’t true in high school. The difference is, I used to think it was because everyone else was shallow. Now I see that I’m just as shallow as everyone else.

I want people to like me just as much as any other teenager who can be honest to himself. Being by myself is not fun. Doing the same thing every weekend is not fun. Hearing about the last weekend’s parties isn’t fun. Being unpopular does suck, if only because Shorecrest is so small that the losers can’t coordinate their own things to do. At a bigger school, it might not matter if you’re not popular, since, well, there are other things to do, other parties. But at Shorecrest, while, I imagine, the ratio of popular to unpopular people is the same, no one except the popular people have the initiative to do anything.

I have friends who seriously seem to hate the idea of "giving in" to popularity. Fuck that. If I had the chance, I’d take it in a heartbeat. My current lifestyle is not giving me enough experiences. I like to pretend I’m a creative person, but without anything to base creative works on, I have no inspiration at all except my own pathetically empty life. I feel betrayed by Hollywood, which portrays popularity as an attitude. After getting a taste of what spending time with normal teenagers was like, I decided I wanted to be popular, or at least accepted to the point where I know about parties, stuff like that. So many people look down on Shorecrest parties, but it’s better than sitting at home, let me tell you. Unsurprisingly, just saying to myself "Hey, I’d like to be popular" didn’t work. I’ve gotten a lot more cynical since then. I have this theory that it was all decided in like 6^th grade, and I made the mistake of turning my nose to popular people, something I’ll always regret. But barring transfer students, that was everyone’s only chance. It was open admission, but you had to pick it, and I didn’t.

When I started writing, it was going to be a short story, not an essay. I was going to examine the dynamics of friendships. Then it was going to be about TIP. Then it was going to be about introversion. Then it was just going to be about me. Then it was going to be about a girl. Then it was going to be about social classes at Shorecrest. I guess my fourth choice was right. It is about me, and my choices, and my lack of them. I haven’t changed, I know I should, I’m lost…sort of like this essay. I let it sit too long and added to it over extended periods of time–starting it in April, ending it in March–and it ended differently than it began. I know I’m hoping that if I just sit around long enough, I’ll change into something that has some sort of wisdom, some poignant, probably silent identity. The problem is, this essay is directionless and pointless and rambling, and if I let my life stay like that, it will be too. Almost every paragraph ends with a not-so-clever little turn of phrase, because almost every paragraph was meant to be the end. Every time I begin to stop, though, some new thought enters my head, or my audience changes. Right now, I have no idea who will read this and no idea what to say except that I know that I meant to include more.

If I could have anything in the world this very second, I’d want to not be lonely. That can work in lots of ways. I could become too busy with school and the play to be lonely. Or too busy with some non-school project like a web site my theatre teacher wants me to make him, or a philosophy site my best friend wants me to help him with. Or I could gain that social life I defined earlier. Or I could enter one of those vegetative phases I go through every few months where I just let life pass me by in a haze to wake up–lonely. Or I could find a cause of some sort, though no one really cares about the opinion of people who can’t vote and have no money of their own. I could do something drastic like try to kill myself and spend some time in a hospital on medication but I just don’t have the guts for that. What I really want, though, is love. I had it once and let it slip through my fingers and I wouldn’t do that again. I had a girl who, literally, adored me. And I was even younger and more foolish than I am now and had no idea how to act around her. I think I’m still smarting from the rejection, still on the rebound, which is a truly sad thing. It’s not searching for identity, like I thought in June, however. I still don’t want to be the center of someone’s universe, either. I wouldn’t lose myself in a relationship, but loneliness is the one thing that makes me bitter about my oh-so-perfect pampered life. I’m depressed, even though I have money and parents who are remotely if distantly kind to me and all the creature comforts that most people could desire and I’m getting a good if not great education and I have friends, if not many, and really, my only problem is not having someone to embrace.

My godmother told me once about how she visited us when I was very young, and she woke up in the middle of the night to hear me crying in my room, sitting on the edge of my bed, my feet not even touching the carpet. I explained to her that I was lonely and afraid and my parents refused to let me sleep on the floor in their bedroom since I was too old for that. I’m not sure I’ve every gotten past that. I think this might be the same thing–I want love so I can be comforted and comfort someone else and not be scared, ever. To me, it seems mature. It’s probably not, but that’s the best dream I’ve got. I don’t get much physical contact from my family, and it’s something I crave desperately. It makes me desperate, but it’s not a desperation born of impure motives. I’m desperately open, I think, to attention from anyone. Anyone who showed the least bit of love towards me would gain my undying affection. And it would be real affection. It would just make me unafraid to love them for who they are. I don’t have a type. I really don’t.

It’s sort of ironic, that being that sensitive and sweet and analytical, I have, really, no one. Most of my friends aren’t the type I can talk to deeply in most circumstances. I bottle it up, and after a time, I go over it in my head so much that I can really tell anyone anything about me because my desire to say it is stronger than any inhibitions. I can write it down. I can print it out. I’ll probably give it to people to read, under the pretense of seeing what they think of the first thing I’ve written in a long, long time without thinking more than, oh, say, thrice. They’ll either say they don’t know what they think of it, say it’s good, or go over the crappy mechanics. I used to adore writing mechanics. Now they’re just irritating arbitrary stylistic boundaries. I still don’t know how to use this, though. Or even if I should use this, as a tool like that. Seems kind of wrong, to write stuff down so truthfully and then just use it to bash myself into people’s souls. Being unsure of myself, though, I grasp anything slightly resembling a tool that I see.

What the hell can I use this for, though? The language and run-ons strike out any academic use. The honesty means I’d never be insane enough to put it on the web or something geeky like that. I might use it as a very indirect love letter, and in fact probably will at some point if I run out of options, but until then, I’ll simply show it off. It’s honest, and it’s introspective, and I’m not too crazy about my writing in it, but it communicates, which at this second seems vitally important in a way good style never could be. Maybe I’ll clean it up and use it for a college admissions essay next year. Or use it as material for some work of fiction. Or just let it sit on my computer. But it’s pretty damned interesting, I have to say to myself, that something I began writing trying to solve problems just becomes a problem itself as it illustrates how nothing exists in a void. If this had been pure, it would have been perfect for just about anything. I intruded on the writing process, though, which made it both flawed and…to me, if no one else…good.

-Jonathon Rubin