Typically, she was described as an extrovert; a social butterfly. Typically, she was not opposed to our communal-centric society. But tonight, it seemed impossibly problematic. She was alone at a concert. This was her first concert alone. As she stood in line outside, in the middle of November, it was not the cold that bothered her– no, the air was quite refreshing; it was just that, well, she was alone.
Behind the couples and clusters of friends, there she stood: her loneliness. There are certain things that are acceptably done alone… she thought to herself. Of these few things, “concert going” didn’t immediately come to mind.
When she, and the others standing in line, were finally ushered into the lobby, the young people milled about getting drinks, chatting, or drinking and chatting on the couches in the lounge. Attempting to be like her fellow youngsters, she too got in line to get a drink. Unfortunately, she had never established a “favorite” drink and so as not to keep anyone waiting, she ended up ordering what the person next to her had just ordered. “PBR” she echoed to the bartender taking her order. As she would later learn, “PBR” (Pabst Blue Ribbon) did not sit particularly well with her. She enjoyed the design of the label and had no qualms with the company’s marketing strategy or environmental record; it was the taste of PBR that made her queasy.
She decided to walk around the lounge under the pretext of looking for someone, in the hopes that someone would talk to her, if only to ask her if she was looking for someone. In the past, she had been told that her confident air could be perceived as threatening to men, and therefore, tonight, she consciously attempted to look unconfident i.e. “open” and “accessible”, as others had put it. In her attempt to look the part, you would be putting it kindly to say that she “overshot” her target. In attempting to achieve the doe-eyed look she thought would convey “open,” she rolled her pupils back in her head rather than widening her eyes and gazing distantly to the left, and then to the right, as every other young woman in the room knew to do. And her open mouth looked less like the simpering pout of a model, than a gasp for air or the unfortunate result of an involuntary muscle response.
After touring the room in hopes of connecting with the people around the lounge, she noticed that a line was forming. Without knowing what the line was for, she jumped in. Feeling especially “ballsy” (she hated that word, but due to its common usage among young people she repeatedly found it surface in her vocabulary), she asked the girls in line ahead of her what the line was for? As it turned out, the line was for those wanting to first get into the concert hall. Not a bad place to be, she thought to herself, as she relaxed her eyes and closed her mouth, allowing her face to return to its natural, if intimidating, self.
Since her attempt at looking “open” and “accessible” had run amuck, she deduced that she really had only one option left. She would pretend to be a social critic who attends concerts not for personal enjoyment, but to document the mundanity of music in the post-hipster revival of Williamsburg.
Really? That’s your only option? She found her mind second-guessing her recent epiphany.
“Yes.” She tried to sound confident in her response.
Why don’t you just try and be over-the-top friendly and introduce yourself to people around you?
“Because, that would be inherently risky. I could be perceived as: a) needy b) friendless c) weird or d) needy, friendless and, weird.”
Right, sure, I see, because pretending to be a social critic to avoid the reality that you are alone at a concert doesn’t make you needy, friendless, or weird.
She could think of no quick response to this insulting insinuation.
Besides, if you were a social critic attending a concert you would need a BlackBerry or an Iphone to pretend that you are networking with, nay, running, the entire world. Given the lowly status of your phone I would say are you capable of accomplishing little more than receiving a phone call.
“You’re right. I can text.” She haughtily pretended to feign indifference to the demeaning comments made about her and her phone. At least she had a response this time.
After this exchange, she felt quite deflated. In a last brave effort, she grabbed for her cell phone. Despite the lack of a posse surrounding me, she thought, at least I’ll look like I’m loved. She began texting friends so that they would respond, in order to create the illusion for the people around her that she was someone of importance; someone who was spontaneously and constantly remembered by friends, loved ones and suitors.
But she couldn’t shake the nasty comments her mind had earlier posited and so she texted her guru for advice….
how do I pretend to look
cool while standing alone in
a lounge waiting to be let in
to a concert?
…And received this response:
Just keep moving.
Look normal and
wanted.
Normal AND Wanted? Ever more frustrated by what seemed to be impossible advice, she nonetheless mulled over the guru’s advice in her mind.
She asked the girls ahead of her whom noticed had Iphones if they would look up the Merriam Webster Dictionary definition of “normal”. They seemed more than a little surprised by this request, but kindly obliged. The one with the dark glasses and bangs touched some buttons on her phone and pinched her fingers all over the screen before reading: “Conforming to a standard, usual, typical, or expected…umm…. A person free from physical or mental disorders.” She thanked the girls for their assistance and let them know that they could turn around again if they wanted. They did.
Interesting, she thought to herself. Attempting to crack her guru’s Mensa text she began to slowly contemplate each word and its situational meaning. Conforming… to the standard… of… Williamsburg (for instance)… could not be described as universally “expected” or “usual”…. She wasn’t getting very warm.
Normal: A person free from physical or mental disorders: again, totally subjective, she mouthed to herself. Her mind drifted to the larger cultural constructions of “normal”. Then, she remembered a t-shirt a friend had given her when she was in middle school. The “baby T”, as they were called, had “Not Normal” written across the chest. “Baby T’s”, though short and un-flattering with scarring slogans written on them had been all the rage. She had vigorously fought with her mother to allow her to wear the shirt, employing coercive language like: “it’s cool,” “there’s nothing wrong with it” and “everyone else wears these shirts.”
It was not until she had won the right to wear the shirt that she began to consider the ramifications of her victory. Questions arose in her mind, such as: “Was my friend insinuating something when she gave me this t-shirt?” and “Does this shirt say something to others about me?” But it was too late. She had won, and pride dictated that she had to wear, and enjoy wearing, the shirt. Looking back now, she couldn’t help but feel resentful and embarrassed about the cruel game that had been played on her by children’s marketing moguls.
Is it karma, she wondered, that I, who fought to wear a shirt branding me “Not Normal”, now stand here alone? She felt pangs of guilt. The idea was too weighty a burden. She decided not to blame herself. It was the culture at large that was to blame.
In substantiating her critique of the culture at large she questioned: are women more than men subject to solitary stigmatization in society than men? Good question. But, she was too busy congratulating herself for coining the term “solitary stigmatization” to answer her own question. She then wondered if even something as individual and spontaneous as dancing relies partly on the gaze of others? She concluded that it did. Dancing alone typically results in solitary stigmatization… And what about laughter? To laugh alone is to label yourself a psychopath! She giggled to herself at the thought of this ridiculous taboo. She was on a roll. She had tested her theory on the three big matters: gender, dance and laughter. Ok, she thought, this is all coming together.
As she was thinking about her potential-thesis-dissertation-topic, theory of solitary stigmatization, she remembered that she had forgotten to examine the second word in the text from her guru. Look (1) Normal and (2) Wanted. In shaking up her mental gymnastics routine she decided to examine this word by asking the inverse question it evoked: what does un-wanted look like? While a number of names and labels sprang to mind she dismissed them, pushing onward.
How does one look “wanted”? Is it a matter of wearing the right garb or accessories? She looked around the room in an attempt to see if the people in the music hall could provide any clues. She was overwhelmed by a wave of confusing imagery. Young people were dressed in all manner of clothing from torn and scuffed to ruffled and feathered. She even thought she recognized her grandmother’s glasses on a number of girls. Only one thing was clear; she had gained no insight from the world around her.
As she stood there, alone and more confused then ever, she felt a great heaviness in her heart. And then the light bulb flashed. The puzzle had finally come together. She laughed out loud. She couldn’t help herself. Loud reams of laughter poured out of her mouth. The girl ahead of her with the Iphone and the bangs turned around. The bartender pouring someone a PBR looked at her. The couples sitting on the couch pulled their faces away from each other and craned their necks to see what was going on.
“The joke is on me,” she said out loud. No one disagreed, although, no one said anything either. “If you want to get very Meta about it you could say the joke is not simply on me but that the joke is me.” Everyone waited for the punch line. She delivered. “Look NORMAL, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and WANTED while alone at a concert. Ha!”
Silence.
She thought these people in particular should have appreciated the irony. But they didn’t seem to get it. A number of people exited to use the restroom; many more got back in line for another PBR and still more grabbed for their phones. The puzzle had finally come together. Meta. She shrugged her shoulders and mumbled to herself. She knew this one. Denoting a change of position or condition.