Five Steps To Becoming An Extremely Good Liar (And Therefore A Moderately Good Lover)

Step 1. The Part Where It Becomes A Habit


I spend a lot of my time reading the musings of people I'm influenced by, while not believing in God and also, simultaneously, at the same time and redundantly, believing in God. I find it very hard to believe in something that never gave me my brother back, never gave me a second chance at anything and seems to have a habit of hiding in toast, but I also seem to find it very hard to live my life without this very fundamental belief. I have always thought that I could be a responsible, good person with morals even if I didn't believe in the afterlife or God or Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed or Allah or fucking Reptilian Humanoids from the 4th Dimension or L. Ron Hubbard or some shit. I fully believe that I can, but I'm overwhelmed with the idea that there's no point in it. I can't help but think that if there is no God then I've been wasting my entire life being both a horrible and a great person because theres not some ultimate reward. So I choose to be confused and remain confused. This is where everything starts, my in ability to make up my fucking mind.

Step 2. The Part Where it Starts Making A Difference.


I have trouble deciding sometimes if I want to just give up on life or if I want to maybe do something with it. I think about the fact that many people have been presidents, kings, czars, fuhrers, inventors, authors, magicians, villains, heroes, assholes and douchebags and think to myself that I don't know most of their names, so if the point of the game is to be remembered, then a lot of people have lost. So why even play? If you've struck out your last 300 at bats, do you still go up to the plate? Do you think that you'll still hit that ever elusive home run? That quite possibly you swing the bat and you're remembered forever for everything? At some point it must stop being confidence and start becoming wishful thinking. I say that line is once you start considering giving up. If you've considered quitting, then you've already failed. So what's even the point?

Step 3. The Part Where it Starts Hurting You.


The point is that even if you won't be remembered forever by name, at least make a fucking dent in the wall of eternity. If you've already lost, make an effort to lose passionately. See, I don't know who invented butter but I do enjoy a lot of butter. I'm sure somewhere there's some butter asshole who bathes in that shit and fucks a butter sculpture of Oprah Winfrey and I'm pretty sure he knows who invented butter. So remember, if you're not going to be remembered by name, make sure that you at least leave a god damn foot print. Life is not defined by the choices you make, but the risks you avoid. So don't avoid those bitches.

Step 4. The Part Where it Becomes An Addiction


Throughout my entire life I have known a large diversity of people. I've known so many different kinds of people, I'm sure at least one of them will kill someone some day. Some of them are gay, some of them are straight, some of them are black and some are white. A lot of them are girls, and still a lot are guys. And I have, time and time again, changed who I was pretending to be in order to make one or more of them happy. Sometimes I was extremely homo, because otherwise my entire art class wouldn't have thought I was nearly as cool. Sometimes I was incredibly douchey because it was absolutely necessary in order to maintain this whole "everyone hates me and idgaf" attitude thing that I had going for me. But right now, I can pretty much say that I'm comfortable being myself and that's a good thing. I'm not pretending to be something else. I don't know what happened, but apparently sometimes it's cool to be cool.

Step 5. The Part Where You Become A Fucking Pro


"When your heart feels like that, is it after any athletic activities?"
"Sometimes."
"And sometimes it's just-"
"In bed. Mostly when I'm about to sleep."
"Okay... And it says here that you're bi-polar, is that correct?"
"Yeah. Yeah it's correct."
"Okay. Well, I don't know what it is."
"It's nothing then?"
"We can't say that. But we can say that if it is something, we have no clue what it is."
"Fantastic."
"I'm sorry. We'll call you."
As I was leaving I suddenly realized that if I died at that moment, nobody would have a clue. I was alone in a hallway, nobody could see me, and it would be a good 30 minutes before anyone would even notice that I was there. I could die right now, and I doubt anyone would really notice for a while. There are plenty of times when I feel that way. If I died right now, nobody would remember my name in 20 years. I'm really just a kid. That's all we all are, really.

This is a post about dying.

"Ryan Dilks." I smiled at her and she smiled back, as if saying my name specifically brought her intense amounts of pleasure. I had always imagined stairs, but as it turns out, I had to walk up a ramp, not stairs. Which made me wonder why the kid from that episode of scrubs couldn't graduate. He was a burn victim and the problem was that he had to get out of the wheelchair. But there should have been a fucking ramp. This school has to have had more than one cripple.  This was going through my mind and everything was going slow motion and I reached forward and he handed me my fake diploma and shook my hand and he said congrats and I felt different. 

I felt older.

I felt... better.

"Thank you." And I walked off the stage. My family was cheering and so I turned to wave and point and feel proud of myself. I was still walking, down a line of juniors who apparently all knew me, because I knew all of them. On my right was Daniel. I had done it. But it still hadn't really sunk in. I sat back in my chair, after being hugged by the couple friends that had gone before me. Slowly the rest of them walked down the line, being greeted by the whole of us. And when Mr. Wilborn said to switch our tassles and shit because we graduated... I cried a lottle bit.

Here's a boy who didn't think it would ever happen. A boy who didn't really care if it ever happened.

But now? 

Now it happened.

And now I can do anything.

I'll probably lay in bed for the rest of summer.

But I need a fucking job.

How To Make Everyone Learn Your Name.

1. Stay Calm, You've Been Here Before.

"Ryan, I don't get it. You have all this potential and ability."
I hate these conversations. All she ever says is that I have 'potential.'
"I really don't! Why do you just decide it's easier to roll over and give up? You could be anything and you're choosing to be nothing, and you have no explanation for why!"
We have this talk once a fucking week and every week it's mostly the same: She yells at me to do something with my life, I nod my head and refuse to respond in more than a few words. This week it's different though.
"It's like you don't want to do anything, your therapist says you're work avoidant, but this is different. You're not just avoiding it this time, you're flat out fucking quitting and it's not good."
I should say I'm not choosing to be nothing. I'm not quitting on life. I'm not. I should say all of this before she says the next part but I don't. Instead she says this.
"It's just... Why are you so damn insistent on being a huge disappointment?"
I don't want to go back there. I hate everything about that woman. I have never wanted to cry more in my entire life. I did cry.


2. I Know It's Empty, And You're Lonely, But It's Gonna Be Fine.

I'm not usually one to take loss seriously. I roll with the punches and let things bounce off of me. Anymore, it's not a big deal when I fail. Except for tonight, apparently. Not only did I lose/fail/disappoint my self, I lost to someone who didn't deserve it. And in the process almost embarrassed myself. Leaving the school I wanted to pick up a trashcan and throw it. I wanted to push him into the tables. I wanted to kick him in the jaw. I wanted him to have a heart attack. He's my best friend and more than anything else, at that very moment, I wanted him to die. I felt a deep, burning hatred for him suddenly. I almost hurt him for something that was out of his control. But he knew it. He won the award even though she had planned on giving it to me. He won something that had my name on it. Literally. Enjoy my sloppy seconds, bitch, I already fucked your girlfriend.


3. The Answer Is Simple, Baby, Kill Yourself.

I've attempted suicide before. A dozen times. In plenty of ways, but we already knew that about me. Hardly anybody realizes that I did it recently. I tried to tie a tie in a compromising position and fall forward. I tried to do it. I tried twice. I figured it would make people happier if I wasn't around to disappoint them. Namely myself. The first time, The tie fell off. The second time, Daniel needed advice... And he needed me, something nobody has told me for a long time. And so I didn't. I didn't fall forward. And he never knew this until now....

I love you.
There's a reason you're my closest friend.

Melrose, CA.

You know how sometimes we make mistakes that we've made before and you know that you're making that mistake but you still make it?

"I did some bad things before I was a Marine." he frowned a little bit "things that take your memory away."
I was immediately reminded of me saying "I did some bad things before I met you. Things that I can't particularly say I regret."

She, of course, and as is to be expected, asked me what that meant. But I was afraid to tell her. Last night that mistake caught up with me. That mistake was sitting at a coffee shop next to Johnny Rockets. That mistake saw me before I saw her. And she tried not to make it obvious but I noticed.

I don't really know the difference between "I miss you" and "I hate you." They mean pretty much the same thing anymore. And so when she saw me and her eyes said "I hate you," and of course so did mine, I assume that we both meant "I miss you" even though I know it isn't true, because I can't stand her.

I'm not the one making a mistake. My girlfriend is. She knows it. I'm not worth anyone's time and I don't know why she's pretending I am, but I'm a bad person who has done bad things and she should not be dating me.

How To Disappoint Both Parents and Everyone You Love

1. Be Born With "A Gift"

I've always been intelligent. I've always been a talker. Both of these things constantly get me in trouble, because on one hand, I know what I'm talking about, usually, while on the other, I can't shut the fuck up. This has been regarded as both a blessing and a curse, depending on what I'm going through at that particular point in my life. During things like heated political debates and discussions about philosophical shit dealing with God and other bullshit I'm "very smart." But for some reason when I start telling a girl everything that she's doing wrong and start instigating fucking drama people call me a "self-absorbed douchebag." which hardly seems fair. They don't know jack-shit about me, how can they possibly say I'm "very smart?"

2. Refuse To Do Much Of Anything, Really


I used to have shit like "dreams" and "hopes" back before I decided that everything we do in life is really just bullshit anyway and there's no real purpose in trying to get something done if it's only a matter of time before we die and then people forget our names. Hardly anyone has ever gone down in history and whatever you have always dreamed of being likely hasn't had very many famous people in that field. Anyway I used to have a lot of hope. I aspired to do shit with my life, but I gave up on that at a pretty young age and settled instead for "doing whatever shit happens to fall right into my hands." This continues to piss people off because I do VERY little in the way of actual fucking work and yet I seem to have a lot of opportunities.

3. Come Up With A Bad-ass Excuse Like "Oh, I'm Just Waiting For The Right Time"


Theres this girl that I used to know who had a lot of advice for me, always. She thought I was going to be an amazing person, a great dad, an awesome president, a fucking bad-ass rich guy and a good friend. But instead I did a lot of giving up and I told her I didn't really give a shit about anything and she stopped being my friend because I'm a huge asshole. I have a lot of things wrong with me and most of them have to do with the fact that I'm work-avoidant but a huge heaping load of them are due to my extreme self-hatred. But that doesn't matter. Everybody hates themselves.

4. Die Sad and Alone With The Words "What If" As Your Epitaph.


There was an episode of Glee where they all wore shirts with the thing about themselves that they are embarrassed about, or hate about themselves.

Mine would, without a doubt say "HATES HIMSELF."
I spend a lot of time pretending I'm all that, and narcissistic and other shit, but really, I hate everything about myself from my nose to my bi-polar to my sexuality to my lack of fashion sense to my bathroom anxiety to my lack of respect for females to my lack of aspiration to my self-hatred. But since I would never be able to fit all of that shit on a shirt, fuck it.