Being Geek Chic is a blog for stylish geeks, sophisticated nerds and people who enjoy the musings of a complete dork. Join us as we dream of driving the TARDIS, cuddle with our eBooks and test out an iPad sleeve. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi and a team of brilliant lady nerds. Meet the team.
I have two stupid, irrational fears.
Most people reserve the part of their brain where illogical terror resides for spiders and snakes. I had to go and get creative in that quadrant.
One could argue that the obesity fear isn’t entirely illogical. With my whole “let’s tell the world my most embarrassing secret” thing - it’s really not that big of a surprise. But have you ever seen a news story about a 20-something year old woman who was carrying around an extra 20 pounds suddenly waking up with an extra 1,000? Yeah, illogical.
The other is easier to forgive, because you can’t control your dreams. I blame Facebook. These exes and pseudo-exes show up on my damn newsfeed all the time and I can’t work up the guts to de-friend. I was only recently let free like a butterfly on a spring afternoon by one particularly destructive ex when he up and quit the site altogether.
It’s really the pseudo-ex-boyfriends that torture me though. What’s a pseudo-ex-boyfriend, you ask? Here’s a definition:
1. A boy who you go “out” with. They’re not dates, but it’s just you two single people, doing things couples do. And then he insists on paying.
2. A boy who texts you for advice. Career, family, furniture, otherwise. Never asks about, mentions or indicates he would need advice about women.
3. A boy who you have relations with. No, these are not one night stands. No, they are clearly not “Friends with Benefits” scenarios. Relations is up to your definition.
4. A boy who gets obscenely and zealously angered when another man actually asks you on a proper date.
5. A boy whose friends are so used to you being the only girl around said boy that they start to refer to you as his girlfriend by accident.
See also: Episode 130 of Seinfeld - The Calzone
Origin: Usually College
One can see why this would be a torturous scenario. You meet a guy. He asks you to “hang out” and then tries to kiss you. Then he asks you to “hang out” again. This time with his friends. Then he asks you to “hang out” a third time. With his parents?!
And when you finally just say, “what the hell are we?” he looks at you like a bewildered deer right before he runs back into the woods.
These dudes regularly visit me in my sleep. Sometimes they’re pleasant and I wake up and I think, “oh, that was nice.” Other times it’s destructive and horrible like Godzilla just took hold of my self-esteem and toppled it like a poorly constructed Lincoln Log set. I wake up sweating and confused and in need of Prozac.
A few weeks ago these two fears converged in a nightmare that can only be described as my brain taking a vacation at Lucifer’s summer home. In the dream, one of my pseudo-ex-boyfriends had opened a pizza shop in my home town. It should be noted that the fellow doesn’t actually make pizza for a living either. But, in this particular version of my personal hell, he operated a hockey-themed pizza place. I became a regular patron of said establishment, visiting several times a day and gorging myself on his spicy pepperoni slices. The more I visited, the more obese I became. The more obese I became, the more attention he paid me.
When I finally stopped eating, I bundled up and watched him play hockey from a bench. I couldn’t skate, because my legs had become too fat to properly glide without causing me to topple over on the ice.
And that’s when I woke up.
My first thought? That *might* have hurt more than our original fallout. At least other pseudo-ex-boyfriends have the respect to leave my weight alone while taunting me in my sleep.
Tolkien once said:
I have to give Tolkien credit for tapping into my deepest issues so precisely. Whether it’s the dreams I’ve conceived for my career or the dreams I can’t control in slumber - they’re powerful because they are an amplified version of my life.
Dreams take our old realities and bring them back to the surface and reach into our future and show us possibility. Both force you to look at things differently and perhaps even admit that you have some things to let go.
In the meantime, I need to develop a normal fear or two. Like a bad credit score and semi-trucks. I mean, how could those two ever meet up in a dream?
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