Lemondrop

In the Hebrew faith, a boy becomes a man on the day of his Bar Mitzvah. For me, this was patently absurd, considering I was four feet tall and didn't even have the suggestion of a whisper of a mustache.

Yet it dawned on me recently that, despite the lack of pubescence, on the night of my Bar Mitzvah I might have been more of a man than I am now. I had $700 in cash in my hand, a hot girlfriend, health insurance, and grandparents who doted on me. Today I have $41 in my checking account and no benefits, I haven't had a girlfriend in years, and my grandparents are dead. Next week on "Panic Attack in the Cereal Aisle: Depressing Epiphanies at Trader Joe's!"

What did [Redacted] Boy know that [Redacted] Guy has forgotten?

So, I went to a gypsy with jangly bracelets and cloudy eyes and asked her to conjure my younger self. This is what happened.

"Would it offend you terribly if I told you how disappointed I am?"

This was the first thing [Redacted] Boy said to me, having materialized through a doorway of hanging beads that clicked and clacked as he sat down. Handsome young man! I thought, his pink face still untouched by razors and a taste for canned beer. God. So many terribly awkward things awaited him in his future, I could barely stand to look at him.

Then he said he was disappointed in me and I felt like slapping him. Then I thought, Wait, he'd probably like that, because he's me.

[Redacted] Boy: Look, I don't care about your troubling finances. I'm talking about your attitude. I'm disappointed in your attitude.

[Redacted] Guy: Well, that's why you're here: to help me fix my attitude.

[Redacted] Boy: Good, let's get started. Suggested fix number one: Try not having sideburns.

[Redacted] Guy: Said the guy wearing Jams shorts? Next suggested fix.

[Redacted] Boy: Fix two: Quit being so fatalistic.

[Redacted] Guy: You don't even know what that means.

[Redacted] Boy: It means you look at everything like it's predetermined ending is always you alone, slumped over your computer and trying to find a free porn clip you haven't already seen.

[Redacted] Guy: Jesus Christ, dude.

[Redacted] Boy: Hey, you've come to me for help. If you want smoke blown high up your butt cheeks, consult Mom.

[Redacted] Guy: Whoa, where's this hostility coming from, Boy Me?

[Redacted] Boy: Fix three: You think way too much. You start talking to a girl and immediately index every possible outcome and every single perceived fault -- hers and what you think she finds in you. You introduce each new girl to six or seven personalities right off the bat! We didn't do this at 13. Stop! Focus!

[Redacted] Guy: I'm a good listener.

[Redacted] Boy: No. You're a so-so actor.

[Redacted] Guy: OK, you're right. I need to just settle down the old meat computer and focus on the stuff she's saying. This is good. Good advice. Go on.

[Redacted] Boy: Fix four: Be more interesting.

[Redacted] Guy: Oh, "Be interesting." Great advice. Should I also be Ryan Gosling? You know what? I'll just be Ryan Gosling from now on. Women seem to like him.

[Redacted] Boy: Stop it. Listen. You have interests and passions. Stop focusing on your professional failures and concentrate on the fact that most people care more about whether or not you both like Radiohead than what you do for a living. Look at me! I don't even have a job, and I make out all the time with girls based on the fact that we're both just unsupervised in a basement.

[Redacted] Guy: OK, this is common sense stuff, but important to be reminded of. Hmm. What's interesting about me in that wasn't 20-ish years ago? Cooking? FYI, in the future, you make really good fish tacos.

[Redacted] Boy: Right! You can talk about that with girls. But not too much. Your chief weapon is humor, so even if you read a long-form article about the Green Revolution in Iran, don't belabor. You don't see me going around waxing philosophical about the meaning behind Led Zeppelin's "Battle of Evermore," do you? I simply touch upon Robert Plant's love of Tolkien, and she's ready to go steady. Oh my God, are you actually writing this down?

[Redacted] Guy: Yeah, why?

[Redacted] Boy: Nothing. Forget it. Fix five! There's a thin line between being picky and being judgmental. I think sometimes you veer over into Judgment Town, a funny place for a guy with a punch line for a bank account and a career that involves writing about his testicles. Remember when we liked anything that had breasts and a pulse? Girls I go after have braces and perms, for God's sake!

[Redacted] Guy: Come on, you're being unfair. I still go after anything with breasts.

[Redacted] Boy: When's the last time you were in an actual relationship?

[Redacted] Guy: Well, um, that depends ...

[Redacted] Boy: On what, reality? Don't bother answering. In terms of real relationships? Years. You cannot, and will not in my presence, call anything you've done in New York a relationship. If those are "serious relationships," then I'm basically a 13-year-old polygamist at this point with the amount of gals I've second-based. You are terrified of letting anyone in.

[Redacted] Guy: OK, now your age is showing. I'm terrified of letting anyone in? And I'm not judgmental. I'm just picky, and I want one of those epic romances you're learning unrealistic expectations from right now.

[Redacted] Boy: See? That's childish, right there. Relationships take hard work.

[Redacted] Guy: Everyone's always saying that! I'm pretty sure the point of "The Princess Bride" wasn't that one day you're going to meet someone who's going to require a lot of hard work. I don't want hard work. I want Andre the Giant and Mandy Patinkin on my side as I undergo a great adventure that ends with me humping Robin Wright.

[Redacted] Boy (standing, slow clap): Well, this is depressing, Future Me. You know what movie grown men shouldn't look to as a guide for adult relationships? "The Princess Bride." Yet this ridiculousness leads nicely to Fix Six: Start being serious. You're not "just waiting for Helen Mirren," so stop going around telling people that. Fix Seven: Take actual, human women to dinner. I wasn't old enough to, but you are.

[Redacted] Guy: Let me tell you something about dinner, tiny me. Things don't get any less awkward with the introduction of sauces. Besides, it always ends the same way -- an awkward goodbye where I'm not sure whether to kiss her on the lips or not, so I end up giving her a cheek kiss that is the kissing equivalent of handing her my manhood and asking her to drop it off at a Mail Boxes Etc., where they can do with it whatever they like.

[Redacted] Boy: When I walk into the cafeteria, you think I'm going "Oh no, what will happen when lunch is over and the bell rings and Melissa Swindle has biology and I have math! Boo-hoo, existence is a hatchet upon my heart!" Hell no. I walk in, survey the landscape, and think, Yup, Asian gal with bangs and overalls at four o'clock, straight eyeballing my Johnson.

[Redacted] Guy: You're pretty sexually confident for a virgin.

[Redacted] Boy: All in due time, Me. Unlike you, I'm not concerned with all that I haven't done or how so-and-so isn't Helen Mirren. I'm just an easygoing guy who likes a little afternoon hacky-sack, a good chocolate milk (Nesquik -- Hershey's is for losers) and making out with my girlfriend in closets. You've forgotten the essential thing about relationships: They're exciting when they're just about swapping gum and not thinking about whether or not this is going anywhere. Remember how good you were at that?

[Redacted] Guy: Look, ever think maybe the reason you're so relaxed around women is because you are, in fact, just a kid? Maybe you're so confident because you've yet to experience actual heartbreak, a feeling that will become crystal clear to you with the spectacular dissolution of your parents' marriage and each of your own crushing breakups with women of actual childbearing age?

[Redacted] Boy: Wow. That happens? Well, congratulations. You made a 13-year-old cry. Feel better now?

[Redacted] Guy: Goddamn it, I'm sorry. I should have said "spoiler alert."

[Redacted] Boy: Look, me. My overall point is just to take it easy, OK? The women you're so obsessed about? They're just people, like you and me. Who is also you. In the long and oft-lonely years you've endured, you seem to have made them something immense and staggering in your head. Forget all my "fixes." Just relax and be nice to girls. Be yourself and see what happens. I'm a pretty cool dude, after all, and I have faith that you'll do us proud in the future.

[Redacted] Guy: Do you mean that?

[Redacted] Boy: Depends. Do we ever have sex on a speedboat?

[Redacted] Guy: No.

[Redacted] Boy: What? You're killing me! Do we at least get to do two girls at once?

[Redacted] Guy: ... Yes.

[Redacted] Boy: Aaaand that's all I came for. Right. Back to my Spanish homework.


[Redacted] Guy is the resident single guy writer at Lemondrop. He has $41 in his bank account because we are expert hackers who robbed him. Ha ha, suck it, [Redacted] Guy.

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