Or Maybe I'm Just A Narcissist

I hate being nocturnal. Especially in winter; I end up standing on my front doorstep with a cigarette in hand, and with between the cold, the wind blowing my hair around, and my insistent love of long black coats, I start feeling like one of those Scottish widows. It doesn't help that there's bugger-all to do of an evening in this particular suburb. There are a couple of shitty bars and a fish-and-chip place that I've taken to thinking of as The Long Dark Night of the Sole, and that's about it.
I suppose I'm finally starting to feel fit for purpose again; I'm just not entirely sure what that purpose might be. I feel incongruous. Well, more so than usual for a teenager. I was out of place at Dulwich, I was out of place at Croydon. I tried joining the revolution and felt out of place there. I tried mingling with gay youth, and felt out of place with them.
Perhaps this is normal. Alienated youth is a cliché for a reason, after all. Most of them find their niche, get normal. Work. Marry. House in the suburbs. Volvo. Labrador. Kids. Retirement. Daily Mail. Golf. Heart attack. Death. 'Nobody understands me' is just a phase you get over when you realise nobody really understands anyone, even themselves.
I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I want to. I can't be satisfied with quiet mediocrity or even quiet success; it's a big part of why depression pisses me off so much. I have an inherent need for Massive Drama of the worst kind. If I'm going to fail at something, I want to fail big - the kind of failure where people throw plates at one another, or control panels explode and everything's on fire.
I can live with stupid, adolescent rebellion - it's the fear that gets me. I could've lived with being kicked out of Dulwich if I'd got to level someone with the sort of punch that comes out of nowhere and only works in movies. As it was, I spent a solid week almost entirely in bed, crying incessantly. Then the next year hiding from the outside world, as if the stormtroopers of Real Life were going to kick my door in and start shooting up the place.
Watch too many Godard films and you'll start to believe that reality should be as well-framed and perfectly composed. And then you'll never be satisfied with anything, because it's all we want our film to be beautiful, not realistic. Or is that just me?
As should be expected by now, I blame Dulwich for this state of affairs. You tell people they're going to grow up to be leaders of men, captains of industry and such often enough, and they'll start to believe it. You'll never be able to make a man with a mindset like that sell used cars for a living, because to a mind like that obscurity is the only true crime.
This is the kind of logic that leads to people shooting their elected officials.

* * *

Of course, it's nearly Valentine's Day. Cunting bastarding bastard bastard Valentine's Day. I shouldn't really be the type to assign any significance to a commercial, celebrate-our-love-by-buying-things occasion - but, readers, I have a terrible secret. I'm a hopeless romantic. It's the last inch of me I haven't given up to cynicism, sarcasm or misanthropy. This is something I keep very well hidden. Like having superpowers. All because a pretty face and the right kind of glances are like kryptonite to me - enough exposure and the Man of Steel turns into the world's most square-jawed flying brick. All of the dry humour and the irony disappear, and you're left with a babbling, fawning lunatic who has a thing for candlelight and writes dreadfully earnest poetry.
Falling in love can seriously fuck you up. Because very occasionally, you'll meet a person who sees right through all your bullshit and the persona you've created for yourself, and sees the real you. And then you either have to kiss them to stop them telling all their friends about what a babbling sentimental lunatic you are, or slowly collapse in on yourself like a flan in a cupboard.
That's what love is about to me, and that's why being single hurts on Valentine's Day. I'm sure I could get laid if I wanted to, but that doesn't really seem like the issue, does it?