Happily Ever After

Last weekend was my former roommate's wedding. I've known him since grade school and to see the wedding was weird, to say the least. Apparently, I won the award for being the loudest. And the drunkest. My parents refused to leave amidst strong hints from my brother and I that we would be getting drunk soon. So yeah, I'm disowned for the time being.

If you would have asked me when I graduated from high school which of my friends was least likely to wed, it would have been him. Mainly because he had an amazing ability to repulse women that surpassed even my own. But if there was one thing he was good at, it was persistence. As another friend of mine explained, technically, it's not stalking if the girl eventually goes out with you. They're going to live happily ever after, be affluent and respected, have neighborhood cookouts and go down in history as all-around solid people.

One might remark that I should be happy, even ecstatic for them. I am. However, as a human being, I feel compelled to indulge my neurotic, narcissistic tendencies every so often. The rest of this post, therefore, is about me.

I was the only one in the entire wedding party that showed up sans date...and every one of the guests at the reception had to comment on it. One of the girls in the wedding party was someone I had every opportunity to date [in fact, an open invitation] for a long time, but since my roommate and I were fighting for several months, I turned it down for the sole reason of not wanting to owe him any favors (she was friends with his wife). Seeing her there with a date was like a staunch kick to the junk...I really wished I would have asked her out. In the context of a wedding, I wondered if I was one of those tragic characters in a movie that others are supposed to feel sorry for...the one everyone is supposed to learn from because he had some stupid excuse and missed out on someone who might have been the love of his life. And my steak was overdone.

Quickly I reminded myself that I did not possess female reproductive organs and discarded such Hugh Grant sentimentality. Yet, I still find myself wondering why I was the only one there that never grew up. Now, I know that growing up isn't contingent solely on finding a woman to take to a wedding. I'd like to believe that had I applied myself, I could have done so. But I didn't, and the lack of application seems to be the distinguishing factor between my life and those of everyone else at that wedding.

Some of you might try to argue with this logic and point out the things that are good in my life. Yes, I have a job. I'm competent and ethical and like to think that my dumbass clients respect me for it. But the truth is, I only fight when I feel like a fight, the rest of my clients are mashed together in a stew of competent apathy and devoured by the judicial system. Yes, I can probably succeed in the "traditional" sense...move up in the employment world, get a house, mow the lawn, join the Rotary. But the truth is I have no idea what the hell I really truly want to do. I might fit in better living in the woods with the bears. Yes, I have a respectable character in World of Warcraft. But the truth is, Christ, I actually play World of Warcraft.

Sometimes I wonder what TV character I look like through another person's eyes. I was recently compared to John "J.D." Dorian from Scrubs. Amusing, but it's kind of sad when someone looks at your life and is amused...kind of the way you feel when you see a place advertising "Taxidermy and Cheese" on the side of the freeway. You can't help but smile at the chump behind the counter when you ask for a block of Colby Cheddar and a stuffed hawk.

So in sum, I don't know what to think. Maybe I'll live happily ever after as well, or maybe the janitor will get the best of me for the rest of my life. Or perhaps I'm waiting for my "J.D." phase to end and move on to a more badass role in The Fastest and Most Furious of All: A Street Racing Story. All I know is, if I don't make some changes, I could end up like Screech. And that wouldn't be happily ever after.