Of Gentlemen and their Swords

Okay, I'll say it: I'm a feminist.

There. I said the f-word.

But I'm not the kind of feminist who hates men--a lot of my friends are guys, actually--and I'm not the kind of feminist who vetoes every last tiny little mainstream thing because it might be offensive, or the kind who refuses to watch Disney because "princesses are sexist." I'm the kind of feminist who thinks it's just a little fucked-up that in the 21st century, we are still holding to the idea that the best men are the ones who treat women like they're made of glass.

I mean, really.

What really pisses me off is that it's supposed to be a guy-to-girl thing. Seriously? I don't know about the men in your life, but the ones in mine really appreciate it if I hold the door when they've got their hands full, or if I offer to help them carry stuff to their dorm, or if I ask if they want anything when I go to get more food in the cafeteria. And I know plenty of other girls who don't mind doing this for their boyfriends or guy friends. My general rule is that if anyone, male or female, looks like they need help, you offer it to them, because it's good manners. If they decline your help, you don't take it as an insult. You take it as, Thanks, but I've got this covered. And it's that bloody easy. No hard feelings or outdated gender roles necessary.

Now take that and apply it to sports. If someone's a bad sport, it doesn't matter if they're male or female, you don't want to play with them or even practice with them. If they're a good sport, you enjoy playing with them and practicing with them and everything's all good. And if they have skills you don't, you're best served watching and learning from them, and if you have skills they don't, you shouldn't object to them watching and learning from you. Again, it's that easy, right?

Ha. If only.

Now I'll admit, I don't like losing. I don't know anyone who enjoys losing, actually. I mean, why would you? Losing says, I didn't have the skills to win this game/fight/round. But what you have to do is turn that into  the mindset of, Okay, I lost, that means I need to work harder, or maybe I'm just having an off day. It's not the end of the world. That's the mindset I brought with me into my fencing class, and you know what? I had a great effing time in that class.

Well. Except for one day.

It was near the end of our class--last week of it, I think. And we'd started our tournament, which was kind of like our final exam, except it wasn't a graded final, it was more of a "Okay, let's see how far you personally have come since you've started this class" kind of final. We held to what I think is a pretty normal standard for fencing tournaments: men fight men; women fight women. I still don't necessarily like that women and men are in separate divisions in most sports, but I understand why, and it actually does make sense, to some degree. But it was one of the things I loved about martial arts when I was still practicing--it didn't matter what your gender was; it mattered if you could kick ass.

And I'll tell you, right now, the girls in my fencing class sure as hell kicked ass. I loved fighting them and I didn't mind being beaten; the only time I got mad at myself was when I basically wimped out on a fight with one of the best fencers in the class. She deserved a much better fight than I gave her. That was literally the only time I was truly disappointed with myself in that class. I was disappointed because I didn't do the best I possibly could have done--not because I lost the fight.

Apparently, one of the male fighters in my class did not feel the same.

Like I said, we were at the beginning of our tournament. Second day, if I recall correctly. And because I was required to fight the women in the tournament, for the warmup rounds I'd usually choose to spar with a guy, because I wanted to have as many different opponents as I could, and by that point most of the separate divisions had already had either a scored fight or a warmup fight with every other person in their division. So I chose a guy I'd never fenced with before, thinking it would be a good experience.

I learned from my martial arts lessons that it's best to let your opponent strike first, to gauge his or her speed, accuracy, and so forth. I also knew from judging this guy's rounds that he liked to fake out his opponents about fifteen times (oh, how I wish I were exaggerating) before making the final strike. So, I  let him hit first. I  didn't bother blocking 90% of his hits, which never landed anyway. I'd riposte (basically, I'd rebut his attacks) and managed to score a couple of points on him; what hits he managed to get on me were invalid touches, meaning they were out of attack range--no score. TL;DR: I was winning the fight, but to an outsider it basically looked like he was beating the crap out of me.

After a few moments of this, he graciously offered, "You can attack me now. It's okay."

...

You can attack me now.

You can ATTACK ME NOW?

You CAN?

As in, he was giving me permission to attack him, in the middle of a fight?

"Thank you for your permission," I said sarcastically, and continued exactly what I was doing. (No, in case you're wondering, he never did land a direct hit on me.)

There were two things that bothered me about this. First of all, he was so arrogant, almost to the point of stupidity, that he possessed the mentality that hey, he was being more aggressive--so regardless of the points, he assumed he was winning the fight. The idea that I, with my non-aggressive, energy-conserving fighting style, could ever beat him, the macho man, just did not cross his mind.

Second--and far more important--he didn't view me as an opponent. Not in the least. It was clear that he didn't view me as any kind of competition whatsoever, or he wouldn't have condescended like that. And I assure you, he hadn't said that to a male opponent--not in the fights of his that I'd seen, anyway, and I'd seen at least two or three by then.

So yeah. I wasn't happy about that.

But it got even worse. After class, when we were  putting away our fencing gear, I heard him bragging to one of his male friends (who, to my knowledge, hadn't even known my name before this class--yes, this is important to keep in mind). "Yeah, man, I was being totally chivalrous, I let her get hits on me, but she wasn't impressed at all."

(My immediate mental response: Well, at least you admit I got points on you...that's a start.)

His friend, laughing, replied that he knew me, and that I went for the more "gentlemanly" type of guys. My class partner immediately crowed, "Well, I've got that locked up then! You saw her, right? She won't admit it, but she was flirting back."

At this point, furious, I interrupted the conversation and pointed out that 1) I could hear them, 2) they were being jackasses, and 3) even if they were the nice guys they pretended to be, I was taken, thankyouverymuch, and had absolutely no interest in leaving my significant other for either of them. I practically threw my stuff into my cabinet and walked away. As I left, though, I heard one of them say in a singsong voice, "Temper, temper!" while the other one said something under his breath about "yeah, she wants it."

Shoot me now.

Why, males of the world? Why do you have to fool yourself that every girl in the world wants you, in order to validate your existence? Believe me when I say I'm a minor target for male attention and have been that way for a long time...so it takes me a while to figure out when someone is flirting with me (ask Ella...it took me all summer to figure out that she was not, in fact, straight), but I can tell when they're actually flirting. In fact I'm more likely to err on the side of caution: if they're treating me exactly the same way they treat every other girl they interact with, then they probably aren't flirting.

Hey, guy from fencing class, did you hear that?

If I'm treating you exactly the same way I treat every other person I interact with on a daily basis--if I award you the same courtesy I give to literally everyone else--I. AM. NOT. FLIRTING.

And you know what? The other girls probably aren't, either.

Believe it or not, unwanted flirting supports rape culture. And by "unwanted flirting," I don't mean accidentally flirting with someone who's already spoken for, or flirting with someone initially but stopping after you've been turned down. I mean when you flirt with someone who's obviously not interested, and continue flirting after they've made it extremely clear that you're making them uncomfortable--that is unwanted flirting. When you approach someone to flirt, guess what? You're taking a calculated risk, and it may or may not pay off, so you'd damn well better be prepared for both outcomes.

Outcome #1: They like you! They really like you! Congratulations, you have made a successful connection with someone you desire! Pack up your pick-up lines, baby--you're going on a date!

OR...

Outcome #2: You fall flat. They're not interested. End of story. They don't want you, so move the fuck on.

Unwanted flirting is what happens when the dick who thinks that no doesn't mean no continues flirting after Outcome #2 occurs. These are usually the guys with the mentality of...well...

And to anyone with that no-means-yes approach to flirting, male or female, I say...

And so when I heard that guy mutter "She wants it" under his breath, I almost threw up in my mouth a little bit. I didn't "want it"--not his attention or, God forbid, his affection. Not that you could convince him of that: not only did he not take me seriously during the match, but he also didn't take me seriously outside the class. I was just a "girl," something to be chased and objectified and patronized, to him. No more.

My fencing class ended a couple of weeks ago, and I'm proud to say that I did win my final bout in the tournament. I wouldn't admit it at the time, but I kind of secretly hoped the condescending warmup partner (who I'm definitely glad to be rid of) noticed that I can beat someone without getting permission to attack.

Then again, it probably wouldn't change his mind about me if he did.

Loving Cooper Finnegan

[Note: This is a short story I wrote the summer after I graduated high school. Set in a boarding art school much like the one I attended, it's intended to be a universally-empathetic story concerning the end of a high-school romance. It is 100% fictional, though slightly based on actual events. This is the fourth or so draft; I've re-edited it several times because, as with all first drafts, the first one sucked. Here it is now in its most polished form. I hope you like it.]

“Loving Cooper Finnegan”

June

How can four days be this damn long?

I feel like Conor Broekhart after he was thrown into prison on Little Saltee. Hopeless. Lost.

I’m so used to seeing him every day, you see. So used to having that nice little human to bounce those ideas off of. So used to saying, “So, let’s go do something insane…let’s go dye the water in the pool bright purple!” and hearing an enthusiastic voice respond, “Sure, why not?”

Now when I say out loud, “Let’s do something insane,” my mother replies, “Let’s don’t and say we did.”

It finally sinks in. Four days without him and I’m a mess. I don’t want to see myself four weeks, or four months, after I’ve been without him for that long. It’s not possible. It’s just not freaking possible.

It must be possible, because it’s real, it’s here, and I have to accept that there is a very, very high probability that I will never see him again.

October

I don’t know him, but something tells me I should.

He is nondescript, but he’s wearing green. I love green, I love people who wear green. Make all the Irish jokes you like, but people who truly know how to wear green are a rare breed, indeed. This one wears dark-green, and it matches his dark-red hair and pale—but not too pale; he’s not Dracula for God’s sake—skin so perfectly.

I don’t know him, but I know that we are going to be friends.

He is not ordinary. He has an aura that seems to scream, “I am not an ordinary person.” He reminds me of Artemis Fowl. He has the look of someone who hasn’t slept in weeks, of someone who stays up late into the night writing—or reading, perhaps; I hope so, I love boys who read—I can tell from the dark circles under his green eyes.

More green.

On either side of me, my friends make inappropriate jokes and discuss the latest Blogging Twilight post. I listen, but I don’t join in. I’m too busy looking at the boy in green.

June

Two weeks since graduation.

Cooper wrote to me yesterday, but it was a short, barely-there email.

Hi Nori—

I went to the library again today. I’m halfway through Future Eden, and you’re right, it’s amazing. Strange, but amazing.

My parents and I are going on a picnic tomorrow. I don’t know exactly where. If it’s pretty, I’ll take a picture for you.

Love,

Cooper

I remember when Cooper and I first met and I introduced myself as “Eleanor—but call me Nori, everyone does.”

And he smiled and said, “Nori. Like the dwarf in The Hobbit?” And when I blushed he said quickly, “It’s a perfect name for you. No one else could be named after a dwarf. You could, without losing a single shred of dignity.”

I liked his name too. Cooper Finnegan. I knew name meanings. Finnegan meant fair. It was an Irish name. Why didn’t that surprise me—all that thick red hair? Cooper. Barrel maker. What did that even mean? Did it even matter?

Now I wonder if “barrel maker” meant something. And this is just what I do, when I don’t understand something—I analyze the living hell out of it. Does “barrel” mean “barrel of a gun?” Because if it does, I’m scared, far too scared to think about what that could symbolize.

If it means what I think it might…

BAM—straight through my heart.

November

Cooper Finnegan. That’s his name. Cooper Finnegan, senior, transfer from Detroit.

“Someone set my school on fire,” he explains to me, over burned coffee and chalky, white-flour pound cake. “My parents thought it wasn’t safe, so they sent me up here.”

Sentenced to a boarding school in the middle of fucking nowhere because your parents wanted to protect you? My God, and he’s so calm about it. I can’t imagine not coming here by choice. “Why didn’t you stop them?” I ask.

He looks at me, shocked. “They’re my parents.”

“But they’re not you,” I point out. “You should have a say in what happens to you.”

Cooper looks at me for a long moment. Then he shrugs and says bluntly, “Well, I trust them.”

I trust my parents too, but not blindly. I don’t trust anyone blindly. But I trust him, even though I have literally no reason to. I trust him, I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s the sparkling green eyes that remind me of Harry Potter. Maybe it’s the thick, straight tufts of red hair that fall just barely to his shoulders and give him the appearance of having permanent bed-head. Maybe it’s his voice, so soft and sweet that he makes Michael Jackson sound like Al Pacino.

Maybe it’s just fate.

July

The sky is beautiful. The clouds are a dark, almost sinister shade of orchid, roughly the texture of cotton batting, against a background of deep plum. When the fireworks begin, around nine-thirty or so, the bursts of red and yellow and blue sparks explode against this background, creating an image so breathtaking that it almost hurts. I desperately want to save this image, but even my fancy T2i can’t capture the beauty, and it makes me sad.

He would have loved this.

I try calling him again, but his phone is off. He’s probably meeting the president. Oh no, wait, the president lives in D.C.—like me—and he lives in Boston. Never mind. Scratch that. He’s probably off writing the next Odyssey or inventing the cure for some rare disease.

And what am I doing? Sitting here watching fireworks. In a few moments my mother will call out the back door, and she will have me come inside and help her ice the lemon pound cake that she just took out of the oven. I will eat the pound cake after we ice it, along with a generous helping of fresh strawberries and a mug of hot, black coffee. We will watch a Harry Potter movie, probably the first one, because that is her favorite as well as mine.

Meanwhile, the boy I love is somewhere in a museum or a science center or a library, getting smarter for Vassar. Lucky bastard. If Vassar hadn’t rejected me I could be there in two months with him. Instead, come August twenty-fifth I’ll be off to the strict, evangelical Christian Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ironic, considering that I just escaped from a strict school in Michigan.

But this is my life, and I have to accept that, and I have to accept that I will never be good enough for Vassar, just like I am not good enough for him.

December

Snow covers the ground. It’s as cold here in the winter as it is hot in D.C. in the summer. Sam and Maggie and I grab each other’s hands and run and slide, run and slide, until we collapse in a heap on the thin layer of ice that has formed on the ground.

We find Cooper near the auditorium and bring him in with us. We run around the auditorium and shout lines from our favorite movies, and sing songs from RENT and Hairspray and Sweeney Todd that we only know half the words to, and we skip and play and dance until a security guard kicks us out.

On the way back, Maggie comes up with the idea of naming our favorite constellations. The night is clear, and we look up and see every star through the tops of the trees. “Mine is Seven Sisters,” Maggie tells us, reaching up to point out the shape in the sky.

Sam thinks about it for awhile. “I think Orion is mine.”

I stop and look up, staring around until I find my favorite—the Big Dipper. “Such a cliché,” Sam teases me when I voice this opinion.

But Cooper takes my hand, and points up to the very same constellation I just named. His breath makes a perfect little cloud in the crisp night air as he says, “My favorite is the Big Dipper, too.”

July

North Carolina is a six-and-a-half-hour drive from D.C., and I want to go there about as much as I want to stick hot needles under my nails. If I stay in D.C., I reason, there is a possibility that Cooper will come for me. If I go, he might come for me and then leave, disappointed, when he discovers that I’m not here.

I try to pack, but it feels like I’m preparing for the apocalypse. I pack nothing but short skirts and shorts and sundresses, and only one pair of jeans and one cardigan. I bring as many books as I can fit in my suitcase. Assuming that we actually don’t stay in the hotel the entire time, I figure I can at least be prepared for the ride to the hotel and the ride back.

I charge my iPod the night before. I also sync it, adding my new playlist of songs that remind me of Cooper, starting with the song we danced to at our senior prom and ending with the song that makes me cry every time I hear it because I miss him so much.

The stuffed white tiger that he won for me at Great Wolf Lodge sits in plain view on my shelf. I’ve taken that thing to bed with me every night. I want to take it with me—but if I’m seen cuddling with a damn stuffed tiger my parents will know that something is up. And I don’t want them to see that I’ve completely gone off the deep end.

Through the six-hour drive, I spend about one-third of my time sleeping, one-third of my time reading Fight Club, and one-third of my time staring moodily out the window as I listen to my iPod. Dad tries to engage me in conversation. I ignore it. I drink iced tea out of an insulated bottle and eat McDonald’s fries and cheese puffs from rest-stop vending machines, and I block the world out when the car begins to move again.

January

The bell has just begun to ring. A handful of kids from our school run to the playscape, shrieking in excitement, knowing they’re about to get drenched. I hang back, Cooper and Sam by my side. Sam—skinny, lily-white Sam, with about as much hair on his chest as a Chihuahua—has absolutely no reservations about whipping off his clothes and exploring the busy waterpark in his daisy-duke swimsuit. I, on the other hand, refuse to take off the t-shirt covering my one-piece. It’s not that I don’t want to swim, I do; I’ve been water-fight deprived for the last four months…but I have a good reason to not take off my shirt.

“Come on, Nori,” Sam coaxes me. “No one is going to notice your boobs in here.”

I am five-six, 119 pounds, and I wear a size 34E bra. I hate, hate, hate my breasts. As soon as I’m old enough (and I can afford it), I am going to get my breasts surgically reduced as small as the plastic surgeon can manage. And I swear, if one more girl looks enviously at my chest, I will hit her. If she wants them so badly, she can have them.

I fold my arms across my chest. “Damn right they’re not.”

Sam sighs exasperatedly. “For God’s sake, this is Great Wolf Lodge, not a beauty pageant. Now please take off your clothes and come on.”

Sam just wants to get wet. But Cooper understands. This is when I realize that his swim trunks are about three times longer than Sam’s, and he hasn’t taken off his t-shirt, either. “I’ll stay with you,” he promises, and Sam rolls his eyes and heads off, leaving me with Cooper.

“You don’t have to swim,” Cooper says once Sam leaves.

“What else is there to do?” I say stupidly, forgetting that the waterpark is not the only entertainment option in Great Wolf Lodge.

Cooper looks off in the other direction. “Come on,” he says, taking my hand almost absently. “Let’s go the arcade.”

July

We drive through West Virginia at five o’clock in the afternoon. It has been pouring rain all day, but now the sun is just coming out. The landscape looks washed-out, like the work of an amateur watercolor artist—dreamlike and pale and hazy. I close my eyes and turn up the volume on my iPod, and hug my tiger tightly.

Bethan. That’s the tiger’s name. I don’t remember exactly why. I just remember that I started calling her that, and it stuck. I remember that Cooper hit it big on one of those game-token slot machines, and it put out about a hundred and fifty tickets. Grinning like an idiot, he marched me up to the counter and asked me what I wanted.

Slightly dazed, more than a little surprised, I pointed to the tiger. The white tiger, the endangered white tiger, my favorite animal. The man working the counter handed it over, and Cooper handed it over to me. I remember nuzzling the soft, plush toy and saying something stupid about how I owed him. He said I didn’t.

Bethan sits in my lap, brown eyes staring blankly ahead. I think if I look closely enough, I can imagine that she’s real. If I look closely enough, I can almost pretend that she will get me through this.

And I wonder, as I look into her empty plastic eyes, How did it come to this, Cooper? How did it come to me relying on a stuffed animal to keep from missing you? But it doesn’t work, I don’t miss him any less. If anything, I just miss him more.

Bethan, it seems, is falling down on the job.

February

February in Northern Michigan. God forbid.

Everything is encased in a thin casing of jewel-like ice, making the entire world look like a huge, pristine diamond. Light layers of dusty white snow skirt across every flat surface. Icicles the size of broom handles hang from every rooftop. The world is a frozen wonderland. All emphasis on frozen. When I was a freshman I damn near died every time I went outside from December to April.

And yet it’s absolutely beautiful. I want to take a thousand pictures of it. I want to take a piece of it with me back to D.C. and re-create this wintery beauty on some hot, stifling July day, long after I’ve left this place for good.

Cooper and I walk to the library together, our gloved hands interlaced. He suggests we stop for hot chocolate in the café. We do. Once inside, he takes off his glove to draw on the inside of the frosty window. A heart. My name, my initials—his initials—together. He turns to me, self-conscious. He smiles.

I am speechless.

He goes to get us hot chocolate and gives me time to process what he has just done, what he’s just told me. I can’t think straight. Imagine, if you will, being handed everything you’ve ever coveted, carefully packaged inside one frosted heart. It’s frightening—sweet, yes, but frightening.

But he comes back, and puts his hand over mine when he sits down. His hand is so warm from holding the hot chocolate, I can feel it through my glove. He’s protective. It’s nice.

He looks at me, and I’m not afraid. I crack the frosted heart wide open and accept that he is handing me the world, and when he finally asks, outright, if I will be with him, I say yes without hesitation.

July

North Carolina is hot. Much, much hotter than D.C.; I don’t know why I ever would’ve suspected otherwise. I lie in the air-conditioned hotel room wearing short-shorts and the loosest tank top that I own. So not classy—Maggie really would not approve—but I don’t care. The news stations all call this a heat wave. I call it a heat apocalypse. I’d take a northern winter a hundred times over right now.

I check my phone every fifteen minutes. Cooper has not called. His parents have kidnapped him for a family outing, I think, or maybe he’s just busy getting ready for Vassar.

Vassar really should be grateful. He could have gone to Princeton, Yale, Stamford, Harvard, Notre Dame, USC, University of Chicago—but he chose Vassar. That school should feel honored. They should give him a damn award for existing. Sometimes I think that’s what our high school did—give him awards just for his existence.

Meanwhile I was the overlooked one. I was the wannabe Gus Van Sant who could never get into a film festival. I was the girl who never got any recognition for breaking a barrier that had been in place since the film department was formed. I did not win a single award or get into a single film festival the entire time I was at that school.

But Cooper did. Cooper was successful enough for the both of us.

Cooper Finnegan, we give you this award simply for being born. You are a miracle.

He is a miracle, he is, and he is mine, he said he was, and he will call me because he loves me. He loves me, he told me so.

March

Three days before Spring Break, Cooper comes rushing up to me mid-dinner. I’ve just escaped from the Film Shoot From Hell and hope that he has good news; as long as someone is happy I can put up with just about anything. “Nori, you have to go check your mail!” he says, gasping for breath, as he waves a huge white envelope in front of me. “I got in, Nor—Vassar just sent me the letter this morning! Go check! I bet your letter is waiting there!”

We run back to my dorm together, my bad mood evaporating like dry ice. So far I’ve gotten into all three of my safety schools—Calvin, DePaul, and Emerson—and two of my target schools, Columbia Chicago and University of North Carolina. This leaves Vassar, USC, University of Maryland, and Michigan State to reply.

My mailbox is stuffed. There are two big white envelopes and four skinny, pathetic-looking envelopes. Two of the skinny ones hold letters from my cousins, one from Maya, who lives in New York, and one from Krystal, who goes to University of Maryland—I put those aside; I’ll open them later. The two big white ones are from University of Maryland and Michigan State. I don’t like this, I don’t like this at all.

The first non-letter skinny envelope is from USC. No surprises there. I hated the idea of going to California for school anyway.

But the second skinny envelope is from Vassar.

We regret to inform you…thousands of qualified applicants…invite you to reapply…don’t be discouraged…qualities that Vassar admires, however…cannot accept at the present time.

I think Cooper’s hand is on my shoulder, but I am crying too hard to hear what he’s saying.

July

I’m not sure why I chose Calvin. Wait, strike that, I do: It’s because of my dad.

You see, my father is a graduate of Calvin College, and he swears by their film program. Never mind that after he left Calvin, he went into graduate school for computer sciences and wound up as a project manager for a tiny computer company that no one has ever heard of.

I got a full scholarship to Calvin, thanks to my dad’s alumnus status. I only got a half scholarship to Columbia Chicago, which is where I actually want to go. My parents said, Don’t be silly, go wherever you want to go. You can get a job next summer. We can help you apply for outside scholarships. We can get money somehow. Don’t tie yourself down for our sake.

But I had to, I couldn’t just take their money again, they’ve done so much for me, putting me through Great Lakes Art Academy and paying the fees for all my film festival submissions. It wouldn’t be fair to make them pay for art school when I don’t deserve it.

If I am not good enough for Vassar, I reason, then I am not good enough to force my parents to pay for Columbia.

“You were good enough to get in, idiot,” Maggie has scolded me multiple times. “Your parents want to see you happy. Go to Columbia, and for God’s sake stop worrying so much!”

I can’t stop worrying, because I am afraid that if I choose wrong—if I don’t make exactly the right move, right now, today—I will end up flipping burgers and begging people for money to make five-minute mumblecore shorts, while Maggie publishes her novels and Sam releases chart-topping records and Cooper finds the cure for cancer or writes the next Great American Novel or invents a new musical instrument.

April

As the rain melts away the last of the winter snow, Cooper and I run around in every possible thunderstorm and drink the rainwater from our cupped hands. One precious afternoon, we snag Sam and Maggie from their respective dorms and the four of us run around in the rain together, splashing and singing and shrieking like owls.

I think it is Maggie who asks me to take pictures. I’m afraid for my camera, but she reminds me that, like any good wannabe photographer, I carry clear plastic shower caps as makeshift camera covers for precisely this situation. So I cover my camera and start snapping photo after photo of Cooper, Sam, and Maggie dancing in the rain, and somewhere between shots I begin to cry. Not because I’m sad, not because I know that these moments will soon evaporate into memories, but because I’m so happy that mere laughing and smiling just isn’t enough; I need some other outlet for my emotions.

Cooper notices my tears, despite the rain. He rushes over to me and takes my hands. “Are you okay?” he asks, concerned.

The late-afternoon choir practice has just let out and the underclassmen begin to stream out of the covered amphitheater as he speaks, ending our solitude and reminding us that we are, after all, on a campus and not in an enchanted fairy glade. I look around, momentarily distracted. While I stare at the intruding choral singers, Cooper gently takes my camera and puts it back in my waterproof backpack. “No, don’t,” I protest, but he grabs my hands again.

I hear Maggie say, “Come on, Sam…we’re in the way.” I don’t know what she means by this; it’s not like they’re between us.

But Cooper persists: “Why are you crying?” he asks, reaching up and gently brushing tears and rainwater from my cheeks.

It’s the most intimate touch he’s ever bestowed upon me and it sends more tears streaming from my eyes. “Because I’m so happy,” I explain, and laugh even as another river of tears escapes.

Cooper leans down, his face inches from mine. My breath freezes in my throat; I’ve never been kissed and he’s never shown any indication of wanting to kiss me. I’ve never questioned that—it’s just who we are—but now, it seems, he’s changed his mind. We agreed to go slow, that much I understand. This, I can’t get my head around. If he wants a kiss he can have it, but oh, God, I have no idea what I’m doing…

“I prefer to see you smile,” he whispers, and gently plants his lips on my cheek, kissing my tears away.

August

I pack for college much the same way I packed for North Carolina: like I’m preparing for certain doom. Once again, I have that feeling that I can’t leave D.C. because if I do, Cooper won’t find me if—no, when—he comes for me.

Mom drags me through the mall, shopping for clothes. I have no problem finding pants. Forever 21 has a sale, and I get what I think must be enough jeans to make wall-to-wall tapestries for my bedroom. But tops? Forget it. My breasts have specific requirements for tops. I end up getting unisex size-L and female size-XL t-shirts to accommodate what I’ve begun to refer to as the Twin Planets…not that I’m allowed to get many t-shirts anyway.

“Michigan will be cold,” Mom reminds me—as if I could forget, after spending four years in that Godforsaken boarding school.

Time moves so slowly when you want to throw yourself into the nearest fire pit. (Though D.C. being what it is in summertime, that’s not too far from reality.) Dad hosts barbecue after barbecue, offers multiple times to throw me a graduation party, offers to take me to the carnivals. I used to love carnivals. Now I can’t remember for the life of me why I ever thought it was fun to be whipped around on a huge metal structure that had in all probability been built about twenty years before I was born.

“No, thank you,” I say over and over.

Cooper has written me exactly one time since I’ve gotten back from North Carolina—a short, tense letter that made me wonder if he was okay.

Nori—I won’t be able to talk for a bit. Going to New York for the week to check out Vassar with my parents.

—Cooper.

No “love” this time.

Still no calls.

May

Cooper laughs as he watches me dance—or should I say, attempt to dance—in a black-and-white ballgown and black pumps. I’m laughing too—at his hat—the most ridiculous thing, it looks like a graduation cap had a love child with a patterned ski cap. Ke$ha—the one song of hers that I can stand—blares out of the speakers, out-of-step with our “Phantom of the Opera” prom theme.

Cooper finds this song hilarious, especially the line “We make the hipsters fall in love.” “Can I call you something tonight?” he shouts over the music.

“What?” I ask.

“Hipster!” he replies, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“And damn proud of it!” I scream, and he shrieks back—a high, girlish sound—and begins to dance with me.

We dance like we are the stars of a music video. He grabs me by the hand and twirls me around. I can’t stop laughing—not the delicate, girly kind of laughing that most females do when trying to flirt, but real, honest, exhilarated laughing. The kind of laughing you do when you are having the time of your life.

Lights flash, colored spotlights swinging freely around the fake-wood dance floor. Around me is a mass of multicolored taffeta and satin and chiffon and lace, some of it iridescent, some of it matte. I am a black-and-white dot in the center of a giant kaleidoscope.

The music pounds through my body like a drug. Dizzy, almost high, I grab Cooper by his tie and pull him close. His hands come to rest on my hips. We are close, so close, and I’m still laughing, laughing hysterically, and I’m so happy I can’t breathe, and when we kiss I’m still laughing and I can feel his body trembling against mine because he’s laughing too, even as his mouth clumsily, shakily connects to mine.

Cooper’s first kiss. My first kiss. A moment to cherish.

August

Last time I was at the dentist, they must have dosed me too heavily with Novocain. That must be it. That must explain the cold numbness that has taken up permanent residence in my body. Either that, or I just lost my virginity to a Dementor.

I stare at the clouds through the plane window. The man next to me seems a little too interested in showing me pictures of his two-year-old daughter. His wife, a gentle, scolding, motherly young woman roughly five years older than me, continually tells him to “leave that poor girl alone, can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk right now?”

I turn up my iPod, blocking both of them out.

He finally called.

I’m sorry, Nori. I’m so sorry.

He doesn’t want me anymore.

It’s the long-distance thing. It’s too hard not being able to see you every day. I’m sorry, Nori. I’m so sorry.

He thinks I’m going to cheat on him.

This way we can both go off to college and be free. You can be with someone else, without worrying about me or thinking about what I’m doing….I’m so sorry, Nori. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

He doesn’t want me.

It just isn’t going to work. I’m sorry, Nori.

He thinks I’m not good enough for him.

We’re just too different…we have different lives, different values, different ambitions. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Nori, I wish I could be with you, I really do.

That was all he could say, on the phone, not even listening as I died, as I tried to remember how to breathe—

I’m sorry, Nori, I’m so sorry.

Like fuck you are, I want to tell him. You’re not sorry. You’re better off without me and we both know it.

I’m sorry, Cooper, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I love you. I’m sorry that I’m such a freak. I’m sorry that you had to deal with me all that time. I’m sorry you had to take me to the prom, I’m sorry you had to kiss me. I’m sorry I made you help me with my homework. I’m sorry I made you feel guilty about getting into Vassar.

I’m sorry, Cooper. I wish I didn’t love you.

May

It’s the night before graduation.

Crying parents, excited seniors, hyper siblings, wistful underclassmen. The works. The seniors had a special picnic earlier today. Cooper laughed as I tossed pretzels in the air and caught them in my mouth. We ran around the clearing and played Frisbee with Sam and Maggie. Then he pinned me up against a tree and kissed me even though I was wearing his least-favorite flavor of lipgloss. Strawberry, for the record. He hates strawberry.

Now it’s almost midnight and we’re dancing together for the last time at the end-of-year party in the gym. Sam and Maggie have long disappeared. The DJs are playing “Don’t Stop Believing” and I want to kick them, this is not the song I want to hear last. “Don’t worry. It won’t be,” Cooper assures me when I complain to him.

The last song turns out to be one of my favorites—“All the Small Things” by Blink-182. “Did you—?”

“Of course I did,” he grins, and then begins to spin me around the dance floor as if we’re in a ballroom instead of a gymnasium.

He’s laughing in the same exhilarated way that we were laughing at prom, and I love that he’s touching me, I love that he’s holding me and laughing with me, I love that he’s so happy to be with me. I love that we feel so young, so immortal, like this night will never end, like we can stay here with each other forever. I love that he kisses me as the last chorus swells, and I love that just before the song ends, he leans in and whispers in my ear—

“I love you, Eleanor Harrison.”

August

There are two songs I can’t hear without thinking of him. Neither of them are the slow, sappy love songs you’d expect. It’s just those two—“We R Who We R,” the song we danced to at senior prom, the song that was playing when we had that wonderful first kiss—oh, God, how I wish we’d done that sooner, “going slow” be damned—and, even worse, perhaps the worst of all, “All the Small Things.”

Because he used to sing me that song.

Because when he called me from the train station just before he went home, he called me his “little windmill.”

Because it was the quote in his signature at the end of his e-mails, and now it’s not, and I know he’ll never change it back.

Because he used to kiss me whenever I sang the chorus back to him in my thin, shaky singing voice.

Because he used to call me and sing me the chorus when I answered the phone.

Because he used to make me playlists and share them on iTunes.

Because he used to quote lyrics to me when I was having a bad day.

Because he was the first boy to do any of that for me and I know that no matter how many boys (though there won’t likely be many) do those same things for me, even if I let them, it will never mean quite the same thing.

Because he used to love me.

[Avery Udell, 2013. Please credit me if you quote this story online, in person, or elsewhere. Thank you.]

Looking back, looking ahead

One of the things I love about photography is the intimacy of it--or at least, what I perceive as intimacy; I'd bet that there are a fair few legitimate photographers out there shaking their heads at what I just said. But I'm going to pretend, at least for now, that everyone who's reading this is with me and totally gets what I'm trying to say.

Whether it's a self-portrait (which I'm just learning how to take), a portrait, a group shot, or a shot of an inanimate object, there's this inescapable closeness, this unshakable feeling that whatever or whoever you're capturing is, for that moment, totally in your hands. For a second, even if it's just for that second, you connect. It's suddenly your job, and your job alone, to make that person or that object beautiful, and just for that one moment, only your camera can do that. This is why taking candid shots is always such a gamble--and so disappointing when those candid shots don't turn out. Because if that shot turns out blurry or unflattering, you can't just do it over the way you can with a posed shot--that moment is gone forever, and your attempt at capturing it just as it was failed.

I'll be first to admit I'm terrible at candid shots, just learning to take self-portraits, and still struggling with the more technical aspects of photography. It took me an unseemly amount of time to figure out that, no, the f/stop and shutter speed are not in fact the same thing. This is why I'm going to take this opportunity to tell all of my fellow amateur photographers to first and foremost READ THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL THAT COMES WITH YOUR CAMERA. For the love of Pete, save yourself the headache--READ THE DAMN THING BEFORE YOU PICK UP THE CAMERA. Trust me on that.

But technical headaches aside and amateur fumblings notwithstanding, I feel powerful with a camera in my hands. I feel like an artist. I feel like I have the capability to do things that not everybody in the world can do.  I feel strong, I feel smart, I feel beautiful (behind the camera, mind you--put me in front of it and it's a different story entirely). I feel like someone worth paying attention to, and believe me, people do. I learned a long time ago that if you have a camera in your hands, there will inevitably be someone within ten feet who notices and feels the need to pose for you. I don't just feel empowered. I feel complete.

These photos were taken mostly around Christmastime, the most recent being from Superbowl Sunday. I felt a sense of nostalgia while looking at them--and a sense of accomplishment. Because, hey, maybe that's just a slightly overexposed shot of a pack of Gatorade--but it's my slightly exposed shot of a pack of Gatorade. It's what I saw in that moment and what I felt was worth capturing on film. And who knows? Maybe that one weird little picture from New Year's Eve 2012 will be worth something someday. I don't know. All I know is that right now, it's worth something to me.

My first attempt at a self-portrait--I was trying to demonstrate loneliness, hugging the body pillow instead of hugging my girlfriend. I don't know if it worked, but I know that I was damn proud of this shot because it involved mounting the camera so high I was afraid it would fall over, setting the timer, then pressing the button, jumping back into bed, arranging myself around the pillow, and freezing into that pose in the timespan of about ten seconds.

When Fluttershy Goes Too Far

I've been wondering for quite some time just how to express my distaste for the "brony" culture, and once I found where the problem lay, just how to phrase it without going way too far and offending a ton of people--for all I know, my blog could be followed by dozens of bronies (but that seems fairly unlikely). But then I realized, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Even my female friend who adores My Little Pony (the term for her, I think, would be "pegasister," unless I'm much mistaken) admits that while she loves the show, she greatly distrusts the fandom. Now I've never seen the show, except for a couple of clips she's tried to show me, so I don't really know much about it other than it's just like Spongebob: aimed at kids, with enough adult humor woven in to entertain the mothers, fathers, babysitters, and siblings who also watch it. (I heard something about Big Lebowski ponies...that's one episode I might not mind seeing, actually.) So no, I don't know much about the show, but I doubt I'd hate it. I just find the "brony" fandom, pardon my French, extremely fucking creepy.

And for awhile I couldn't figure out just what it was about them that I distrusted so much. I had a bad experience with a brony who goes to my college, but he and I never saw eye-to-eye to begin with; his love for MLP was way, way down on my list of things I despised about him. I've never been locked in a room with a hundred rabid bronies and subjected to MLP marathons. Like I said, I've never even seen the damn show. So what, precisely, was setting off my Ick Alarms?

It wasn't the fact that it was a kid's show with an adult fanbase. I know forty-year-old men who watch iCarly with their kids and admit to loving it. My college friends and I still watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. My physics teacher from high school wore a Spongebob Squarepants tie on a regular basis. I don't find any of that creepy in the least...not in that form, anyway, but I'll get to that later. And it sure as hell wasn't the gender-bending idea of a man liking a female-oriented show; I see that a lot too. One of my guy friends in high school used to watch Hannah Montana with me just for the hell of it. I love watching football, as do plenty of girls in my Christian fellowship. So, again, it wasn't the basic idea of "guy loving girl's show" that was squicking me out.

But there was still something about bronies that made me uncomfortable. And it wasn't until I came across THIS on Tumblr that I figured out what it was:

It’s funny, because when women enjoy male-dominated things like video games or comics, we are called “attention whores,” yet men who take over an entire fandom of a show aimed at little girls and create their own little movement based on it claim to be oppressed because people are creeped out by them. And then they've got the nerve to argue they are “challenging masculinity”? Puh-lease. Bronies are entitled males, they hate women, they even seem to hate the little girls the show was originally made for.

That. That, right there, is my underlying problem with the Brony culture and the stigma attached to it.

Let me put it this way: I'm a girl, and I like football. I don't obsessively follow football; I can't quote every statistic of every game, I don't even have the chance to watch most games, and I can't name every quarterback of every NFL team. I can't even name every player of my favorite teams. But there are two men that I follow, and their names are Eli and Peyton Manning. They play, respectively, for the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos. I look up to these men, I admire these men, and believe it or not I actually know the rules of the game that they're playing. I have played that game before--not on an official team, but in small groups, you know, in someone's backyard, or wherever. I know how to throw a football and how to catch a football. I watch the Super Bowl for reasons other than the halftime show and the commercials. I know what a touchdown is, I know what the linebacker does, I know what "first down" means. I have never once asked the question, "Do two quarterbacks make a halfback?"

I even have teams I don't like. As in, not teams I just don't follow, but teams I actively dislike, teams I want to see lose. I highly dislike the Detroit Lions (I know, I know--a Michigander who doesn't like the Lions? Never seen that before, have you?), but I detest the Patriots. If it came down to it, I'd be happy to see the Lions  beat the Patriots. In Westminster you'll frequently see the slogan, "I root for two teams: The Ravens, and whoever's playing the Steelers." For me, it's more like, I root for three teams: the Giants, the Broncos, and whoever's playing the Patriots.

Okay, I got a little off-track there. Simply put: I'm not obsessed with football, but I enjoy watching it and, on occasion, playing it.

Try explaining that to any of the men I deal with on a day-to-day basis other than my father. I can't count the number of times I've heard the following:

"Yeah right. You like football."

"You know that's a sport, right?"

"If you really liked football, you'd go to all our home games."

"Okay, you're a football fan? Tell me how many touchdowns [player's name here] got last season." (Or who's the coach of the 49ers, or what it means to punt the ball, or how many minutes are in each half, or whatever.)

"I bet you've never even been to a game."

"What teams do you like? The Giants? Pfft, you're only naming teams that have won the Super Bowl, you probably don't even know any other teams."

"You don't even own a jersey, do you?"

"You can't be a real football fan unless you [own a jersey/cap/hoodie/coffee mug, go to games, follow NFL on twitter, etc.]."

And last but not least, my personal favorite: "You just say that to meet guys, don't you?"

I was once having a ridiculously late lunch with a guy friend in a practically-deserted cafeteria. One of the other three occupants was wearing a NY Giants t-shirt. When he passed, I gave him a thumbs up and said, "Love the shirt."

He stopped. Stared. Looked at me like I had three heads. "What?"

Confused, I replied, "Um...nice shirt? I like the Giants too."

He continued to gape. My guy friend jumped in and said, "Yeah man, the Giants are cool."

BOOM. Immediately the guy turned around and started to talk to my friend, going on and on about man that Eli's got an arm and will they make it again this year you think? while I sat there, essentially invisible. After a few attempts even my friend didn't bother trying to include me in the conversation. Every one of my comments was rejected as "stupid" or ignored entirely. I was a girl. It was a guys' conversation. I had no place there.

Finally I made one last effort and remarked that the fact that they'd now beaten the Patriots in the Super Bowl twice was what sealed their place in my heart. The other Giants fan turned to me and said scathingly, "That and the fact that Eli Manning's hot, right?" and carried right on chatting with my friend. I sat there, stunned, tears in my eyes. After a moment I got up and left. I don't think either of them noticed I was gone.

I don't talk to that friend anymore. (This wasn't the first incident in a similar vein, believe me.) And I've learned to bite back compliments or high-fives relating to other fans' team pride. Why? Because I can count the times I've seen another girl wearing those shirts on one hand (unless you count the cameras at the Super Bowl, which I don't). And if I do comment on it, I'm usually rewarded with one of the friendly comments listed above. Unless I'm talking to another girl, in which case the conversation usually turns at some point to the subject of how often we're blown off for making football-related comments.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with Bronies? Well, it's like the comment on Tumblr: when a girl loves something that's "for guys," it's treated as completely out there. Totally unheard of. The Big Bang Theory loves to make fun of this: if a woman is seen in the video game or comic book store, "she must be lost." One of my best friends loves video games, anime, superheroes, and Star Wars. She will talk your ear off about any of these subjects, given the chance. If she's in a game store or specialty shop, you can be damn sure that she isn't lost. She's there because she fucking wants to be.

And guess what, gentlemen? It's the same story for the rest of us. If I hear one more "Girls can't be geeks" slur or joke, I'm going to throttle someone, because guess the fuck what? When I walk into a costume store and ask how to replicate Loki's armor, I'm not joking, and I'm not requesting a midriff-baring imitation that looks like a green leather minidress with a horned helmet on top. When I quote A Clockwork Orange, I'm not trying to confuse whoever's listening, I genuinely want someone to jump in and quote the next line.

Basically, I'm--we're--not looking for attention. We're looking for identification.

And I would be totally down with the whole Brony thing, if that were it for them as well. But it's not.

Again, let me explain it this way: When I make a reference in a random group of people and someone gets it, I high-five them and, more often than not, start a conversation about it. If I understand a reference that someone else makes, I usually get the same response from them. And if I don't understand it? I get a recommendation. ("That's from Two and a Half Men, you should totally check it out!") And if I've seen the show, movie, or web series and didn't like it, I'll say, "I've seen it, I just don't care for it," and sometimes they'll push it ("Oh come on, did you give it a chance? Really? Well..."), but if I firmly repeat my position ("I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not my taste"), they'll let it go ("Oh ok, well have you ever seen Big Bang Theory? You might like it better.").

Now, if I'm in a similar situation with someone who identifies as a Brony, what will usually happen is this:

Brony Guy: [reference to MLP, laughs]
Me: What? I don't get it.
BG: WHAT? But that's a MLP reference, don't you watch MLP?
Me: No...
BG: YOU SHOULD TOTALLY WATCH IT OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING DOING WITH YOUR LIFE.
Me: I'm just not interested in it.
BG: YOU SHOULD BE!
Me: I don't think so, it's not my thing.
BG: You should watch it. You're a girl.
Me: But I don't like it.
BG: You should like it and if you're not into it there's clearly something wrong with you.
Me: What is it that you love so much about it?
BG: Are you saying I shouldn't love it because I'm a guy?
Me: No...
BG: Because it's TOTALLY okay for guys to like MLP. I LOVE MLP and I'm masculine as fuck. We're challenging the stereotype of men and you should be happy about that, you Member of the Female Gender, you.
Me: Okay...yeah I get the gender non-conforming thing, I'm a girl and I love Marvel.
BG: WHAT? No you can't love Marvel...I bet you've never even read the comics...You don't even know where Loki came from, you don't know anything about the mythology, you just think Tom Hiddleston is sexy and you probably think Iron Man is hot tell me the true origin of the Hulk and what was Pepper's given name and what year did the first Captain America comic come out and oh you don't even like X-Men you clearly don't know shit...

You see what I'm saying?

Obviously that situation is exaggerated. And I'm not saying I go around searching out Bronies to have that conversation with. But in case you're scratching your head right now, wondering what it is besides the obvious sexism of his reaction to my participation in the Marvel fandom that would bother me about that exchange, let me point out three key issues about that conversation:

1) His participation in a non-gender-conforming fandom is worthy of a pat on the back. Mine, however, is implausible. He is challenging masculinity. I'm just indulging an alleged crush.
2) He assumes that because of my gender, I automatically will be a fan of something "girly." The fact that I wouldn't like a show full of pink ponies just never crosses his mind, until I tell him.
3) Most annoying regardless of sex or gender: Even when I tell him I'm not into MLP, he continues to press the fandom on me despite my lack of interest.

To me, this is one of the biggest mistakes any member of any fandom can make. I don't care how much you love your fandom--if someone isn't interested, shut the hell up and move on.

I love Harry Potter. A lot of my friends love Harry Potter. And honestly, we are not, for the most part, going to understand people who hate Harry Potter. We especially are not going to understand people who think Harry Potter teaches witchcraft to unsuspecting children. We will mock these people to one another. We'll roll our eyes when someone suggests that Harry Potter is bad for kids because it teaches Satanism and Wicca. We'll swap stories with each other about what happened when we were judged in the bookstore or department store for buying Harry Potter books or gear. We'll swap those stories about getting awkward stares in Toys-R-Us (because for some unknown reason, 90% of the Harry Potter props are marketed as toys) or about meeting someone with a rare Hufflepuff varsity jacket that we're now determined to replicate. We're a community; it's what we do.

However, what we will not do, as a whole, is go onto forums like ChristiansWhoHateJKRowling.com and plaster their message boards with stills from the movie. Yes, there's the odd troll who will do this, but you find those everywhere on the internet; you can't tell if they're real Potter fans or just trying to stir up trouble. And that's a sad reality of the internet and something we can move on from. I'm okay with that.

Bronies do not seem to share this sentiment. They're like the evangelical denomination of geek-fandom: they plaster their ponies everywhere, regardless of whether or not they're wanted. I've de-friended two people on Facebook and blocked someone from Tumblr because I was legitimately so sick of getting assaulted by pony propaganda every time I went to check my dash or newsfeed...and that's from someone who's just indifferent to MLP. I can only imagine what people who actively hate MLP must feel like when they go to check their favorite social media sites and get hit with the image of fifty Rainbow Dashes (I think that's the one pony's name...not sure...)

You don't force your favorite show on someone. It's not nice. Period.

But there's one more problem I have with it, and this one comes across as a little judgmental...as in, more judgmental than the rest of this post could be construed as; I'm not trying to judge, really, I'm not...but here goes: It's not that I think older people loving a kid's show is creepy. I think that what's creepy is how these guys completely dominate the fanbase of this show while completely disregarding the audience for whom it was initially intended.

Wait, wait, I know you're thinking "But we already covered this..." Not exactly. What we covered was the misogynist nature of Bronies. What I'm talking about is how the idea of this being a children's show (WHICH IT INITIALLY WAS) that has been totally taken over by an adult fanbase warrants a major rating on the Ick-O-Meter.

I'm not talking about teenage guys watching this with their younger siblings and enjoying it more than they'd care to admit. I'm not talking about fathers watching it with their kids and chuckling at the references the little ones don't understand. I'm not talking about college kids watching this to mock the hell out of it when they're bored. I'm not even talking about watching it as a guilty pleasure; I have nothing against people who watch shows like MLP simply because they want to, and not because they have young children or siblings who want to watch TV with them.

I'll confess something here: I used to watch LazyTown when I was...well, way too old to be watching it, let's put it that way. I'm talking like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen here. I mean I read the fanfiction, rented the DVDs, seriously considered dying my hair pink, dreamed of meeting Sportacus (because let's be honest here, Magnus Scheving was freakin' hot), and related to Stephanie as though she were my age, even though the character was supposed to be something like eight years old. I still maintain that LazyTown was a damn good show, a hell of a lot better than most of the shows I've been unfortunate enough to sample today...but I still didn't like to tell people my opinion on that, because you know what? People wouldn't have understood why I liked that show. No matter how you sliced it, I was a teenager watching a show intended for little kids and...well...that's kind of weird. I didn't feel the need to tell people about that. It was just one of my secret guilty pleasures.

Now, if I watched that show with a Brony mentality, I'd have behaved a lot differently. Covered my notebooks with LazyTown stickers, posted pictures and videos on all my social media, and loudly and violently proclaimed my love for the show to anyone who would listen--and plenty of people who wouldn't. What? You don't like LazyTown? You think it's just a little weird for a high-schooler to be watching a show intended for seven-year-olds? Let me tell you, in four-part harmony, about how you're oppressing me and how narrow-minded you are and how I should be able to watch whatever I want to watch, damn it!

If I'd done that I'd be labeled weird or scary. The MLP fandom, however, can do that and the worst thing they get is "annoying."

And that right there is my underlying problem with the guys who watch MLP and identify as "Bronies." I don't have a problem with them watching the show. I have a problem with them shoving the show down my throat and accusing me of "oppressing" them or "stereotyping" them when I say I'm not interested.

Watch what you want to watch. Talk about it. Be excited about it. But for the love of God, if someone says, "I don't like that fandom, stop talking about it to me?" Stop talking about it to that person.

Please.

Consider it a random act of kindness.