Old Material

I got another A "paper."  I have a hard time determining when people's praise should be valid.
Is this exciting because it really is an interesting take on things or do you just have a very shallow pool of competency to draw from? I assume most people who compliment me do so because their expectations are set pretty low.
Here's my paper. It's a How-To. It's pretty juvenile. Judge away.

Live Like an Artist

(The Definitive Guide to Alienation In Your Early Twenties)

If you have ever had the deep rooted desire to isolate yourself from friends and family you may need to seek counseling. In the event that counseling does not work, or you refuse to go, and are unsure of how to encourage detachment by your loved ones, I can help you with that.  

Part One: Getting Attached

Creating a cult of personality can be hard.

I have found that it is easier to do when you are young. Other children are desperately looking to fit in and form bonds, which makes this the best time to set up your friendships that you will later toss aside like so much mold-filled tupperware. The key is to find the right personality: nerdy outcasts.

Waltz right into 6th grade and find the kids who appear the least tan, this will be hard to do if you are growing up in a predominately Mexican neighborhood, like I did, but the lack of color is a good indicator that these kids do not go outside often. They probably stay in reading or using their imaginations. These kids will naturally be rejected by the children who are already popular within their neighborhoods. They will accept you if you project an undefinable weirdness; casually mention that you are a magical spirit from another dimension and you will have established a life-long friendship.

Distance

After years of nurturing these friendships through shared experiences, sexual experimentation and a dash of casual drug use, you’ll be ready for the second phase of creating permanent personal space. The introduction of hormones and alcohol at the end of your high school career should have destabilized the foundation of your camaraderie- either through the passive aggressive warring over shared crushes or the awkwardness over confessions within the group that were not reciprocated. You’ll take a moment, breathe in the suffocatingly hot air outside the stadium in which your graduation was held, and try to come up with summer plans. A clumsy attempt at creating the illusion that life will go on as it has for the last 7 years, though you will be moving away.

Physical distance will be too difficult to survive. Without the money to visit regularly and the time to devote to catching up over the phone things will trail off… You should be making new friends. Conversations about the people you once knew, but were not attached to, that stayed behind and filled your place will be hard to actively participate in. You can only hear about “how crazy things got last night” for so long. Stay in your apartment. Start watching a lot of Animal Planet and Netflix. Sink into the feeling that people are moving on. It will be easier to stop taking calls that way.

Love Conquers All

Through all of this you are probably still “dating” the last person you were with in high school. Those hormones gave you the impression that all rom-coms were designed for you. Discarding the reality that they are all about people in their late 20s and early 30s you absorb the idea that, if someone has not dedicated themselves to you, you are a monster. You need love. Sex is love. The last person you had sex with is the person you will marry.

Fortunately this is the last thing you and your childhood mates can bond over. (Irrationality is a great bonding agent.) Conversations have withered to rantings over how the people you have decided you must be with forever are letting you down. “He just doesn’t seem to care.” “I think he is cheating.” “Last night we argued for hours, I didn’t get to study at all.” “I told him I was pregnant and asked for money for an abortion…” You both know she wasn’t pregnant. Things have escalated in a way you were not prepared for. The conversation is aborted.

You try to confide in your new friends, the ones that live in closer proximity, but realize that everyone is tired of your crazy. People can’t keep up with the crazy you are associated with either. Go back to your apartment, get dumped, stop taking calls again, act erratically at work, find someone damaged to go to clubs with and go on a spree of one-night stands.

Shots, Shots, Shots

At this point your confidence in entering a romantic relationship should be shattered. You are no longer approached by strangers because you clearly do not want to talk to anyone. If there is such a thing as an aura yours is dark, very dark, as dark as the drunken black-outs that created this general distrust of others. And, more importantly, distrust of yourself.

This aura is something that has manifested unconsciously and you cannot control. You aren’t even aware of it. So you keep going out, and drinking heavily to pull these defenses down, but are sad and confused by the lack of interest you are getting.

Now is the time to lash out.

Betrayal

Step Five: Finally, you let loose the hurricane of snippy commentary you’ve been making internally to justify your choices over those of your friends:

“Your music sounds like you’re going to die of a drug overdose”

“My favorite part was that it all seemed to be one continuous song.”

“I really liked that whale-songs thing you did with your voice.”

“My favorite part (of your event) was when the bartender said there was a dollar up-charge for tabs under $10.”

“You’re getting married? Didn’t he try to break up with you a few months ago?”

“You’re having a baby? Oh. So you won’t be going out anymore?”

Pair this onslaught with increasingly reckless sexual behaviour for maximum impact. As you learned in high school, nothing is more effective than the threat of sexual deviance to tear a group apart. You will eventually become aware of the snippy commentary your friends were having behind your back to justify their choices over yours.

Success

Congratulations! You did it! You’re alone! You’ve gotten everything you wanted- are you happy now?

You are going to start forgetting how to talk to people- how to hold conversation that is not casually laden with insults. You won’t know how to stop being a psychological mine-field. But other people won’t be bothering you any more.