HOW TO FAIL AT LIFE IRL: FORGETTING SOMEONE

When your friend phones you from work to figure out what you’ll do later on, because it’s Friday and that undoubtedly means it would be weird if you stayed at home, don’t tell her you’re in bed trying to force sleep at 5 p.m. When what you really want to say is ‘I’d like to hide under my bed tonight’, don’t. Instead tell her you’re easy and say yes after each suggestion she makes. Just yes and nothing else.

I was thinking we could go to Bohmer first and have a few cocktails. Yes. Then we could go visit a friend on College St. for an 80’s party. Yes. Maybe we could go to that gay party, but that might be a really long night. Yes. I’ll head to the liquor store on the way, was thinking of splurging on a bottle of Redbreast tonight. Yes.

When you get off the phone and close your eyes, imagine doing things with the person you are trying to forget. Imagine doing normal things like brushing your teeth together or sitting in silence on your computers, both of your faces lit up by your screens, sometimes saying something to each other, sometimes not. Decide you’re not going to spend the entire day thinking about forgetting someone. Get out of bed but then lie down again. Try to think about where the script you’re writing is going next. Imagine a black limo driving down an empty street, headed for a funeral. Get up again. Decide you are hungry and you’re going to make dinner, when you’re actually not hungry at all and would like to go on a diet. Make quinoa and listen to a radio program about volcanos. Imagine a small volcano erupting in your sink and expelling the person you are trying to forget. Eat the quinoa while standing at your sink. Take a shower and mostly just stand there not doing anything. When you hear a noise outside the bathroom and know it’s your roommate coming home, imagine it being the person you are trying to forget coming home instead. Continue imagining them taking their coat off and putting away the groceries. Imagine them coming into the bathroom and surprising you in the shower. Imagine them naked in the shower with you. Turn off the shower and get out. Look at yourself in the mirror. Squeeze the fat on your stomach and look at it, then look into your eyes. Brush your teeth with your eyes closed. Light your last cigarette and think about how this will be your last cigarette for a few days because you can’t afford to buy more of them.

When your friend comes over, talk about how windy it is tonight. Talk about how the wind would knock you over if you were riding a bike. Check the weather website and say ‘Wow. 85 km/hr.’ Have three glasses of whiskey in the first twenty minutes. Feel a little drunk. When your friend goes to the bathroom, look at the facebook profile page of the person you’re trying to forget, look at their girlfriend. Look closely at their girlfriend and wonder if she’s prettier than you. Go to your own facebook page to see if you are pretty. Look at yourself in a picture and then go back to the girlfriend, quickly. Click back and forth to compare your faces. When your friend comes back down ask if you can smoke one of her cigarettes – even though you hate her brand – and close the browser quickly. Think, beggars can’t be choosers and then that was close, phewph. When you look over and the bottle of whiskey is half-finished ask if you can have another cigarette. Realize you don’t even taste them anymore.

When you are sitting at the bar of a fancy restaurant an hour later, look at all the couples having dinner. Ask your friend how many dates she thinks the couple – the girl with too much gel in her hair and the guy in a bad tweed jacket – have been on. She says three, you think eighteen. Tell your friend you have to use the bathroom. When you are in the bathroom, sit down to pee and think about the time you had dinner here with the person you're trying to forget and how you laughed at the food when it arrived. He said it looked liked dinner for small to mid-sized raccoons with refined taste.

Find that somehow you've ended up at a strange party in the back of a restaurant that looks like someone's basement but also a tent. At first think how strange it is to have discovered this place but then imagine the person you are trying to forget and how they would have to either sit down or bow their head because the ceilings are low. When you run into a friend who is just as tall wonder how they are standing straight. Dance in the middle of the room full of people you don't know, with one or two people you do know but would prefer to ignore. Dance like he's watching you and thinking that the way you dance makes him want to have slow sex with you with lots of foreplay. Sit down on a pillow on the ground with your legs crossed even though you're wearing a skirt. Let your head hang forward, feel tired. Realize you are drunk and close your eyes and imagine the person you are trying to forget carrying you in the streets until you get home.