by Cazzie David
7. Coffee
Coffee gives people a reason to wake up. After mint, it’s the most ideal thing to taste first thing in the morning, and nothing else could ever compare. It is never too early to have coffee, whereas it can be too early for literally anything else. Coffee is the sober person’s alcohol, the hungover person’s medicine, and the average person’s reliable ol’ pal joe. Without it, it would be difficult for most of us to even get through the day. It can be social or solo and is just as enjoyable in both settings. Its smell is unparalleled. God, You’ve done it again.
8. Flowers
Flowers are the puppies and kittens of nature. I mean, how freaking cute are they?! Do we live in Super Mario Sunshine? The answer is yes but even cuter. All different colors and sizes and smells and shapes and kinds. God put them there to brighten up your home and day. It was Their idea of a natural cure for depression. Well, that and to feed insects, birds, and other animals, because they’re insanely multifunctional like all things God makes. Without flowers, the world would be a less beautiful place. With them, the world is magical, and magic can only be explained by God.
* * *
So there you have it. It’s pretty clear why anyone with eyes should believe in God. Oh. Shit. If you don’t have eyes or you’re blind, I completely understand why you wouldn’t believe in God. That’s beyond fucked up, and I wouldn’t believe in God either, knowing They could let that happen. I can’t believe I almost forgot about the blind. All right, so, besides the blind, all evidence points to God.
Too Full to Fuck
For straight couples, there is one key difference between sex for the male and for the female: a woman gets a penis inserted into her while a man gets to insert his penis into someone else. That’s all nice and good. Sex is pleasurable for both genders. But from what I’ve discovered, only one gender has to save room in her body if a penis is to go into it—meaning that sometimes, if you’ve eaten a hearty meal, there isn’t enough room for a penis.
Sure, women can eat and then have sex. But they really can’t eat a lot. You know the saying “You can always make room for dessert”? Well, you can’t always make room for a dick. Especially if you’ve eaten dessert.
Sometimes I’m just too full to have sex. I don’t know for sure if this is something other girls experience or just me, because I’ve never heard any of them discuss it. Maybe it’s supposed to be kept secret among us girls, information so sensitive that we cannot risk releasing it in conversation. Or maybe I’m actually the only one who gets too full to be able to have sex, and if that’s the case, then pretend this never happened.
I love to eat (ever since I got over my fear of eating). I tend to eat until I feel sick. Similar to how people test their alcohol consumption to see how much they can drink without puking, I’ve tested how much food I can eat and still fuck. On nights I know I’m going to be having sex, of course I eat less, which is annoying but in the end it’s worth it, because you get to have sex and feel good and not bloated while having it. This—and the fact that you shaved for no reason—is why being flaked on sucks, especially for girls, because in anticipation of hanging out, we ate just one piece of pizza instead of the regular four, and now it’s late and we’re hungry and we didn’t even get laid. Although not eating and then getting flaked on is still preferable to the times where we eat a shitload and then randomly get asked to hang out. This is most distressing because there is almost nothing in the world we wouldn’t drop to spend time with our crush. The only reason we will say no to a spontaneous hang is because it’s after dinner and we don’t feel hot. It will pain us to say no for this reason, but trust me, we will.
I suspect there are women everywhere who don’t want to have sex with their significant others for the sole reason of being full. However, no one is comfortable with using the excuse of being full. We’re all perfectly fine using our periods as excuses, but when it comes to being full, we find other justifications, perhaps because our instinct when it comes to rejecting men is to blame something we have no control over whatsoever, like sexual orientation or religion. It’d be cool if there was some involuntary signal like our eyes turn light blue when we’re uninterested. Anything to avoid hurting a person, and the scene that invariably follows.
I’m also someone who came of age during the height of the blue-balls myth. In high school we were taught (I don’t know by who, but that person should be arrested) that it was morally wrong to not finish off a boy that you were hooking up with. The person who taught us (again, WHO AND WHERE ARE YOU?!) made it very clear that it doesn’t matter how you get there, just make sure they don’t leave having not shot their load. If you couldn’t commit from kissing to finishing, you really shouldn’t kiss at all, and if you couldn’t kiss at all, you would have to think of an excuse that wouldn’t hurt their feelings, like “I have a boyfriend” or our most sacred “I’m on my period,” which sadly doesn’t go the extra mile to protect against blowjobs. From my personal research, every other generation seems not to have been as burdened by the “Don’t tease a guy or they will be writhing in pain” sentiment. Even in old movies, the woman is constantly leading the guy on. They share one small kiss, and it’s not even until the last scene. Fortunately, before we subjected ourselves to even more horror, we were informed by some hero (I don’t know who this was either but thank you) that it was all, in fact, a myth, and guys are, in fact, pieces of shit. Still, the excuses and fear of disappointing someone had lasting psychological impacts. Like the inability to admit to others that we are too full to fuck.
When an ex-boyfriend and I would go out for dinner, we’d order the same amount that four people would. I know that because one time after we finished our meal I overheard the waiter recommend our exact order as a feast for the double date next to us. After eating an entire meal sized for two pregnant women, my then-boyfriend asked if we could go get ice cream. Obviously this is something I love to do, but it would have been nice to be told in advance so I could have rationed my courses to accommodate how much my stomach would be able to load. I had begun to find myself in this situation a lot in this relationship, as we were constantly eating and fucking. I was sick of the secrets and lies, so after many dinners and many ice creams, I told him about being too full to fuck. I didn’t have much of a choice, as being touched by your boyfriend when you’re full is one of the most irritating sensations there is. When you’re full, even him putting a hand on your side can be upsetting. I had to come clean after my boyfriend rolled on top of me in bed to kiss me after a big dinner and I accidentally screamed, “GET THE FUCK OFF ME! PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME!”
It was nice to have everything out in the open.
“If I eat ice cream, I won’t be able to have sex later,” I declared after our meal. There’s no debate that it’s a super-weird and unsexy thing to admit. It’s also a super-weird and unsexy thing for me to have to decide which I would rather do, eat ice cream or have sex. They’re pretty on par. They definitely both fill you up, emotionally and physically. It was too hard for me to pick, so I asked him to. “Would you rather eat ice cream with me or have sex with me?” For him not to choose having sex with me would be mildly insulting. But he would never want to deprive me of ice cream, and depriving me of ice cream for sex feels kind of problematic.
Like most people would, he wondered, “Why can’t we do both?”
Well, both cannot occur because I do not have room in my stomach for a full dinner, two handfuls of cream, and a penis.
I chose sex so no one would be displeased. That psychological impact, man. We sat right outside the ice cream shop, close enough that I could smell the fresh waffle cones being pressed in the iron. I stared at him as he took every lick, jealous that straight men can do both sex and ice cream, since they ultimately have everything.
I watched as a drip of mint chip slowly melted down the cone and onto his hand.
“You dropped some,” I said somberly.
“Just get ice cream, and we won’t have se
x tonight,” he said.
“No, no, it’s fine. I don’t want it.”
He licked the melted mint chip off his hand and chomped off a bite of the cone. “No, do it. I want you to do it,” he said. And of course, despite him saying this out of kindness, I thought he didn’t want to have sex with me, because he was telling me to get ice cream. And he thought I didn’t want to have sex with him because I was salivating at the ice cream. And at that point, no matter which one I chose, neither would be as good as it was supposed to be, because something great had to be sacrificed in the process.
* * *
So Embarrassing
Cazzie has conceptual difficulty understanding the proverbial “big picture,” which relies upon understanding how things in her environment are related to one another. “Big picture” limitations have significant emotional implications as they make it difficult for Cazzie to develop insight about the nature of her difficulties, which would be the first step to develop strategies to resolve them.
—Excerpt from neuropsychological evaluation of Cazzie David, 2007
You know the things you do when you’re alone, the things you’re too embarrassed to do in front of others but can do in front of yourself? I can’t do those things. I’ve never looked in the mirror too long, sang in the shower, or danced alone in my room to loud music. I’ve never even listened to music alone in my room, because for some reason I also find that embarrassing. Before I get two verses in, I’ll dissociate, look down at myself, and think, What are you doing, you loser? You’re not a cool, sad teen in an indie movie! The way I act when I’m alone is as if I’m being filmed for a movie or reality show. Or like I think super-hot boy ghosts are watching me.
Embarrassment has undoubtedly been my default emotion since exiting the womb. I experience it when I am alone doing nothing, around people doing anything, and at dinner with my family. Taking a shower embarrasses me, thinking about how stupid and primal I must look standing there naked. Buying groceries is embarrassing—people can see the things I want and need, and by people, I mean me. I can’t drive with the windows down; I’m much too exposed, it’s so vulnerable. I don’t need people to be able to look into my car, let alone at me driving. I’m too embarrassed to wear sunglasses even when I am being blinded by the sun. When I see other people wearing sunglasses, I hardly even notice. It’s as routine as wearing a shirt or having a nose. But when I wear sunglasses, I’m convinced everyone who looks at me thinks I’m trying too hard to look cool, and all I can think about are the sunglasses on my face and how they’re being perceived. I feel like I have to tell everyone who passes by, I promise I’m not trying to be cool, it’s just sunny outside. You get it, you’re also outside. Isn’t it sunny?
Even the simplest, most benign tasks make me want to crawl under the floorboards and hide for the rest of eternity. To comfort myself, I try to play that game where you wonder if anyone on earth is doing the exact same thing you are in that moment. But I doubt anyone else at this very moment is also brushing their teeth and getting so embarrassed about their own existence that they want to take the toothbrush out of their mouth and repeatedly stab themselves in the eye with it because they are such a disgrace to themselves and all of humanity and the only thing stopping them from doing it is the embarrassment it would cause thereafter.
Most people do not think twice, or sometimes even once, about things I find deeply humiliating, things like writing their profession in their Instagram bio or wearing a jumpsuit. People’s actions are unhinged and they still get reactions like OMG I LOVE YOUUUUUU! OUR QUEEN. Yet I’m embarrassed every time I walk into a room because I know people will look over at me, and then I’m embarrassed to leave that room because I might exit in an embarrassing fashion—like, I’ll hold my neck at a strange angle and I’ll look like a turtle. Maybe God slipped up when distributing shame and I accidentally got all of my generation’s allotment—which could explain why vloggers exist.
Oh, the things I could do with just half a percent less shame. I could sleep, for one. While other people’s night routines may end with chamomile tea or some chewable millennial-marketed melatonin, that’s where mine begins. In order for me to even attempt the miracle of sleep, I must run through my last interaction with every person who has ever laid eyes on me, hoping none of these encounters were humiliating enough to cause me to relive it over and over again for perpetuity. But the truth remains: As long as people know you exist and have witnessed anything you have said or done, there is reason to be humiliated. If I had the ability to Eternal Sunshine myself from the memory of everyone who had ever met me, I would. The technician performing the erasure would ask, Are you sure you want to erase this one? All you’re doing is waving from across the street. And I would yell, YES, PLEASE, TAKE IT! LOOK AT ME! TAKE THEM ALL!
Without my embarrassment issues, I’d be able to masturbate, which would be nice. The shame I have around masturbation is obviously not a religious thing, it’s just my classic “I hate myself and can’t do anything in front of myself” thing. I don’t think it’s embarrassing that other people do it. Just me. Only I’m embarrassing. Even though I sincerely believe it’s worlds more embarrassing to not masturbate out of embarrassment than to masturbate. There’s not much I can do about that, though. For me, the pleasure of self-stimulation does not outweigh the strenuous brainwashing it takes to convince myself I’m not myself.
When I inform other girls that I don’t masturbate, they’re stunned: “How can you not masturbate?!” “I would die without it.” “I fucking love masturbating. It’s so freeing.” Because doing anything that someone could describe as “freeing” is too embarrassing for me to ever do. Fortunately, there aren’t that many “freeing” activities. The only other one I can think of is throwing your phone into a fountain. I’d maybe be capable of doing a less freeing version of that, like stomping on my phone and then throwing it in the trash. I’d have to be careful how I tossed it in the trash, though. It would have to be a very uncinematic toss to keep the shame away. And I could under no circumstances smile as I walked away from it.
Up until college, I was too embarrassed to eat anything that wasn’t plain in front of a guy I liked. I didn’t want to be associated in their mind with anything that could be considered off-putting. I guess I thought boys would think I was undesirable and unkissable if they saw me eat or order anything that wasn’t simple and universally liked by all. So I compiled a list of foods in my head that wouldn’t be gross if you made out after eating them, and then those became the only foods I’d allow myself to eat in front of boys—you know, so they could still picture making out with me. WTF?
Cute foods I could eat that wouldn’t gross out a boy or embarrass me: waffles, toast, all desserts, French fries, cereal, berries, cucumbers (the only vegetable that isn’t gross/embarrassing to say out loud), pasta, grilled cheese, croissants, anything a picky toddler would eat.
Gross foods boys will forever associate me with if I am seen eating them: eggs, vegetables, salads, soup, fish, sandwiches (excluding grilled cheese), anything a normal person would eat.
One week in high school, one of the hottest guys in the grade ate lunch with my friends and me a few days in a row. I think all of his friends were sick or had detention that week. So every single one of those days, I ate a large chocolate chip cookie for lunch, thinking he would think that was cute and not gross. My friends, however, were confused as to why I was now eating only cookies at lunchtime . . . every day. So they did what anyone would do and asked me what was up with this—in front of him.
“What are you talking about? I always have a cookie for lunch! HAHAHAHA.”
I was so embarrassed. Not only because I was caught but because he now knew I ate things that weren’t cute foods like cookies. He would never want to kiss me.
I’ve made progress since then. I can order like a semi-normal person on a date. But I still cannot under any circumstances travel with a guy. The humiliation of putting your arms up in the X-ray machine
at the airport is too much to bear in front of myself, let alone with someone watching who is supposed to want to continue having sex with me.
I will marry any boy who doesn’t think I’m embarrassing, but I will never ever have a wedding. If my future husband wants to have a ceremony, he will have to hire a double to play me, as I would be too embarrassed to attend. If he’s against the double idea, there’s a small chance I might participate, but under no circumstances would I walk down an aisle. I can’t think of anything more mortifying than walking in general, let alone in a choreographed motion in front of people who know me and, even worse, are overjoyed for me. I’d rather walk in front of them to my execution.
I got a glimpse of the horrors and humiliation of walking in front of people while they look at you during my college graduation. When my mother asked about the date so she could start booking flights, I told her I wouldn’t be attending because I don’t do ceremonies. She was adamant it would be a day I’d never forget and if I didn’t go, I’d “always regret it.” She was definitely right about it being something I would never forget; I don’t forget anything embarrassing. But I would never have regretted it; missing an event has never been the type of thing I regret. The things I regret are everything else in life, like letting myself speak and be seen.
My mother switched arguments when she realized I would never care about going and instead declared it was important to her and my dad to see me “walk.” So I asked my dad if he cared about seeing me walk like my mother had said,