So Sad Today

by Melissa Broder

  8. Have you ever noticed that your job performance or productivity suffers because of the time spent online?

  Obvi.

  9. Do you check your email before something else that you need to do?

  I can’t even get involved in email anymore, because it usually requires more than 140 characters. If I do send an email, I use Siri to do it and dictate the thing. So, the Internet has destroyed my attention span to the extent that I can no longer email. The Internet has gotten me off of email. The iPhone has gotten me off the laptop. If the laptop is cocaine, the iPhone is crack. And I take these hits of crack before, during, and after everything.

  10. Do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?

  I’m usually in a comatose state and not aware of the world around me. When I’m down the rabbit hole, I don’t see you.

  11. Do you find yourself anxiously anticipating when you will go online again?

  I’ve had the shakes.

  12. Do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?

  My biggest fear is dying. Death is fine, but dying itself—the inability to breathe, the final panic attack—is really scary. I’m also scared of life itself, since dying is implicit in life. Sometimes life seems hyperreal. Like, I look at people and they look like robots or like they are made of rubber and I think I am witnessing the lifting of a matrix, but it’s probably just anxiety. In those moments I am like, Damn, no one knows what’s really going on here. My therapist doesn’t help. She can’t explain what’s going on here any better than anyone else. She can’t stop me from dying. The Internet can’t either, but it’s a good place to tether that adrenaline. It’s easier than rubber people.

  Another thing I am afraid of is rejection. If anyone is going to reject me, I’d rather it be me. When a real human being rejects my IRL self, or I perceive a rejection of my IRL self, I need confirmation that I am worthy of being on the planet. The way that I achieve this confirmation is to garner fake love from strangers via an avatar that resembles me.

  These attempts at reparation of my core self, or lack of core self, always result in a cascade of binge tweeting. I immediately follow the binge by deleting all or most of the tweets and then follow the mass deletion with a shame spiral.

  13. Do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, or joyless?

  No, I think it would be beautiful. I imagine myself on a rocky beach, clutching something green. It’s probably seaweed, but maybe it’s moss. I drink a lot of chamomile tea. I “show up” for myself. Yeah, it would be empty.

  14. Do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?

  If there is anything I don’t like, it’s linear time. The Internet makes me feel like I can bend time. I can’t bend time, so I just say “five more minutes” and then fall into a vortex. I go into blackouts.

  15. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being online?

  Obvi.

  16. Do you lose sleep due to being online late at night?

  This morning I woke up at three a.m. and went online. It’s now six thirty in the morning. I’ve done that every night this week, except for Monday, when I didn’t go to sleep at all. I think the Internet replicates the sun. Maybe goth/emo/highly sensitive people shouldn’t be on the Internet. We are bound to wither.

  17. Do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?

  When I was still drinking, I used to show up at bars, already drunk, and quickly order a drink. I’d pretend that first drink at the bar had gotten me drunk. I kept my So Sad Today Twitter account anonymous, partly because I was embarrassed by how much I tweet. I feel like there is a connection here.

  18. Do you choose to spend more time online over going out with others?

  The Internet means I get to be with people without leaving the house. Also, I can be anybody I want to be. Like I can be a fucking wizard on the Internet while, in reality, I am here eating Weight Watchers lasagna and wearing a pair of boxer shorts with trumpets on them.

  19. Have you tried to cut down the amount of time you spend online and failed?

  Every day.

  20. Do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are off-line, which goes away once you are back online?

  Actually, a lot of times I go on the Internet and it’s the Internet that makes me depressed, moody, and nervous. Like, I go on there and two seconds later I’m like, fuck everything. But IRL is somehow still worse.

  There is something about the Internet that, even when it sucks, holds infinite potential at all times. Like, I may know a site is going to suck, because it just sucked a second ago, but I keep hitting refresh. Eventually it changes. But life isn’t like that. When I keep hitting refresh on the same thing in life I keep getting the same thing. Making the same mistakes + expecting different results = fuck.

  Actually, maybe that’s not entirely true. There’s a spirituality in repetitive things: malas, mantras, rosaries, Hail Marys, or as Prince said, joy in repetition. The problem with addiction is that the joy in repetition eventually gives way to a combination of both joy and problems. Then it gives way to just problems.

  I think that the Internet’s grasp on me has something to do with its light and blankness. The light and blankness are sexy and they make me feel like anything is possible. I am sure that life holds the same infinite potential that the Internet holds. But unfortunately, I’m forced to be a grown-up in life. On the Internet I’m still sixteen.

  Also, I’ve done well at the Internet. If Twitter is a video game, I’ve beaten it. I haven’t always done well at life. I haven’t beaten the fact that I am going to die one day. The cheat code for dying is what?

  I just don’t see myself ever walking a middle path with the Internet. It’s probably going to have to be all or nothing. Like, harm reduction never worked for me. Once a cucumber turns into a pickle, you can’t turn it back into a cucumber. And I’ve been pickled by the Internet for a long time.

  I Don’t Feel Bad About My Neck

  I DON’T FEEL BAD ABOUT my neck. My neck is okay. It’s holding its own. It doesn’t look old yet.

  I feel bad for using the word old as synonymous with bad. Where did I learn that to look old as a woman is bad? Maybe I learned it, like, everywhere.

  I feel bad that I was more upset when this dude told people I look old, than when I found out he was an alleged rapist. I didn’t even confront him about the rape allegations. I just said, Thanks for telling people I look old. That was really fucking great to hear.

  I feel bad about my knees. I have MILF-y knees and I don’t even have children. I’m a childless MILF with old knees.

  I feel bad for judging people who have children. Recently I was at the Cheesecake Factory (which is one of my favorite restaurants and I feel bad about that) and I saw this very Cheesecake Factory–looking couple with their baby. I thought, Oh great, just what we need, another American. They looked happy. I felt like they were wrong.

  I feel bad about my deeper, underlying reasons for judging people with children. I judge them as a defense mechanism, because I am sad about my motivations for not having kids. I am self-centered and dysmorphic with low self-esteem. I am scared I would give birth to my own childhood self-hatred. I am scared I would give birth with my head in the oven.

  I feel bad that I don’t identify with the purity of babies. I used to think I would just adopt an older child one day—that way I wouldn’t have to do the initial fucking it up. But now I think the only thing I am equipped to deal with less than my own child is someone else’s child.

  I feel bad that when I interact with children I assume they are judging me.

  I feel bad that sometimes I wish to just be struck pregnant. I don’t want to make the decision to get pregnant. If I actively choose to have a child, then the child can look at me and say, “I never asked to be born.” But if I get knocked up, then I can just blame it on “the univ
erse.” This is disempowering, irresponsible, and ignores the reality of abortion. Yet I find it comforting.

  I feel bad about my vagina. The right inner labia is longer than the left inner labia. I swear I can trace this to the time my high school boyfriend fingered me really hard in the car and I wasn’t wet. It hurt, but I didn’t tell him to stop or lick it first, because I didn’t think it mattered that it hurt. I remember the dry right labia getting sort of “caught” in the friction of the fingering. When I went home that night, the right labia looked like a blowfish. It never really unswelled.

  I feel bad that my vagina used to be more pink. As I remember, it was totally pink. Now the inner labia have turned more purple with age. Now, when someone refers to it as my tight pink pussy I feel like they’re lying.

  I feel bad that I wax off all my pubes. What kind of artist waxes off all of her pubes? I should at least leave a stripe or triangle on top, and just wax my asshole, inner thighs, and outer labia if I’m going to wax at all. But my problem with leaving the triangle, or a strip, is that during the grow-out phase, my OCD really flares up. Like, if there are two lengths of pubic hair “on the mound” it makes me anxious. I feel like it looks mullet-y.

  I feel bad that my pubic hair isn’t aligned with the current pubic hair trend among porn stars, which is all-bare plus triangle on top. I feel bad that my pubic hair isn’t aligned with the current pubic hair trend among hippie girls, either. My friend who lives in Maine with a bunch of hip, organic homesteader women said that the girls in Maine are waxing. But they leave a big triangle on top to give the illusion of not waxing. To me, these girls are cheating. If you are going to get that organic farm-girl cred, then you should probably earn it by not waxing your pussy at all. Far be it from me to tell another woman what she should do with her pussy. But it just seems a little unfair. They get homesteader cred and a clean butthole? No.

  I feel bad that I’m afraid to not wax my pubic hair at all—to just leave that shit alone—because I am afraid of rejection. Like, I’m afraid that if I let it grow in, it will be too painful to ever wax off again (the first time I ever got waxed, I lay on the table with half a lip waxed off and the other one hairy, crying I’m a feminist). I’m afraid that I will have sex with someone who prefers no pubes and sees me as less-than, because I have a big, hairy bush. True, I could have sex with someone who loves pubes and feel judged about my bare pussy. But, like, the other way feels scarier.

  I feel bad that when I see feminism used as clickbait, it kind of makes me want to puke or die. This is not a condemnation of the contemporary feminist movement (or movements), but a revulsion to clickbait. To engage in depth with the ephemeral that is marketing culture makes my inner witch nauseous. I feel like if I read the article I am being poisoned. Like, I am a vampire and clickbait is my garlic, and to turn feminism into clickbait is just a giant fucking puke—and not the sexy kind.

  I feel bad that I see myself more as a witch than any kind of -ist. I have a tendency to shrink from -ists. It might be because I am an isolator and have social anxiety, and don’t like groups or labels. Having said that, feminism is implicit in my witchery.

  I feel bad that I don’t know what makes me a witch, I just know that I am one.

  I feel bad that I am a crappy witch when it comes to my body. Like, what the fuck kind of witch eats Lean Cuisine mac and cheese and not Kraft full-fat macaroni and cheese, or regular homemade mac and cheese (or vegan mac and cheese, if she is a steward of the earth and all of god’s creation, which seems to me would be implicit in being the best witch and best feminist/humanist/person one could be). If I were the CEO of a coven I would be like, “Yo, this Lean Cuisine–eating witch is unacceptable.” Though, if I were truly the ultimate witch I would accept where I am and embrace me, so maybe in that way if I were the ultimate feminist I would do the same. But there is still no embrace. I just cannot seem to give myself that hug of the divine mother that is like, baby baby baby it’s okay.

  I feel bad that I don’t have a dick. I tend to think that some of my struggles with living in a body are because it is a female body. I tend to think that if I had a male body then all of my problems would be solved, but that’s probably false. If I had a dick I’d probably never get it up.

  I feel bad that even though I want a dick, it’s a casual want. For the most part, I identify with my physical gender. I feel bad that I can live without the fear of intimidation, harassment, or getting the shit kicked out of me for wanting to be what I am, whereas transgender people still can’t.

  I feel bad that when it comes to dicks I’ve been a size queen in the past. I think my desire for a man with a big dick has to do with the fact that the dick I’m fucking always feels like it’s my own. It’s my surrogate dick. Like, if I have a dick, I want it to be big. But truthfully, big dicks and medium dicks feel the same inside.

  I feel bad that when a younger person tried to suck my tits recently, there were depth-perception issues involving sagging. Like, I think he expected the nipple to be higher up than it was. The first time he went for the nipple he missed. I feel bad that when I wrote a poem about the incident he thought that I was accusing him of being in love with his mother. What the poem was actually attempting to say was that I hoped he was in love with his mother, because if he could be in love with his mother, then maybe he could forgive my droopiness. Maybe it would even turn him on extra. That poem sucked.

  I feel bad that when the younger person told me my pussy tasted like rain and a mountain spring and a Fabergé egg and a waterfall cave where celebs meditate, I felt proud. I feel bad for feeling proud. Why is a waterpussy better than a bitterpussy or a salmonpussy? Also, I don’t think my pussy always tastes that pure. I washed hard for him. I washed every time.

  I feel bad that the younger person has stopped faving my tweets and didn’t “like” my Facebook post about going to a police brutality protest.

  I feel bad that I posted about the police brutality protest on Facebook in the first place. By posting about the police brutality protest, I thought I was spreading the word—but now I feel like I was commodifying something that is not mine, as a white woman, to commodify. I don’t want to appropriate anyone’s pain.

  I feel bad that I got kind of high on the vibes at the police brutality protest. Like, I cried and it felt cathartic, and it’s a catharsis that was not mine to have. Since I’m a white girl, the cops have never fucked with me. Is there a difference between being supportive of other people’s revolutions vs. turning something tragic into your own experience? I think there is.

  I feel bad that I brought a Prada bag to a police brutality protest.

  I feel bad that as a white girl I can go shopping in certain stores and won’t be eyed, bothered, humiliated, kicked out, unlawfully arrested, or shot, and that the same is true for me of pretty much all places, institutions, and public parks. That’s not true for all human beings.

  I feel bad about my struggle, because it is nothing compared to other people’s struggles and yet it still hurts.

  I feel bad about this essay.

  I feel bad about this book.

  The Patron Saint of Nicotine Gum

  HERE’S WHY I’M AFRAID OF life after death: What if there is no nicotine gum?

  I must have access to my nicotine gum at all times. I kiss with the gum. I sleep with the gum. Anything you can do without the gum I must do with the gum. I am chewing the gum right now.

  I chew the gum, because I don’t trust the universe to fill me up on its own. I can’t count on the universe to sate my many holes: physical, emotional, spiritual. So I take matters into my own hands. I give myself little “doggy treats” for being alive. Each time I unwrap a new piece of nicotine gum and put it in my mouth (roughly every thirty minutes), I generate a sense of synthetic hope and potentiality. I am self-soothing. I am “being my own mommy.” I am saying, Here you go, my darling. I know life hurts. I know reality is itchy. But open your mouth. A fresh chance at happiness has arrived!

&
nbsp; I’ve been chewing nicotine gum for twelve years. I haven’t had a cigarette in ten years. So you might say the gum works, except now I have a gum problem. I am so addicted to the gum that I have to order it from special “dealers” in bulk on eBay. I get gum on all the bedding. There are many reasons why I don’t think I will have children, but the necessity of getting off the gum during pregnancy is one of them. When it comes down to anything vs. the gum, I always choose the gum.

  Now let me just say, before we go any further, that if you’re thinking of using nicotine gum to quit smoking you should not let my experience scare you. I am the addict’s addict. Everything I touch turns to dopamine. I can even turn people into dopamine (ask me how!).

  My first cigarette was a Marlboro Red that I stole from my dad and smoked alone in front of my bedroom mirror. I felt a sudden coldness in my lungs, exhaled sexily, and then the room spun around. The vertigo scared me, as do all abrupt shifts in consciousness (I prefer a steady high). I was fourteen.

  My next cigarettes, at sixteen, were Marlboro Lights that I shared with a boyfriend under the stars. They were make-out cigarettes—cigarettes of romance, possibility, and freedom. I noticed that when I smoked I became less hungry, which I loved, because I really wanted to be skinny.

  Cigarettes soon became meal postponers, or—when paired with Diet Coke and Trident cinnamon gum—meal replacements. I quickly became a pack-a-day smoker, often two, and required a cigarette smoked out my bedroom window just to leave the house in the morning. I smoked outside the gym. I smoked on Rollerblades. I smoked Marlboro Lights and Parliaments, vanilla bidis and cloves. During a Jim Morrison phase I smoked American Spirits.