vicarious.ly (2 page)

I’ll deny it anywhere else, but the reason I chose to major in philology is because I thought the word sounded cool. When I was a freshman in college I would tell the person I met that night I was studying a random major. The three majors that got the most attention were Gender Studies, Linguistics, and Philology. Most people I would talk to had never even heard of philology. Of course, I wasn’t surprised. It’s some obscure subfield of linguistics. But you know what? Girls loved it every time I said I was thinking about majoring in it. So when it came to January 2005, when I was a second semester freshman, I decided to major in the subject. Who would have ever guessed I would have fallen in love with it. I did. Immediately.

phi·
lol·o·gy : The branch of knowledge that deals with the structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages. -Google dictionary.

I had a pretty good life when it was cool and socially acceptable to be poor. All you really needed in college was to be a little interesting and nothing else mattered, until senior year. I spent years cultivating relationships with professors and presenting at philology conferences trying to get accepted to Oxford’s doctoral program. I could daydream for days about how amazing it would be to take a
shit in the same toilets as some of the smartest people that have ever lived.

Then senior year started. No longer was it cool when I told people that I was going to be a philologist. My life low happened when this one girl told me at a party “what are you even going to do with a career in linguistics?” I tried to tell her that there is a difference between linguistics and philology, but she wouldn’t retract her statement. I later looked her up on Facebook and saw that her name was pretty familiar. I saw her father was the philologist I looked up to the
most, he was the definitive source on 19th century German language. I modeled my thesis after a conversation we had together at a conference, somewhat in attempt to be one of his graduate students.

That night was the beginning of the end. That year and in those months, out of nowhere the aspiring investment bankers and pro-athletes were all the talk of the school. That was a blindside hit. I think that’s the correct use of an American Football term? A metaphor if you will. I just started getting less and less attention from women my age.

I swear single girls were pre-filtering people they would talk to. “Not going to be an ibanker? Not going to be a doctor? Not going to be a lawyer? How about a management consultant? Ok, it’s not even worth speaking to you.” My stock value tanked because of my projected future socioeconomic class. That really hurt. I’m starting to understand how actual poor people feel. Trapped. Sure, I could focus my tactics on people younger than me – but that couldn’t shake my feeling of uselessness. Impotency.

So I abandoned Eden. You know, till this day I wonder if it was the right choice. I haven’t looked back since. It’s been about five years now. It’s when I realized that this pet project that I had would not bring me the socioeconomic status that I was looking for. Sure, it might bring me respect within my academic field... but it didn’t even win me a Rhode Scholarship. I’ve always been the kind of person that is all or nothing. It was time to call a loss a loss. I abandoned her. I haven’t checked on Eden since then.

That is when I decided I should apply for the two most coveted professions that I knew I had the skills for, investment banking and management consulting.

Paul helped me through all of the logistics of getting hired for these firms. You may ask, how? Paul came from a family of bankers and consultants, so he had been groomed for this position since before I knew how to speak my first word. Damn, till this day I do attribute a lot of the life decisions that I have made to his brain.

At the end of the day, I was a little bit too much of a wild card for all of the bulge bracket investment banks. One thing that I was surprised to see, though, were that all of the consultancies were trying their best to hire me. This was absolutely unexpected. Just a few months ago, I wanted to be an academic who traced language to it’s common origin. I guess people didn’t think that I was full of shit, because I told every interviewer that I was one step away from making that a reality. The only problem? The last few ‘intricacies’ of my research would probably take the rest of my life, take the most brilliant people I could imagine, and wouldn’t foreseeability make my net worth in the high millions. High stakes for no rewards right? I felt like a fraud landing that last statement during interviews.

People loved my story. By the end of the year, I had more job offers than I could decide on. So I decided based on a coin toss. That’s how I decide everything I can’t decide on instinct alone. Leave the rest to chance. Or so I thought.

I decided on a firm that is based out of Boston, because that’s what I was familiar with. It still has global reputation. Since then, my life has changed in ways I can’t really describe.

Now my life and thoughts are focused on things that I am forced to focus on. When I was in college, I was able to say what I should research and what I should ignore. Now I am told to make businesses more profitable. Everything I do has to relate back to that.

It’s really not different at all. I’m just pleasing a different master with different needs. Right?

Michelle is the last excuse that I have for a real friend in this world. Don’t mistake me for the kind of person who likes to burn bridges. I just have a tendency of fading into obscurity. You know that friend that you’d hang out with from time to time, relax with – but can’t quite remember when you stopped being such good friends? Yea, that’s me and I do remember when we stopped hanging out. It was probably when I was so obsessed and occupied with Eden or the girl I was currently dating to ask you how your day, week, or month was. If not, I was probably drugged in my room imagining conversations between past historical figures. My favorite people to talk to were definitely Frederick Nietzsche and Jesus Christ.

“God is Dead” - Nietzsche

“Says who?” - Jesus

But seriously, I think the two of them would have some phenomenal conversations.

I cringe every time I hear best friends are forever. Every relationship has an expiration date.

I’m just patiently waiting for my memories of Kyla to expire and fade so that I can continue life like I never knew her. There she goes again. I start writing about Michelle and somehow Kyla finds her way back in. Not this time.

Michelle called me last week to remind me that her birthday was coming up. She wanted to confirm that I’d be available on that day or if I was too busy “jet setting around the world in exotic locations.”

“Oh, please Michelle, you know I’m never actually busy. My entire external facing online life is a lie. Send me a calendar invite,” I said.

“Haha. Calendar invite? Ok mister corporate America. Can you give me your secretary’s number to go with that?” Michelle said.

See, we have this tradition of going to the Museum of Fine Arts every year for one of our birthdays. The tradition started when we had an art history class together our freshman year. I remember the day I met Michelle like it was a scene out of my favorite novella.

I knew nothing about art whatsoever and I had to write a paper on my reaction to a piece of art I’d seen in real life. This girl next to me always had something to say about all the slides on the board. I’d take a good look at her throughout the entire class period. I decided one day I should introduce myself to her. On this one November day she was arranging her notes as I was leaving the class. As I was walking by we caught each other’s eyes and I just stopped and smiled right in front of her. As she was adjusting her glasses I tapped her on the shoulder and said,

“Hey, I’m Jake. I’ve noticed you’re quite the art aficionado these past couple of months.”

“Um, I mean... I like art. You know I have the tendency of talking too much in class. Sometimes I forget other people can hear me. Oh sorry, I’m Michelle,” she said.

“If you knew other people could hear you, you’d also know the professor calls your name about 10 times each class. Glad to formally meet you Michelle.” I said sarcastically making sure she would understand my humor.

“Well compared to a person who I haven’t heard speak in class yet I’m a chatterbox,” she said.

That’s when I thought it would be the perfect time to ask her to strike up a hangout.

“Well. Not for a lack of effort. I really struggle with turning images into words and expressions. I’m more of a linguist. This class is eating me alive,” I said.

“I mean I didn’t mean to poke fun at you or anything,” she said.

It was now or never.

“
Wanna see the campus art museum, I really don’t know where to start with this stuff. Maybe you could teach me how you react to artwork. I’ve tried reading all the books,” I said

“We could just catch the T down to the Museum of Fine Arts? I’m sure the stuff there is more memorable than the stuff our school has. You’ll for sure love something there,” she said.

I was shocked by her response. You know, I really did need help in this class. Thing is, I could have gotten help from anyone in the classroom. I just really wanted to get to know this Michelle girl. Listening to this girl contribute in class made me want to love visual art. I didn’t just want to be a spectator in her life. It all started with a casual hello.

We went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for the first time in late November 2004. We had a blast. Michelle thought I loved the artwork there. I really just loved watching her talk about it. I could care less about the sculptures or paint strokes. It was her reactions to visual arts that I thought was artistic. She articulated what the paintings made her experience so elegantly. I closed my eyes and imagined the words she said.

So the tradition started. Ever since that day we’ve been going to the Museum of Fine arts for one of our birthdays each year. I have a September birthday she has a November birthday. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if Michelle knows that I really still haven’t learned to love visual arts.

Here we were eight years after our first time in this building together. These museum
meetups are a time where we step outside our own lives and examine it like it is a work of art. Michelle would always say, “your life should be your masterpiece, not something on a piece of canvas.” She says all these beautiful things without even knowing it. If only she would write them down.

This day was different than our other meetings. I was just gazing into surrealist paintings trying to get Michelle to describe them for me. She’s never been a fan of surrealism. After about an hour at the museum Michelle snapped.

“You’re always looking for someone to make you feel like you’re on a drug. If a person doesn’t make you feel that way, then you try to look for experiences that make you feel high -- usually in the presence of a female,” she said.

I thought that came out of nowhere. We had been seeing each other less in the past year. Maybe my
demeanour was a bit more cynical. Maybe my smiles have been turned into grins. In that moment I thought to myself. This is the moment. This is when friendships fade.

“And why not with you?
I don’t try to feel like I’m on a drug around you Michelle,” I said.

“I’m saying this as a friend.
Seriously Jake. I worry about you. This isn’t about me. It’s about you. I never see you smile anymore. You used to be so excited about everything,” she said.

“Why are we friends again?” I said.

Sitting there I could already begin to feel this relationship expire. She’ll find some investment banker, fall in love – and I’ll be lucky if I even get an invite to her wedding. It’s the natural cycle of things. People forget about you. I started to feel dizzy. What could I do to recover from this conversation? Nothing. I just looked into the picture of Don Quixote by Salvador Dali on the wall. Before I could think of anything to say Michelle kept hitting me with hail.

“You know I liked certain parts of you more when you thought about philology all day. You were still calculated but you were artistic about it,” she said.

“and now?” I said.

“You’re all numbers, expected outcomes, if you could
monte carlo method love… you’d be the first one in line,” she said.

Her comment regarding numbers hit me hard. As a consultant a lot of things boil down to numbers at the end of the day. Maybe I just took it to the logical extreme and made my whole existence about numbers. I thought she would understand, given what she does for a living. This conversation was tanking, I felt like I was being broken up with... but there was nothing to be broken up?

“Aren’t you the one that’s an economist? Plus online dating has already turned love into a numbers game.” I said.

Then Michelle did what she did best. Respond to things based on what she feels.

“Sure I’m an economist, that’s what I do for a living. It doesn’t define what I feel. What I think. How I act. Your passion for language words and history is what drew me into you in the first place. It was refreshing to see someone care about things other than numbers,” she said.

I stayed silent.

“Plus, don’t knock online dating. It’s actually a pretty good thing,” she said.

I totally didn’t expect our conversation to turn to one about the merits of online dating. At least we were able to pretend for the rest of the day that this conversation never happened. We went back to going through the different galleries while I listened to Michelle talk about the artwork that she loved. I almost forgot that I could feel her slipping away.

I walked Michelle back to her apartment a few blocks down from mine. As she turned around to go up her steps I said “Nice Bracelet.” She stopped and turned around.

“You gave it to me for my birthday one year,” she said.

“Yea, it was on your 21st birthday. Great time,” I said.

I just stopped there looking into her eyes. I was hurt by everything she said that day. I just wanted to say that to her, but I couldn’t. She was right. As always, Michelle broke the silence.

“You’re a man of contradictions. I just wished sometime you would accept that so you could get on with your life and grow up a little,” she said.

“Hey I’m grown up. I pay my bills, live in my own place,” I said.

“You’re good with numbers. None of that actually equates to anything other than that,” she said.

She handed me a card that’s been in her purse.

“Happy late birthday Jake. It’s been a while,” she said

Just then, I realized I hadn’t celebrated my birthday till then. Whatever kind of celebration you want to call it. I tried to think of something to say about how numbers affect the decisions I make.

“I play the odds,” I said.

“The odds play you,” she said.