Chapter 45
Buddy Syndrome

Waking up in a place you’ve never woken up in before is an odd feeling. Living in a place you’ve never lived before is an odd feeling too; I’ve done both many times. Today is my first official day in my new “home”. I moved in my stuff (most of it) yesterday and slept here last night. But this place is permanent, well, permanent compared to my life for the last five years. This place is mine, it’s my furniture, it’s actually nice, I have a landlady not a manager, I don’t share a bathroom (it’s all mine), and I don’t have a contract. I can live here as long as I want to. And even though there is the possibility of waking up one morning with a possum chilling in my room or a spider cricket jumping in my face, I think I’m happy to be here. I like the room a lot and now I just have to get used to the roommates and the social life. One roommate talked to me for close to two hours last night! I was really tired, I had been up since before 6:30 and sleep before that had been fitful so I had trouble keeping my eyes open or my thoughts focused, but I did hear everything she said, and you know what? I think she’s cool. Even though I was dead tired it may have been the right thing to hang out in the kitchen for two hours.
Talking to someone who is so open and for so long kind of makes you open up. I warned her that I am an impulsive liar, but how it is never meant to deceive and if I feel like it’s worth fixing I fix it. I also told her that I am looking for a rare kind of guy, one just like my dad. Which got me going about my dad and how great he is, even with his shortcomings and how I also realize that they just don’t make them like they used to.
From her I have figured out that guys all across the country are the same. Moving won’t change the fact of if you date or not, because you will always gravitate to the same type of people. Once you are branded “the buddy” you will always be “the buddy”. Boys just can’t look at you as anything else probably because after so long you can’t see yourself as anything else. Labeling Theory 101, you take on the label which you are given. You become the person that people at one point perceived you to be and therefore you have a difficult time breaking away from that label. Because breaking away from being “the buddy” will take a very strong person, someone who will stick in there and help you see that you are attractive, and that guys can see you beyond being just a friend. However, “Buddy Breakers” are also a rarity, more rare than a fat kid who doesn’t want to eat any cake.
Another thing that my roommate brought up is why do we always go for the wrong people? Probably something to do with the part of the brain that keeps us from putting our foot down and just saying no to buddies. Wires are crossed up there in the brain; we want people we can’t have probably to protect ourselves from venturing out of our buddy skin into a world that we have probably never experienced. Going for the wrong person allows us to tie a cord around our waist that connects us to buddy land so that whether or not something happens with Mr. Wrong we can still find safety in the world we know so well, and until we return we can have fun with the safety of never really having left. I think that every girl stuck in Buddy land should find that boy that placed her there in the first place, the boy that could still go on and be in healthy (or maybe unhealthy) relationships why you continued to be the best friend to your crush and hear him talk about a girl he is in love with who has never even been in buddy land, not even for a vacation. You should find that boy and you should make him pay for the years of your life that he has wasted because he put you there. If the men don’t step up we will have to start pulling ourselves out of buddy land and I can’t imagine it’s going to be an easy thing to do.