Couch Boundaries
I’m sitting on my couch in Brooklyn. It’s a rainy Saturday morning, I hear its cold, but I have not stepped outside. I woke up at a time to be proud of on a Saturday morning, 7am. I laid in bed for an hour watching clips from the Jersey Shore and Instagram stories from parties I either forgot about or was not invited to. I felt very fine with it. I’m at a point where I strive to be on my couch as much as possible. I’m not just on my couch, I funneling my attention to the endless options on television, writing in one of five journals that I own, YouTubing Best Actress speeches or just whatever. It is the best use of my free time.
I’m not going through a phase or a funk. I’m just comfortable living with myself. In the past year, I’ve become honest with myself and I now understand the love, comfort and longing for my couch.
Please keep inviting me to your stuff. I will come by. I will bring a bottle. But I will leave by 11pm. I need to get to bed. I will fall asleep. I will break down. I have to leave. My body shuts down. I don’t think that’s so hard to believe. When you’re hanging out with a gaggle of people for hours on end, drinking and eating crap, eventually your body will give out. It’s begging you to get back on the couch. So like give me a fucking break if I need to get home.
When I was twenty-two, I made myself believe that I wanted to go to all these bars, all these dinners, all these brunches, just any activity to take what little money I made go away. Me and whoever I hung out with at the time, that I don’t keep in touch with anymore, acted like the girls of Sex and the City. Twenty-two year olds are not forty-somethings with full fledge careers and stability. Everyone at the table secretly knows that they can’t actually afford these luxuries. No one can admit to one another that they’re low on money or their alcohol tolerance is low, they end up enabling each other’s bad habits.
Enabling is commonly heard on the show Intervention (another great use of my free time). The counselor tells the family of the addict that they have been enabling their son’s behavior by giving him shelter and money. They believe they are helping what’s left of his life, but they are actually tearing a part what remains. Enabling amongst friends works differently, there’s no shelter and there’s definitely no money and they outright tell you to keep drinking and put you in situations to piss away your funds.
At a party, I recognize it’s my time to go. I approach the friend I came with and let her know I’ll be leaving. “Wait, really, you’re going?” I’m not sure why she’s so upset since it’s obvious she has about twenty other friends there. “Stay another half hour.” I agree. It soon becomes the worst decision of my life. I have no friends nor acquaintances left. People I vaguely know do not want to speak to me and worse, they commit the most offensible party act: they ask me to take a picture. I’m stuck capturing their happy memories.
I could have left the party on a good note, but someone begged and convinced to feel like crap. Ever since that night, I go to parties on my own terms. In fact, I hardly ever go to parties. I know how to have fun and it’s not spending $100 I don’t have and it’s not taking photos for other people while dancing by myself.
If you need me, I’ll be on the couch.
