I remember standing off to the side of a party over saturated with dickbags, waiting for my friend to run her rounds of ass kissing and fake laughing. “I HAVE TO SHOW MY FACE, OKAY” is exactly what she shouted at me when I asked if we could maybe skip the circle jerk assembly and just hit up the Cinemark early because I was really looking forward to Ryan Gosling melting my ovaries. So there I was, eyeing an unopened bottle of bourbon, fantasizing about my back of the theater seat, when a dude in a plaid button down sauntered right into my safety zone. We exchanged awkward hellos and he asked if I was friends with so-and-so. I replied with yes and he nodded, making some stupid comment about how great she is. “She’s okay when she’s not being an asshole”, I smiled. He didn’t think it was really funny. He asked me the usual bullshit strangers ask you about. School, job, hobbies. “I’m an actor”, he interjected, right in the middle of my carefully constructed spiel which I had perfected over years of talking to strangers in atmospheres much like this. Just the right amount of light shining on my wit and intellect, all the while maintaining my shroud of mystery. Just a peek. A dazzling peek. I was annoyed, but humored him by asking what he’d been in. He replied with the title of some show I had never heard of in my life. “I was an extra throughout the episode”. I nodded. I guess it was offensive because his nostrils kind of flared and he sort of nonchalantly glanced around the room before he turned back to me and asked, “So are you not a fan or something?” A fan? A fan of what? Which is what I asked. Theshowhehadbeenanextrain. “Oh. No. I’ve never even heard of it.” was my reply, and I guess somehow this relaxed him and he sort of half laughed and said, “that makes sense” which strangely offended me because at this point my friend had disappeared into the depths of the pulsating butthole of electro I teetered on the cusp of and we were going to be late for our movie. “I guess I’m just not that moved by extra roles, you know?” And I think that took him by surprise because his eyes sort of got wide and he looked around again, only this time like he was embarrassed and hoped no one had been eavesdropping on us. “Unless the appendage of at least a C-lister has been in or around your mouth, I’m actually not interested at all”, and that’s when I grabbed the bourbon, left the party and illegally watched Drive online in the comfort of my room and sweatpants.
