Dear All,
So I guess I’ve been back on campus for a while now and I think its time I sucked it up and said “I’m sorry.” After a lot of thought I’ve realized that it really is obnoxious when I talk about being abroad all the time. It wasn’t like it was one of the most amazing and deeply personal experiences of my life that I want to share with others or anything. So from here on out, I promise not to tell you guys any more of my stories. I can imagine how much of an ass I must seem, telling the same stupid stories over and over again. But please, tell me that story about the party at Eclectic that I missed where you made out with three people whose names you don’t know and then threw up over the balcony. Because I love that story.
I guess it’s time I take down all those strange artifacts I gathered on my travels. I realize now that no one wants to hear about them. God forbid I have something strange and unique in my room that I use as a conversation piece. So first thing tomorrow, I’m putting them all away. In their place, I’ll hang on my wall that same tapestry that everyone else in the world already has on their wall. Except maybe I’ll get mine in a different color or something.
And that whole speaking in another language thing? I won’t do it again. Honest. I didn’t realize how alienating talking in a foreign language could be until a few nights ago when I sat around and everybody else was referencing these inside jokes from last semester that I didn’t get because I wasn’t here. God, is that what it’s like when I talk to people from my program in another language? Because if it is, I’m awfully sorry. It’s a dick thing to do, it really is.
It has taken me a while to come around, but I think I’m also ready to be friends with that guy you all keep around now and introduced to me as “The New You.” I realize now that it isn’t an insult, it’s a compliment. I should be so lucky to have friends so bereft over my absence that they befriend the most irritating person ever in an attempt to fill the void I left behind. I just wish you wouldn’t insist on also calling him “The New Improved You.”
To the girl I was hooking up with before I left: it’s totally cool that you have a boyfriend now and you didn’t tell me until I got back. Especially since you’re making up for that now by telling me all about him, all the time. And you’re right, I suppose I don’t have anything to be bitter about. Yes, it is my fault for leaving the relationship open. I guess I really didn’t have to turn down all those the foreign girls with hot accents while I was away under some belief that you actually loved me. So, don’t sweat it. Coffee tomorrow at the bookstore?
On a side note, I’m really glad that as a campus, you’ve finally learned how to clap sixteenth notes during concerts. It’s amazing that no one in the world has figured out how to do this before. It’s cool, it really is. Especially when you do it by yourself while Patti Smith is playing. Seriously.
In short, I just needed some time to get over this trip. Being abroad was great and everything, but who needs the rest of the world when you have Middletown? It’s good to be back.
Love,
Steve
P.S. WTF? What happened to Peltons?!?
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