you show me yours and I’ll show you mine

or: intro to air guitar

Hey, stranger.

During my freshman year of college, I was enrolled in a class called The Velocity of Gesture, or Intro to Air Guitar. It was exactly that— a class graded purely on students’ ability to perform believable air guitar. To this day my dad still jokes about the Underwater Basket Weaving-ness of it all. I enrolled because it sounded like an adventure, and I was desperate for a story. Our first assignment was to perform the instrumentals to any song of our choosing, for a minute straight, in front of the entire class. Naturally, I had a small conniption at the prospect, but I decided this was my opportunity to showcase my very subtle ability to never follow rules by performing the air drums. My perception of what is rebellious or not is skewed from my history of being a “pleasure to have in class” kid.

At the time,

schuyler

and I had just spent the summer before college commandeering the aux at parties to blast Hot For Teacher by Van Halen because we were convinced the introductory drum solo was the closest thing to magic we’d ever heard. You can’t really dance to that song so we would thrash wildly, jumping up and down, and delighting in the fact that no one else seemed to find it that amusing. I decided, for my first performance, Hot For Teacher was familiar territory.

My air drum solo, on a bright Thursday morning, was nothing to write home about. The days leading up to it were spent practicing in my dorm and biting my nails to the quick picturing the impending doom. Part of my solo, because I was a professional, was setting down my air drumsticks and picking up my air guitar at the 28 second mark. I missed the first stroke by half a second but by then had blacked out from the nerves and barely noticed. After it was over, I sat down at the desk and tried to coax feeling back into my limbs. My professor was laughing his ass off during every performance, and this time was no different. “Hot for Teacher, huh? Are you trying to tell me something?” He was joking, and the class laughed, but I was mortified. I hadn’t thought anything of the title and though I brushed it off, I wanted to disappear from embarrassment.

I did kind of have a crush on him, though. He vaguely resembled James McAvoy in X-Men and almost made the whole class cry during a lip synced performance of Danke Schoen. I can’t explain, you had to be there.

At the end of the quarter, I walked to coffee with a few classmates. “Oh god, I still can’t sleep whenever I think about that first performance.” I told them, my cheeks reddening at the mere thought of any of my solos. “Really?” My friend turned to me, “I always thought you were so confident during the assignments.” I was shocked. The entire course was about studying body language and how people communicate without words and yet I had no idea no one could see through my performance. And that, dear reader, is a very long story for a very short truth: I know nothing about the inner lives of people.

And I’m fascinated by them. I want to be in on the moments where people feel wildly different than how they present themselves. I want to know who’s secretly mortified but putting on a calm façade. I want to know who feels ugly today or who feels cute or who is trying hard not to feel either. I want to know what someone is thinking when they meet me for the first time. I want to know what they think of themselves. I want to know what embarrasses someone, what keeps them up at night. I want to know why people are mean to strangers for no apparent reason. I want to know if everyone feels awkward at house parties when they’ve shown up too early. I want to know all the inner, wiggly parts of people that they don’t share with each other.

My interest in the secret, inner lives of other people is probably glaringly obvious in what I write about. I’m constantly trying to work out how to talk to strangers more, what the things people wear say about them, how to be a functional adult. Because I don’t feel like I know how, sometimes. I feel like that Fleabag quote:

“I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about. What to listen to, what band to like. What to buy tickets for. What to joke about, what to not joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in. Who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them. I think I just want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I've been getting it wrong.” -Fleabag, Season 2

Fleabag is a masterpiece. And I find myself agreeing, if only slightly. I want someone to tell me exactly how to build and maintain relationships, how to find the ever elusive My People, how to see beyond the little walls we erect to protect ourselves from each other.

To be fair, I know that in order to see into people’s inner little lives means that you must show them yours. That is also not something I’m good at, at least not yet.

Performing for that class was a challenge, but why? Wasn’t everyone else nervous and praying they didn’t mess up? I’m sure my classmates made mistakes or felt embarrassed but I didn’t notice, didn’t care. And that’s why I run so endlessly at figuring out people— there’s a part of me that thinks I’ll have nothing to fear if I can trust that everyone else has tried, and failed, and won’t be harsh with me. I am searching for reassurance that everyone feels embarrassed, sometimes. Everyone doubts themselves and feels insecure and wants to be good. If they don’t, and I’m alone in my humanness, then I’d prefer not to know.

When I read other people’s writing, or get messages from people who read mine, I am reminded that I am not alone in my ugliness. Most people are figuring it out as they go, tripping every once in a while. When I was a kid I read books obsessively because I am forever a lover of stories, but also because it was a way for me to get inside the secret lives of characters and feel their embarrassment, doubt, fear. To this day, nothing comforts me like a really good book with an honest character.

I know that in some ways, we are limited in only communicating via language. I can’t feel what you feel, I can only listen. Even reading, while you are privy to the thoughts of the narrator, has its limits.

So I always ask my friends what they did that day whenever I see them. The ones who know me well know that I want details to the smallest degree. Did you have coffee? How do you make it? Do you feel good about your skin today? What’s your morning skincare routine? What did you listen to on your morning commute? What did you wear? Did you get mad at anything today? I don’t ask people I don’t know very well these questions, but I’m still curious. I want my friends to text me when they find a new creamer they like. I want my friends to tell me what they make for lunch and if they have any clean socks and if they had a bowel movement today. I laugh and tell people I’m nosy but really I just love them, and to be loved is to be known.

This pursuit of mine, to know and be known, is fruitless. I’m okay with that. But if Intro to Air Guitar taught me anything, it’s that sometimes it takes an incredible amount of bravery to show people your humanness. Any attempt is admirable, even if you do mess up or your voice shakes or you accidentally make a pass at your professor.

xoxo,

Evie

My top hobbies these days are people watching at cafes and sweating through my clothes.

Capturing my dinner parties on film is so fun. You know my ass is asking everyone to go through their day, hour by hour, the second they sit down.

People watching at concerts is the most fun thing in the world. Why is everyone kind of a bad dancer?

Getting emotional at jazz night because people who love music enough to find any opportunity to play is so endearing to me.