Imagination vs. Real Life

For Jim Longworth, Don Epps, Fox Mulder, and Seeley Booth

I’ve never been very good at living in the real world. I mean, I am a productive member of society. I work, I pay my taxes, I shop for groceries, I have a stable adult relationship… but I get lost in my own head, in my own little world. I have a lot of down time at work and in that down time I read or watch Netflix. I get so into those shows, or movies, or novels, that I have a lot of trouble separating myself from them. For instance, I cried throughout the last half of the 7^th Harry Potter book. Not a big shocker really, but it affected me so deeply that I felt really quite depressed for a week or so afterwards. I have recently gotten into the TV show “Numbers” and if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Last night, I had a dream about Don Epps, who, for those of you who aren’t obsessed like me, is a FBI agent. It was a full on fantasy about him and I being in a relationship and working out some problems we’d been having lately. Weird right? The sad part is, that I felt so much happier in that dream than I’ve felt lately in real life. And yes, this does mean that I’m watching way too much “Numbers” recently and it’s time to get into something else, but I’ve had this happen before (see the dedication at the top of this post). I keep crushing on these men who are real in body, but whose characters and lives are totally made up for the boob tube.

I was feeling really low and embarrassed about this realization, until I started to consider my reasons behind these crushes. These men are not perfect (though they all have perfect looks), but their lives are exciting and complex and so much less “real” than my own. They don’t fight with me about doing dishes, or complain about cleaning out the cat box, or have bad breath when they kiss you in the middle of the night. That’s why these men are so appealing! They are hunky, successful, smart, bad-boys who defeat bad guys, and above all a mere creation of someone’s mind! If I were to go out with Fox Mulder (assuming he was real), he would be so obsessed with aliens and his sister’s disappearance that he wouldn’t care about what weird come-ons a guy tried on my today or how my knee is feeling after I twisted it last week. If Seeley Booth or Jim Longworth were my guys, I’d never see them because they’d always be off working with some gorgeous babe who I would be incredibly jealous of. If Don Epps was my boyfriend, he would probably compare my cooking to his mother’s and leave his shoes everywhere. My point is that these crushes are harmless and totally understandable, but I do have to be careful to keep things in perspective and not let my imagination run too far from real life. These crushes bring a smile to my face, and good dreams to my nights and that makes them important, but I have to remember to not let them become so important or desirable that they interfere with my reality. If they were real guys, they would have just as many annoying quirks as anybody else, and probably more.

Hm… on second thought, I could probably deal with Don’s messy habits and mother comparisons if I got to make out with that gorgeous face every night.