You're Not Special

by Meghan Rienks

  1. Compliment. Everybody loves a (genuine) compliment. I’m not suggesting you turn into the starfish earrings from Aquamarine and spew pointless praises, but well-thought-out and unique verbal admiration does not go unnoticed. Compliment your crush on something special—something that reflects them as a person, not just the cocktail of their DNA. For example, if your crush has piercing blue eyes, I’m sure they’ve been told they’re remarkable their whole life. They had no say in the shade of their eyeballs. They did, on the other hand, have a say in the shirt they picked out to wear this morning. These compliments don’t always need to be from a material standpoint, either. Maybe it’s the way they spoke passionately in class about a topic they cared about, or maybe their interaction with a random old lady on the street was noteworthy. Say it, smile, and saunter on off. That brief and unexpected compliment surprises them with flattery, and the walking away leaves them yearning for more. Make sure that your walk away includes a little swish of the hair, a little booty, and a lot to remember.

  2. Leave a cheeky comment. This one requires a little cyber confidence and possibly a friend to press the “send” button for you. Now, to be frank, I’d steer clear from Facebook, which is at this point the land of distant aunts who sign off comments with a dash followed by their name. I’m assuming you’d rather not have their verbal responses to your winky face on your crush’s selfie. Also, if I’m so blissfully out of touch with the world and Facebook is dead, please just ignore my previous statement. Venture on to your other various social media platforms, some of which I’m sure are still just embryos of ideas growing in the brain of some soon-to-be-somebody in Silicon Valley. Did your crush just post a #tbt of summer camp? Did they snap a selfie with their mom for her birthday? Did they repost a relatable quote about the latest episode of the hottest HBO show? Skip the lazy internet slang and leave an abbreviation-less comment. Give your relevant, genuine, and above all nice commentary to their post. You won’t just stand apart from the haphazard “likers”; you’ll establish that you not only like it but might even like it. ;)

  3. Make up a reason. I attribute my entire dating life to the practice of this technique. I still used it well into adulthood. I can make up an excuse for anything. I can justify an expensive pair of shoes, I can reason with myself that having three bowls of popcorn is healthy, and I can think of a reason to text my crush when the only real reason is that I want to. A made-up reason is the safest and easiest way in the world to bridge the gap with your crush without leaving you feeling too vulnerable. Do you have a class together? Ask if they’ve got the homework assignment. Do you work together? Ask if they know who got Monday off. No direct connection? Text them and say you thought you saw them at the grocery store and made a total ass of yourself saying hi to a stranger. Is any of this true? Probably not. But now you’re talking, so you’re welcome. Will they see through it and realize it’s all a ploy to spark a conversation? Maybe. Does that matter? Not at all. And in true moments of (possibly wine-induced) flirtation, “accidentally” double-tap one of their pictures from sixty-four weeks ago. You’re welcome, young grasshopper. Now, go tag me in your kissing selfies and invite me to your wedding. I’ll be waiting.

  chapter 7 100 things that are worse than a broken heart

  1. A broken bone

  2. Walking in wet socks

  3. Getting your period in white pants

  4. Trusting the wrong fart

  5. Losing an unused gift card

  6. Cats

  7. Walking in on your parents having sex

  8. Mean Girls 2

  9. Drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth

  10. When your takeout order is wrong but you don’t realize it until you get home

  11. Falling in public

  12. Accidentally deleting an assignment

  13. Working for Miranda Priestly

  14. Losing the Apple TV remote

  15. Finding out you’re the Miranda of your friend group (Side note: The older I get the more I realize Miranda had her shit together and Carrie was actually the worst.)

  16. Soft grapes

  17. Donald Trump

  18. Being trapped in an elevator

  19. Getting a ring stuck on your finger when you’re in a store

  20. Taxes

  21. The plot of The Boy Next Door

  22. The season finale of Lost

  23. People who say Hermione and Harry are OTP

  24. Death

  25. Being constipated

  26. Clogging the toilet at a party

  27. People who bring babies to movie theaters for non-baby-appropriate movies

  28. Transition lenses

  29. People who pronounce milk “melk”

  30. The hot chocolate that comes out of a machine at the bowling alley

  31. Bad sushi

  32. Shattering your phone

  33. World Wars I, II, and III (I assume)

  34. Tight bra straps

  35. Appendicitis

  36. A lost sneeze

  37. Tomi Lahren

  38. The end of My Sister’s Keeper

  39. Kim Kardashian’s musical career

  40. Drinking vodka when you’re expecting water

  41. Delayed flights

  42. Hangnails

  43. Having something in your teeth all day and nobody telling you

  44. Oversleeping

  45. Over-plucking your eyebrows

  46. When somebody eats your leftovers in the fridge

  47. Calling your teacher/boss “Mom”

  48. Calling your teacher/boss “Dad”

  49. Food poisoning

  50. Piers Morgan

  51. Public speaking

  52. Not finishing your frozen yogurt before it melts

  53. Getting a cavity

  54. Getting water up your nose

  55. Small talk

  56. Strangers who share too much

  57. Sitting next to someone who eats tuna salad on an airplane

  58. Sweating in sneakers with no socks on

  59. Advent calendar chocolate

  60. Dropping your food on a dirty floor

  61. Locking yourself out of your house

  62. Unsolicited dick pics

  63. The post office

  64. Movies in which dogs die

  65. The hiatus in the Olsen twins’ acting career

  66. Getting a zit in a place you can’t reach

  67. Peeing in a bodysuit

  68. My grade in high school physics

  69. Losing money

  70. Spam emails

  71. Every day that isn’t Christmas

  72. People who don’t like french fries

  73. Friends who tag you in pictures when you look bad

  74. People who play videos on their phone at full volume in public places

  75. Buying something full price and seeing it on sale the next day

  76. People who use the wrong version of “their”

  77. Nicolas Cage’s acting career

  78. Accidentally eating moldy bread

  79. Stale cereal

  80. Middle-of-nowhere rest stop bathrooms

  81. Falling asleep on the random passenger next to you on the plane

  82. When somebody mistakes you for another person

  83. When you think someone is waving at you so you wave back, but they were waving at someone else

  84. Nuts in cookies

  85. Ikea on a Saturday

  86. Ikea on a Sunday

  87. Rose not scooting over for Jack

  88. “Baby on Board” stickers

  89. Any bumper sticker that asks you to honk if you relate

  90. Anti-vaxers

  91. People who say “lit fam” earnestly

  92. Gender inequality

  93. Racism

  94. When your clothes shrink in the dryer

  95. When your iPhone updates without your consent

  96. Mondays

  97. Breaking a nail />
  98. People who leave puppies in boxes on the side of the road

  99. Old white men

  100. Flat-earthers

  friends and frenemies

  UGLY BUILDS CHARACTER.

  chapter 8 toxic friendships

  By “toxic” I don’t mean the Britney Spears hit that inspired my twenty-first-birthday outfit. Sadly, in this context, it’s far less sparkly. The first time I ever heard the term “toxic friend” I must have been in high school. I don’t know if I read it somewhere or heard about it in a movie or on an AOL headline, but it really resonated with me. Ironically enough, one of the first advice videos I ever uploaded to YouTube was how to deal with toxic friends. At the time I thought I had experienced my share of these people and I was ready to dish out what I had learned. Little did I know that I’d spend the next five years of my life in and out of tumultuous, scarring, and manipulative friendships.

  A toxic friend is a bully in disguise. Most of the time, the friendship doesn’t start out that way, or at least it doesn’t appear to. There really is no standard for what kind of person is a toxic friend. They come in all different packages and they are each volatile in their own unique way, like snowflakes, except made out of acid and nunchucks. Sometimes, when we’re young, these friends are the ones our parents and our teachers classify as “bossy.” They thrive on telling people what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, and before you know it, you’re a minion. Other times a toxic friend could be somebody who comes across as incredibly shy, soft-spoken, and self-conscious. That intense insecurity can manifest itself in them putting you down to make themselves feel better. Moral of the story: toxic friends are about as hard to spot as carbon monoxide leaks. I also just had to google if those are hard to detect. They are. Go, me.

  The first friendship of mine that I’d consider toxic spanned my freshman year of high school through midway of my junior year. Like most bad relationships, I really had no idea that it was bad until I was out of it. We shared almost an identical class schedule, the same taste in movies and books, and a love for making stupid videos. We met the first day of freshman year—we had gone to different middle schools—but our friend groups merged instantly, and only a few weeks into the school year I felt as if I had found my place. I don’t remember exactly when the first red flags started to appear, most likely because I had rationalized them for so long, but it probably started earlier than I’d like to admit.

  One of the major things we had in common was that neither of us drank, did drugs, or partied at all—which, considering that we were fifteen, shouldn’t have been such an anomaly, but it was. We grew closer as other members of our friend group began to explore the world of high school house parties and the substances they had to offer. While I had no animosity or judgment toward any of our friends who chose to do so, she did. She’d whisper these terrible things, prefaced with “Just between you and me…” or “Don’t tell anyone, but…” She said these nasty and negative things about people I considered my best friends, but she did so in a way that made me feel like I was being let in on a secret. I was the exception; she’d only confide in me about it. In a weird and twisted, fucked-up way, she made me feel special. And I knew that if I ever disappointed her and did something she did not approve of, I would no longer be exempt from her judgment. At the time I really felt that I was making my own decisions. I didn’t think I was being pressured or even influenced by her, but that’s manipulation for you.

  After a while the list of things I could not do included more things than just not partying. I could not eat less than she did. I could not work out for as long as she did. I could not weigh less than she did and I could not look better than she did. When I was forced to go on birth control after a six-month-long period (fun, I know), she made sure to tell me that she wouldn’t ever go on it because “obviously it makes you fatter.” I’m sure she said it with a smile, which confused me even more. She would phrase these personal attacks in a way that made me feel as if she had my best interest at heart and she was just trying to be a good friend. When I started to date, she had been dating my best guy friend for months. Yet any headway in the romantic department for me was quickly shot down by her for various reasons. Some guys weren’t cute enough, others weren’t smart enough, some were just plain weird, others she had “history” with, and she even nixed some without any reason. In her mind I existed for her to feel better about herself. I had a supporting role to play and I was not allowed to go off script. I played that part for almost three years, until one day I didn’t want to play it anymore.

  Since she got a boyfriend, my evenings and weekends were freed up a bit and I was able to get some much-needed distance from her. With my newfound freedom, I began to date a guy I 100 percent knew she wouldn’t approve of. When she found out, she lectured me in the way a strict parent would scold their pregnant teen. She gave me the ultimatum between choosing him or her, and I chose him—not because I had some new strength or sense of worth instilled in me, but mostly because he was really cute and I didn’t want to die a virgin.

  I think there was also a part of me that didn’t think she would actually follow through with that threat. Despite all the signs, I just so desperately did not want to believe that our friendship was contingent on me fulfilling her checklist. I was wrong. After she ended our friendship, I didn’t go to school for a week. I listened to “Breathe” by Taylor Swift on repeat and I cried until my eyes swelled shut. I begged her to change her mind, to trust me that he was a good guy and that I should be allowed to date him if she just met him and gave him a chance. She refused. Two weeks after our friendship ended, I stopped being sad. I forgot that I was upset because I was happy. I had forgotten what it felt like to be unapologetic—how easy it felt to feel good when you weren’t constantly being pushed down. When I stopped asking for it, she gave me a second chance. To her surprise, I didn’t take it. I didn’t need her.

  The next run-in I had with toxic friends occurred in college. They were so terrible that they got their own chapter. Refer to the table of contents for that one. The shitstorm I endured in college left me a little worse for wear when, afterward, I embarked on a less-than-glamorous move to a cockroach-infested apartment in West Hollywood. You’d think after the torment of the previous year I’d be jaded when it came to friendships, but I was the polar opposite. I had been accepting terrible bullying from my roommates for so long that my standard of how I should be treated was completely warped. I was so used to their abuse that anything that didn’t match that intensity was more than I could even dream of. This was a rather lengthy period in my life in which, to put it bluntly, I just was blind to shitty people. I was being walked all over left and right and I accepted it because I knew firsthand that it could always be worse.

  I was in a really unique situation when I moved to LA. A huge part of the reason I went to school in Riverside was because of its close proximity to LA, the mecca of the entertainment industry. The move to LA was bound to happen at some point; it just happened a little earlier than I had expected, and under far different circumstances. I hadn’t dropped out of school for a nine-to-five job or any sort of steady career. I dropped out of college because I was incredibly depressed and it just so happened that my YouTube channel could sustain me financially. Moving to a new city in general is terrifying, but most of the time there is something you’re moving for, whether it’s a job, a relationship, family, school, or friends. I didn’t move for any of those things. I didn’t know a single person who lived in LA and I didn’t have a job to go to on Monday morning. I had a laptop and a DSLR camera. If I choked on a pretzel, Twitter couldn’t check up on me. Don’t get me wrong, I had spent quite a lot of time in LA. For the last half of my stint in Riverside, I was commuting to various parts of the city for different shoots and jobs. I could navigate the 405 and I knew not to go to the Third Street Promenade at four p.m., but socially the only regular friendly face I came across belonged to the gas station clerk at the PCH Mobil. Gre
at guy.

  My first few weeks were lonely, but that was ordinary. I was so used to being alone that I don’t think I even realized I was until I wasn’t. One of the few depictions The Hills got right is the surplus of teenagers and young adults living on their own in LA. So while I had no “real” job to speak of and no classes to attend, I fit right in with the rest of them. This unique culture draws in a colorful collection of characters and puts us all in a very weird social experiment. It’s rare to find somebody with a “normal” job or schedule or anything of that sort, so the circumstances in which we foster relationships are much different. For the first time I was not a slave to any sort of routine. I could get brunch on a Tuesday. I could hang out with people for five days straight without calling it summer camp. The immersion you have in these friendships is far greater than any other solely because you have no other set routine or obligations. This isn’t to say that LA is a city of unemployed losers; it’s not—or at least I’m not one of them until I finish this book. Then I’m unemployed. #Sequel?

  I’m sure you can assume what sort of chaos would ensue when a bunch of underage kids move to LA with credit cards and nobody to report to. I was all for it. I was so ready to go out and be social and pick my life back up post–freshman year as if sophomore year never existed. That didn’t happen. I fell into a situation that felt far too familiar. I had been hanging out with a few different people. Honestly, I’d hang out with whoever wanted to hang out with me; I wasn’t picky—pathetic but not picky. And thus history repeated itself. Again, I didn’t really make the connection or notice anything out of the ordinary until years later. My friendships with these people started out normal enough. We’d order takeout and watch movies, buy random things from Target we’d never use, and gossip about the celebrities we saw at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. We were all still in that very green phase of moving; none of us had established our place in Los Angeles, and it felt comforting to know that we were all taking off together.