If You're Bored Then You're Boring...

You guys. It’s 7 o’clock on a Saturday night and I’m realizing I’ve become a poor self-entertainer. My activities today included oversleeping, drinking too much coffee, donating plasma and eating everything I own. In retrospect that last one was a bad idea. I’m still not sure how commuters manage to grocery shop. Do I make multiple trips? Bring a bigger backpack? Learn how to live primarily on powdered foods? All I know is somehow I need to transport one week’s worth of groceries from the store to my cupboard, or risk starvation.

This weekend ULOL drove to Boise, and Friend is working one of her many, many jobs. Which means I’ve got free reign of the house. What am I doing with my freedom? I could choreograph a nude interpretive dance routine, practice singing Celine Dion tunes for my next karaoke outing or testing how many marshmallows I can fit in my mouth at one time. Instead I’m obvs sitting on the couch, watching Buffy and stalking the grumpy cat.

Although Buffy and grumpy cat are two of my favorite things, I’m suffering through a debilitating case of FOMO (or “fear of missing out”) with a side serving of “decision fatigue”. You guys, it’s a real thing! With a proper label and people researching causes and symptoms! I’d lump FOMO into the same category as babies refusing to sleep and drunk people insisting they need to buy more beer after bar hour.

Build-your-own FOMO:
            1. Compile a list of potential activities.

            2. Add a dash of indecision.

            3. Become overwhelmed

 4. Wish you could be three or more places simultaneously.

            5. While weighing your options, open your laptop and scroll through Tumblr.

            6. Avoid all activities, succumbing to guilt and distress.

            7. Go to bed early, wondering if you’ve missed the best experience of your life.

This is the face of FOMO.

My current lack of transportation aggravates the FOMO. Sure I could pay $5 for a bus pass and spend an hour commuting across town for a poetry reading. Or I could eat an entire pound of ground beef in my sweatpants and watch My Drunk Kitchen until I get sleepy. Am I wasting my youth? Maybe. Should I be out there drinking too much and smoking too much, meeting all the people and having all the feelings? That’s open for interpretation. Maybe where I am is exactly where I’m meant to be, but I still feel uneasy.

What happens next? I mean, what happens next in our lives? When do we get a car? And a boat. No, wait, I don't mean a boat. I mean a puppy, or a child. I have a list somewhere…Just, we have to get going. I don't have time just to let these things happen…There's a hurry, Xander. I'm dying... I may have as few as fifty years left!

                                    --Anya, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I think FOMO runs rampant in the twenty-somethings because for the first time our lives are unstructured. Listen, self-determination is daunting as fuck. We could do anything, be anyone. The decisions we make now could impact the rest of our lives. Afraid of making the wrong choice, we just avoid choosing. I feel caught in the in-between, waiting for some indication of what comes next. And in the meantime I work my 40 hour weeks, read good books, watch bad television. I sleep too much or too little, eat whenever I get the chance. I internalize obscure quotes, walk my roommates’ dogs in the rain, spend too much time on the internet.

So here I am. It’s now 9:30 on a Saturday night, and I’m no closer to leaving this couch. But you know what? I think for now that’s just fine.

Many miles of love. I adore you all.

-b