Charles Benoit
Just dropping in to let you know that your little plan actually works. Sure, it seems crazy, and it doesn’t start off well at all, but overall you’ll be pleasantly surprised about how it turns out.
I’m stunned you ever came up with something like this in the first place. You certainly have reason enough to try—I mean, something has to happen—but we both know that “doing things” was never your specialty. But not doing things? In that respect you’re a pro. Not talking to girls, not watching what you eat, not caring how you look, not standing up for yourself, not trying in class—nobody does nothing better than you.
And that’s why the plan seems so impossible. I mean, it’s one thing to say you want to change your hair; it’s another thing entirely to say you’re going to change everything about yourself—the way you look, the way you dress, the way you talk, who you talk to, what you talk about, what you watch, what you listen to, and where you plan to go on Friday night. Everything. And you’ve given yourself two months to do it. That’s your plan, anyway: the ultimate makeover. If it works—and given your track record, you have no reason to think it will—you’ll start tenth grade as a whole new person. And if it fails, well, you’re used to that.
Granted, you have friends and you have a great (sometimes strange) family, but admit it: you aren’t happy. You can picture the guy you want to be. We’re not talking superpowers or sudden musical genius; all you want is to be the guy who doesn’t say something stupid every time he opens his mouth, the one who doesn’t get picked last for everything, who doesn’t let jocks push him around, and who does know what to say to girls. To put it simply, you just don’t want to be you anymore.
So you make a list. The cool of James Bond, the wit of Steve Martin, the quiet toughness of Bruce Lee. Then you write up a bunch of little plays—literally write them out—planning what you’ll say when you sit down at a table of hot girls, revising the lines till you know that they’ll work. You do this for every possible situation, from the jocks in the back hall to the ninth-grade algebra teacher who you’ll have to face again soon. What, maybe twenty scripts or so?
Then it’s off to the mall for a new look, and then over to the music store to buy the albums you really want—mostly early punk stuff—and before you know it, school is back in session and it’s showtime!…
…where you proceed to get mocked and abused even worse than before.
But somehow you stick to the plan, and before long, it starts to get better. You gain confidence; people see that you’re funny (in a good way, for once). You start taking karate and you don’t embarrass yourself when you have to fight. And what do you know, by the end of the first quarter, you actually have a girlfriend. Your plan is so crazy that it actually works.
And you’re still at it today, constantly trying to improve yourself, to be better tomorrow than you were today. You don’t write out the scripts anymore—I can’t remember the last time you didn’t know what to say—and sometimes you even catch a beer with the guys who used to pick on you the most. Things changed because you made them change. Pretty impressive for a dork.
See you in few decades.
Charles Benoit is the author of You (2010) and Fall from Grace (2012), as well as several adult mysteries. When he’s not hosting his radio show or busting out the ska on his tenor sax, he works as a copywriter at an ad agency. He and his wife, Rose, live in exotic Rochester, New York. Paparazzi-quality details at CharlesBenoit.com.