The Law of Diminishing Returns

And the word for today is: Dull.

Lately I've been thinking I'm all dull inside. And I think its probably due to the Law of Diminishing Returns. Which ironically was once the the highlight of my day. I had a hopeless crush on my Economics teacher in high school.


"So Brian is eating a cup of chili. It's REALLY good chili. And it's so good that he decides a second cup would be even better. And it is! --Brian, eat another cup of chili."
Brian mimed eating a delicious cup of chili.
"So Brian's second cup was even better! What about a third cup! That would be even better than the second, right?!"
Aaaah... I thought from my second row seat. You are so delicious.
"WRONG! A third cup --Brian, eat a third cup-- A third cup actually makes Brian feel kinda sick. What's wrong? I thought more was better, --Brian eat a fourth cup-- but, it appears that a fourth cup actually makes Brian vomit."
Brian mimed the vomit of the conditionally delicious chili.
"And that's the Law of Diminishing Returns."
Aaaah... I thought. You are even delicious when talking about vomit.


I actually took the Advanced Placement test, paid a whole 50 dollars, and really had no intention of passing the test. While I did have 100's in the class, all I wanted out of the exam were the afternoon study sessions. I wrote page after page of a student-teacher romance novel that, of course, never materialized. I got a 2 out of 5 on the exam. He apologized to me after the fact, and I could have told him that I got exactly what I wanted out of my 50 bucks. But I guess I let him think he'd failed me. He hadn't. I even liked the way he looked apologizing.

Hence, I may be a bit off in my interpretation of the Law of Diminishing Returns. But based on Mr. Formerly Delicious's Law, I have come to the Vomit part of my dating life. Boys, even hot ones, not only disappoint me, but I am bored by them rather than enthralled. I no longer feel the need to gawk at all. Despite my crush on 1oth Floor Indian Guy, or Pink Shirt Wearing Guy four cubes away from me, or even my fantasies about Rafael Nadal, I am haunted by the ordinary-ness of it all.

I no longer anticipate the release and rush of emotion, the flutter of nerves. I no longer go out of my way to encounter them. I don't want to crash crush bury myself in passion. Because passion, I've become aware, is all a big lie.

Now, I've known this for some time. We all do. But its that ohmygod feeling, that cloud-nine, my-life's-like-a-movie thing that keeps us from noticing that this situation isn't different. This is not a lasting relationship. It's infatuation.
Infatuation.
In-fat-u-ation.
It's such an ugly word to be the best feeling in the world.
And maybe it was age, independence, self-sufficience, or the fact that MARRIAGE looms over the horizon like a necessary evil, but I don't even feel like that any more. Ever.

Hot 10th Floor Indian Guy is the most delicious right where he is: Across the room from me, eating tandoori out of an aluminum foil package, at most vaguely aware that the white girl with the scribbly notebook won't stop looking at him. He is the best in my dreams only. In the idea that just maybe he's actually Edward Cullen, and he wants to run away with me and have vampire babies.
This way I never have to find out the mundane truth: that his breath reeks, and that his parents still technically run his life. That he is engaged to a moderately attractive Indian girl named Sonal who is still in medical school. I don't want to know this.
I want to daydream like a little kid.

I want to dream like I did in middle and high school where the most cathartic experience I could have was to write my way into a life with 10th Floor Indian Guy or Pink Shirt Wearing Guy or even my Econ teacher from high school.

I guess what I'm saying is that my dreams have always been more satisfying that my realities. And now I remember what I somehow forgot over the years: that the Law of Diminishing Returns can always be broken when it comes to fantasy. I can have the same dream about Rafa Nadal four nights in a row and still be sorry I woke up.
I never even feel like vomiting!