Q

Soooooo i just read the Perks of being a Wallflower (stolen copy from my sister), and it was just as i suspected…

SEVERELY OVERRATED.

It was actually pretty bad, with the cardinal sin of being pretentious and hyped. Three pages in, Charlie started irritating me. Isn’t he supposed to be INTELLIGENT? He sounded not only ignorant, but also like a kid suffering from Asperger’s. Reminiscent, almost, of Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Except Christopher was SUPPOSED to be like that, they socially oblivious because that was what the book was about. In Perks, Charlie, i suppose, is suffering from post-traumatic disorder (which which as sem 1 psych student with an A- i can tell you is nothing like Charlie’s affect). Or is it because he is ‘introverted’ and ‘socially awkward’? Introverts are usually the most ruminative and eloquent so, nope.

Well okay but i wasn’t expecting much, really. Any novel-turned-motion-picture that my sister purchases tend to be shit anyway. It’s like my sister has this thing about reading literature that i abhor. ANYWAY. I’m alright with it being shitty, i just don’t like the hype surrounding it. And what gets to me most about the hype? THE QUOTES.

Really, people.

Do you even KNOW what’re you’re quoting? In fact, did CHBOSKY know what he was writing and did he do so deliberately intent on spawning millions of die-hard wannabe hipster romantics littering online media with strings of words that do not make sense? Ok see, i wouldn’t mind if i was swamped with overused by clever quotes. The ones in Perks aren’t clever. They’re just PRETTY. They just sound like they mean something deep and ~infinite~. It doesn’t MEAN anything much. It’s just a twinkly ornament you’re putting up on your porch that has no practical function besides being twinkly.

But that’s okay. Prettiness is a thing i can live with. What i am NOT okay with, is when people INSIST that this twinkly piece of junk has some sort of pragmatic use and refuse to admit that they just want to prettify your porch. It’s so.. i don’t.. even. anymore.

Something needs to be done. Therefore:

Top 3 Perks of Being a Wallflower Quotes Everyone Loves and Use ~Infinitely~ With Much ~Emotion~ But In Fact Means Nothing

1. “Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.”

BEHHHH, wrong. If the entirety of history has taught us one thing, it is that human beings are utterly INCAPABLE of balancing their want of something with the perceived amount of need. Haven’t you noticed that (while not always true), there is a general trend for the insecure to end up with someone completely devoted to them; the confident ironically with someone who seem nonchalant towards him/her? The theory is that the less confident thrives on the assurance and affection (but would never believe him/herself to be deserving of, thus perpetuating the sense of insecurity – which usually manifests in neurotic and abusive behavior towards the partner [we’ve all heard that one, the possessive ex who’s always on his/her partner’s case despite partner’s almost foolish devotion], but that’s for another day). And that you see the typically assured, assertive type deliquesce in a helpless mess with someone who treat them like, as Sam would say, nothing. Is that because the secure type believes they ‘deserve’ this amount of attention? N-uh it’s more of a challenge for them, the need to acquire something or someone you currently don’t possess. It is only with underlying confidence of success that you’d set up to pursue someone apparently out of your grasp.

Generally, the theory of accepting the love we think we deserve isn’t as universal as people believe it to be, while of course it may hold in some instances. Furthermore, it is a truism. It’s something we all inherently know can be true at some point of time, but is given the attention only when inserted pretentiously into a pretentious book. So while i can’t say it’s totally untrue, i don’t understand why it’s such a huge deal.

Such a huge deal that people are fervently making this their life motto, getting it permanently inked on themselves or spending hours prettifying the quotes on their moleskin notebooks then snapping a million shots of it for Instagram. No, people. Bad. Stop. I can give you another right now: We seek the love we think we’d never get. This is another sometimes applicable truism you may now obsess over. Enjoy.

2. “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

This one always gets to me, firstly because it so obviously reeks of pretention. Secondly, it’s kind of a sore spot for me because i used to be quite in love with describing all things as ‘infinite’ thinking it made everything beautiful and touching and delicate and literary.

BUT I GREW OUT OF IT K AND SO SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE.

Sure, infinite – the quality of being vast and limitless and forever and.. it’s just pretty isn’t it? It’s alluding yourself to a concept we can almost never comprehend, it’s putting yourself on the league of the entire universe (which by itself is kinda assuming isn’t it?).

But c’mon people. Isn’t it just a weeee bit overused? Also, it’s the lazy way out of everything. Like the semantics of the word, the function of infinite is, also, infinite. You can use it on almost everything. It’s like a statement pair of jeans you used to complete all your looks. Classy and complementary and always looks good. Except after the fifth dinner party your friends would be wondering if you ever put them in the wash.

We need to find another pair of jeans, world. This infinite thing has gone too far especially when everyone marveling at it as if it’s their first time coming across such a wonderfully convenient word. It doesn’t even mean that much. All it says, in other words, is that “oh. right now i feel limitless.” alright maybe i’m leaving out a lot of it’s nuances, but you get what i mean. Enough is enough.

3. “Welcome to the island of misfit toys.”

Made popular by the film trailer, also a brillant sifter of readers from non-reading movie-goers posed as one. I give it the credit for being a somewhat clever reference to Rudolph’s and way less mawkish than the above two. But it’s just that – a reference, and one that has been around for ages and ignored because it wasn’t framed by the prettiness of mass media manufactured indie-ness.

I think what sits wrong with me about the whole affair is the way people are holding on to these scraps as if they were the most personal, uniquely tailored, unconventional concepts they’ve ever encountered and are thus ardently proud of. When in fact it’s just mediocre and made even more mediocre because of the entire popular appeal the media hype has churned out.

There are millions and millions of quotes beautiful and personal only to you that can be found if you actually bother reading books that aren’t just on Kinokuniya’s best seller shelf. This whole jumping on the film wagon thing is the easy way out to finding books you love. It’s almost like buying a pair of jeans that’s advertised all the rage  that fit but not perfectly and thinking it’s the best you can find just because you were too lazy to shop for and try on other pairs of jeans. Also, everyone i wearing the same pair of jeans as you.

And i do not understand my excessive use of apparrel analogy either. Kthnxbye.