Is It Really Real?

“Is it real son, is it really real son
let me know it's real son, if it's really real
something I could feel son, load it up and kill one
want it raw deal son, if it's really real”
--Method Man, “Bring the Pain”

I have fielded this question a few times now, and I suppose it’s to be expected. Although I always provide the whole truth as I know it to be, some of my stories are a bit extraordinary; this, of course, is exactly why I choose to share them. But it’s also the reason why some people question the authenticity. Even the woman who perhaps knows me better than anyone else, my mother, said some months ago, “I read your blog about Ohio University. What an imagination you have!”

“Umm, Mom…That all actually happened.”

“It did?”

“Yeah. All true.”

*silence as she wonders where she went wrong as a parent*

Some friends have asked how I manage to remember as many details as I do, since I’m typically drinking heavily at the time that the events in question take place. I can’t provide a very definitive answer here, other than to say that I’ve always been very observant of my surroundings. Even at the age of four I was giving my mother directions home from the bowling alley, store, etc. Also, as I’m sure most partiers out there know, drinking stories are often a collaborative effort. The best part of any “day after” is lying around a living room with your friends, piecing together events of the night before. You may remember 30% of a story, while your buddy has another 30% that you had forgotten (or not known at all). That’s usually the point at which you find out some of the dumber things you’ve done. Last Saturday, when I told Esq about the claim he had made the previous day, he laughed himself silly for nearly five minutes straight.

The stranger reaction, though, is when people read further into my tales than need be. One person said to me, due to my many stories of fumbling opportunities with girls, “Wow, you never get any!” While I can see how you might make that assumption (I mean, come on; “You’re really tall”??), it’s not true. More often than not, I try to keep my hookups off this page. Why violate the trust of an “associate” just to brag? Besides, what’s more entertaining to read: a story of how I missed out on a girl because I drank myself beyond the point of understandable speech, or a story of how I ended up in a hotel stairwell with a married woman? Okay, bad example.

The funniest instance of this occurred the other day. While talking to Breitling, he mentioned something a mutual acquaintance had told him. “She said, ‘[The D.e.f.i.] came into my bar one time, and now he’s in love with me.’” She didn’t give him any evidence to support her claim, so I can only guess as to what led her to believe this. Aside from one night of hanging out with her and mutual friends, I have had no real interaction with this girl. I lightly referred to her on this page a couple of times, so maybe she read that and decided that it was my way of serenading her? A friend of ours and I had a short, idle conversation about her once; maybe she thought that I was trying to find out her ring size?

Whatever the case may be, the sheer delusion of it all is hilarious. Even someone as fantastic, revered, and modest as me is guilty of a little narcissism from time to time; but, at the end of the day (or when I sober up the next morning) I always find myself back in reality, feet firmly on the ground.

All you have to do, baby girl, is ask yourself, “Is it really real?”