Do We Have To?

 Cameron: So did you have fun?
Xavier: No.
Cameron: Was it me?
Xavier: I think so.
Cameron: What did I do?
Xavier: I don’t remember, but I didn’t care for it much.
Cameron: How can I make it up to you?
Xavier: I’m not sure. I don’t know if I want to bother with this little game anymore.. Let’s end it right here.
Cameron: What do you mean?
Xavier: I forgot. You’re lucky. What’s on TV tonight?
Cameron: My sister took our TV, remember?
Xavier: Oh, no TV. We may have to talk to each other now.
Cameron: We could do that. What do we like to talk about?
Xavier: I wish I knew.
Cameron: Are you lonely?
Xavier: I refuse to answer a question like that. Am I lonely? Yeah, who isn’t lonely? I’m not going to be likened to millions and billions of other people. I want to be my own kind of person, ok? Don’t try to lump me together with everyone else. I wonder why we’re all so lonely anyway, we want to be around a bunch of other people and connect well with them, and we don’t even like the majority of them. We’re pleasant or sarcastic to their faces, and for some reason sarcasm and cruelty is considered friendship and closeness, then the moment they leave, walk out of the room, we’re trashing them, calling them weird, or creepy or stupid, or evil, or mean, or annoying, but we rarely if ever say these things to their faces. So we’re lonely but most of us don’t like people very much. So why are we lonely? I mean, look at us we should be happy, we shouldn’t be lonely, we’re in a relationship. We’re a couple. We’re dating. Ok. But all we do is go to our friends and complain about the other one, and we have fights about the validity of a TV program, and who’s the best singer, the best actor, the best TV show, the best books, the best major, the best everything, and it’s like, who cares? After a while it all runs together, and nothing seems original or unique or interesting anymore. Before you know it you’re walking outside in just your underwear at 3 in the morning, and everyone else is just doing the same thing, and it’s totally natural. Do you know what I’m, saying? No, no, don’t say anything, I’m not done yet. I have a little more to say. So, we hate people but we want to be with them because we have to be with someone even if it’s negative or boring or draining conversation and interaction. We hang out with them, we complain to them and about them. All we know to do anymore is make fun of others, and complain about things, which is exactly what I’m doing right now. I know it. I know it too well. I complain and harangue about the emptiness and decadence of all of society. None of it is good anymore. None of it means anything anymore. All the music is about revenge, brutality, rape, loneliness, sex, lust, creepiness, isolation, solitude, God, religion, politics, war, genocide, propaganda, the machine, mind control, failed relationships. Not much of it is happy. And when it’s supposed to be happy you still feel empty and useless because it’s not your life. You’re stuck in a life where you’re close to people but you’re not sure if they feel close to you. They don’t know you, chances are they don’t even know your birthday, which doesn’t matter but you would like to think you had been that open with them before. But you weren’t. So now you sit around and you watch all the things you hate because what else can you do? You could read or play sports more, but you wouldn’t understand that either, and it would be as mindless and as petty as the rest of humanity, because even professors have petty squabbles and complain about everything, although many people believe they are actually superior to the rest of us. But what do they know? They’re still here. They’re still going through divorces, unemployment, deaths, infirmities, diseases, and the decay of society. They can write all they want about all this knowledge they have accumulated, and it may solve some problems but what will it do about all the senseless, vicious deaths that take place every day? What will it do about people destroying rather than saving? I’m too emotional I suppose. I suppose I’m too weird to understand anything, but why do we kill and destroy instead of building up and caring?
Cameron: So, should we do something?
Xavier: We should. We definitely should, but I don’t know what to do. We’ve done everything. Well we haven’t but how willing are we to change? Well, we could change we couldn’t become more empty and sad than we already are. Skydiving? Drugs? Promiscuous sex? Graffiti? Gang violence? Terrorism? Should we read all the great books? Should we shoplift? Should we learn how to cook everything we can, so we can entertain our friends who will never realize how difficult it was to arrange such a night? They won’t care, and we’ll soon forget they didn’t care because we want to be close to someone, or we may as well die. Well, being close to some people makes me want to die. Where everything they say is as backhanded compliment or a total sneer. Where they have to act as though they know everything although they’re as lost and confused as you are. It’s alright. I just wish everyone would stop taking their opinions and interpreting them as Divine-Mandates from God Himself.
Cameron: I thought you didn’t believe in God.
Xavier: I don’t know if I do or not, but I always keep the possibility open. Listen I’m not as mean or as spiteful as I just sounded. I’m just burned out on life completely. I feel I have never done any good, and never will do any good because I’m just not any good. I don’t have anything profound to say about this current state of mine. And, maybe that’s all it is, a state, temporary, or maybe I’ll be as unhappy and as confused as this until the day I die, if I do die. Maybe I really messed up in a previous life and am going to be here forever, but maybe not.
Cameron: Since you haven’t allowed me to say anything, I would like to talk for a while. I finally see how lonely, depressed, and worthless you feel probably all the time. But I never knew. You never told me any of these feelings. You were always just standing or sitting there, appearing to be just fine, just relaxing, just going with the flow. And here tonight I learn how lost you’ve been for God knows how long. I want to know why you didn’t tell me any of this.
Xavier: I care about you, I do. Never forget that. You are one of the most important people in my life, and I will love you for as long as I can love another, but there are certain things I have to keep all to myself even if they cause me greater harm and hours of torment. Well, that didn’t come out right at all. I was afraid to, ok? When people start talking endlessly about how awful they feel, how they can’t feel or experience anything anymore because they’re emotionally dead, and completely empty because they’ve never come to know anything, others get turned off by it. Rightfully so. All people have a plethora of problems, problems none of us can ever know anything about. No imagination or creativity when it comes to such devastation and destruction, and loss, and…. Well it never ends does it? It never ends. Everything is so… I’m going to stop this whine now. Just remember I love you, I love you very much although I don’t always show it, because I fall in and out of love with you every once in a while because I’m terrified, and I’m…. well, because I’m a jerk. That’s the truth of it. Sometimes you annoy me, and sometimes I’d like to kill you but the rest of the time I love you and want to be with no one but you, well in doses, of course, because if I were to spend that much time with you, well, that could get way too nauseating, but, yes, I love you and a I will for as long as I can go on loving another.
Cameron: I don’t know what to say. You come here tell me how miserable, lonely, and I don’t know what else you are, and then you tell me you love me more than anything or anyone else in the world, but you may not always love me, and there are times that you don’t love me. Do you go off with other women then? Do you get bored of me often or just rarely? What does all of this mean? Does any of it mean anything? Or are you just talking your confused thoughts out loud?
Xavier: I’ve never cheated on you. I never plan to. Even if I had an opportunity I wouldn’t, I couldn’t dream of it. If I ever tire of, or completely stop loving you, we will end our relationship, and go from there.
Cameron: I don’t know if I want to be a part of this anymore.
Xavier: Come on. I’m not perfect and I can’t change, or I don’t want to, or something has happened and I’m not exactly sure what is going on, but I love you, I really do. Love is a hard word to define or understand, but I know you keep me afloat every day, what do you think keeps me from giving up altogether?
Cameron: Wait- are you just using me then? Isn’t it possible you could meet someone else, and they could make you want to stay alive? So it’s not me who you love, but what it does for you? All of this has been about you. It’s always about you. I have no say in any of this. The moment you want to end this, that’s it. Bye-bye, Cameron. I’ll be out there, all alone, although I will still love you. I love you now although you have just as much said you don’t love me anymore because you don’t know what love is which now I understand, but I can’t help loving you for some reason. Why is it? Why is it I always fall for guys who think they need a girl, who use me and use me, and I have to take care of them while they go on and on about how little they understand of the world around them?
Xavier: You’re not listening to a word I’m saying. I’ve made horrible mistakes, ones I can never atone for on earth or anywhere else, or maybe I’m being a little too melodramatic again. I love you. I love you. I love you. How can I make it any clearer?
Cameron: But you’re completely dependent on me, you want me to do everything, I can’t, well I can’t but I shouldn’t or you’ll never learn…. And….. I can’t do this anymore.
Xavier: Maybe you’re right. We’re fighting, we’re arguing, we’re not moving forward, we’re completely miserable and lonely, and I don’t want to make you that way anymore. Believe it or not I want you to be happy and to feel great, you deserve that, I only wish I was the guy.
Cameron: You could be if you tried.
Xavier: Maybe you’re right, but I can’t try anymore and keep blowing it and making you more miserable than you are. (Kisses her). I’m going to leave now, if you ever need anything, call me. I hope you meet a great guy, a guy who can do all you deserve and much more.
Cameron: Thank you, Xavier. Stay in touch.
(He exits. End.)