BEN (VO): "So you're the new waitress. Your hair is really straight. You probably spent like hours on that."
WAITRESS (VO) (doesn't respond.)
BEN (VO): "Oh...I should probably apologize.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Um, I don't know why I'm apologizing. OK, I'm Ben."
WAITRESS (VO): (Silence.)
INT. COFFEE HOUSE
BEN: "Oh God, am I being creepy? I hope not. Oh crap! You probably want to run away."
WAITRESS: (Silence.)
BEN: "No, wait! Come to think of it, I don't care. I honestly don't care if it is creepy."
BEN: "And furthermore, f*** you if you honestly have a problem with honesty!"
BEN: "Let me tell you something....I'M NOT IN CONTROL OF THE TRUTH!"
BEN: "This is the world and I'm in it. And if I can't be honest about what I feel deeply inside of me then, well then...... f*** it."
BEN: "Er...can I say f*** around you? Do you care about things like...
WAITRESS (Silence.)
BEN: "What I mean is that if I can't be honest, and put everything I feel out on the proverbial table then I don't even care about anything anymore..."
WAITRESS: (Silence)
BEN: "You are so pretty."
BEN: "That sounds shallow but it's not. The only way I can convince you of anything is to say that I'm a VERY CYNICAL PERSON. I just DON'T CARE."
WAITRESS: (Silence.)
BEN: "I don't believe in love. I don't believe in 'meant to be.' "
BEN: "I honestly believe that there are like one hundred people. No. Like four hundred people are out there, who each of us could honestly marry. And we all just fall in love slash settle."
BEN: "But when I saw you. I dunno."
BEN: "I saw you buy a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and shampoo across the street, and my connection to you from that moment..."
BEN: "OK there is no way for me to convey this without sounding like someone I would like to murder slash report to the...OK this is going to sound like...urg....er......
BEN: "So....... I love you. Boom. I said it."
BEN: "Bye!"
..............................................................
Wasn't that a nice little story? I didn't write it, the honor of authorship of this little play goes to [Aaaargh! I forget the name!!!!!! I'll look for it, and fill this in later! I'll add the name of the book I got it from, too!] I just drastically cut it down and added bridges to smooth the cuts. The original dialogue was far better than my bowdlerized version.
The play is obviously a comedy, but it has something to say, too. We can talk about it in the comments if you're interested.
4 comments:
I'm interested.
Steven: Ben strikes me as a good person who's gotten a bad education. Ben has the brains to be an expert at some useful trade, but he's been nudged into the category of underemployed pseudo- intellectual. He's a casualty, as so many of us are, of the modern urban morass.
Ben's luckier than some, though... he instinctively believes in romantic love. He claims not to, but you can tell that he does.
If he succeeds in starting a family, the struggle he'll undertake will help to put him on a more healthy track, and he'll have a wife to help him.
Is this what the writer intended to say? I have no idea. Maybe I'm just projecting my own thoughts onto the story.
Ah, but has he been nudged or did he choose? Many hipsters out there like Ben choose a pseudo-intellectual degree (film studies, creative writing, electronic music). Why that, instead of medicine or law or science? On the other hand, you're right about Ben's chances improving due to his belief in romantic love. Unlike many hipsters, he's uncomfortable with his own tendency to distance everything with irony.
Stephen: Good comments! "Distance everything with irony" is a great way to describe the mistake some hipsters make.
I used the word "nudge" because because society is set up to guide a large number of it's intelligent kids into unproductive paths.
If a kid had a hands-on interest in electronics or chemistry where would he go? Schools teach only the academic side of it, when they teach it all. The system makes it easier for a kid to pursue couch-potatoism, and the government subsidizes it with student loans to study trivial subjects.
I don't believe this is the result of a conspiracy or an evil intent, it's just the way things turned out, but we need to do something about it.
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