Messes of Men

--Robert Langellier

I do not exist

The sooner people accept that I am a joke, the sooner they will love me. People keep having these expectations of me as if I was a regular, emoting person, and I don't know how they expect me to fulfill them. Talk to my girlfriend, and you'll learn that I am mean and unsuccessfully desperate to be funny. Talk to Wednesday Eliot, and you will learn that everything I do is out of spite. Talk to my roommate Dylan and you'll learn that he's sort of fat (he's not, ladies). Talk to Monday Nick, and you might learn that I'm sort of pathetic.

The common factor is façade. As of this year, I've unwittingly carried out the frightening task of serious joke dedication. When I was little, I played with stuffed animals, crayons, and Play-Doh to feed my creativity. Now I adopt fun new personalities to show off to my friends. I maintain them seasonally. Boy, are they great. They allow for endless possibilities for hilarity fit for the mature 9-year-old that I act like. The problem is that it's so dang irritating to turn my Joke Button off, so I usually just leave it on 23/7. (DON'T ACT LIKE YOU AREN'T THE SAME CONOR AND ELIOT YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN ME.) Difficulties arise. But usually it's great fun. Let me introduce you to Summer Robert and Autumn Robert.

The Asshole

Many in Springfield, Illinois know Summer Robert. Summer Robert was created in great part by Friday Conor. Almost exclusively by Conor, actually. Ignore the fact that I talk about how much I love my façades and accept the fact that I hate him for doing this to me. He knows this. Asshole Robert is cocky. Asshole Robert is cocky, because Asshole Robert is the greatest. I am the greatest. Need proof? Look at any of my blog posts, and try to describe how good my writing is (I often do). Challenge me in ping pong, Super Smash Bros 64, or any athletic sport. Compare your friends to mine. Compare our iTunes libraries, and our tastes in music as a whole. Try looking as good as I do when I come out of the shower with just a towel on. I will treat you like dirt, because you are dirt by comparison.

The Douchebag

Autumn Robert will treat you like dirt because you are a woman. Just kidding, I don't use that word anymore. "Bitch" and "slam piece" are far more satisfying. Life is much simpler as Autumn Robert. The many complexities of modern life are reduced to a mere few simple pleasures, such as fist bumping, lacrosse, laxing, shotgunning Nattys, chilling, not showing emotion, sandwiches, and dome. Autumn Robert, better understood as Bro Robert, was birthed by a collective of friends from Mizzou, together spreading brohood throughout the residence hall like an epidemic. I spend the majority of my time reversing lax pinnies and reading mylifeisbro.com, often while casually receiving dome from one of my bitches. I do not think my friends from home understand or accept Autumn Robert. My girlfriend does not like Autumn Robert. I do not understand.

Sarcasm gone wrong

Façades are games. They make the world a more entertaining place. More specifically, they make social interactions more potentially explosive. Maybe I'll be a hit at the party; maybe I'll harshly offend mostly everyone. Who knows? That all depends on how I check my sarcasm.

If you have had the experience of meeting me, you'll hopefully recognize that I depend on sarcasm more than Garrett on Molly. This allows me to disguise my fake personalities as real personalities, and my dead indifference to giving emotion away allows me to accidentally make people not know it's a joke. Apparently you have to set a standard of noncomedy for people to expect in order to make real life comedy funny. I have no time for noncomedy. I have too many biting jokes waiting to hurt you.

Sometimes my jokes hurt people. This is accidental and regretful. Sarcasm painted too well is often perceived by the weak as noncomedy. Sometimes utter lack of tact mixes with misdirected sarcasm, which results disastrously in my bid for heaven. Sometimes my jokes are contrived and depraved enough to make people think I think awful things about Conor O'Brien on Nick Dietrich's Facebook wall even though Conor was reciprocating the joke in full by taking just as many joke shots at me, just like we had planned together beforehand WHAT THE FUCK HOW DID I LOSE FACE IN THAT SERIOUSLY FUCK. These are when my jokes aren't funny.

Twist: I actually do exist

Last week I introduced Autumn Robert to Wednesday Eliot and Monday Nick via Skype, and they treated him like a novelty, laughing at all of his explanations of terms like "pounding" and "chilling" as if they were nothing to be taken seriously. I did not understand. It was like they expected me to be the same general person I was two months ago when they had last seen me. "Do you have to make up a character to enjoy life?" Monday Nick asked me. He was sort of kidding. Well, no, I don't, although it makes most situations more fun. With most people I ditch my current character when I'm with them one on one. But when it comes to hanging out with a group, who really wants to see who you really are anyway?