Chapter 17: Connection vs. Attachment (I’ll find a better title for this chapter soon)

With less than a week to research and write the article, Jane decided she’d better get busy experimenting, trying out a few of the connection techniques she had researched, putting them to the test, and observing how well they worked.
It’ll be fun! she told herself, though it didn’t all turn out that way.

She began by saying hello to various strangers she passed in the street on her way home and observing their reactions.

“Hi,” she said as she passed a man in his 30’s, maybe ten years older than her. “Nice jacket.”
The man stopped in his tracks, looked her up and down, then said hello back and asked for her number.
“Sorry,” Jane replied apologetically, feeling flustered but thinking fast on her feet. “It’s just that my boyfriend has the same jacket, and I couldn’t help but admire it.”
The man looked slightly deflated, but nodded and turned away.

Oops, she thought to herself. Some of these techniques work a little too well! I’d better dial back the research a notch.

She reached the portal of her apartment building with no further misadventures, and stopped at the mailboxes to see if anything interesting had arrived.

“Hi,” she said absentmindedly to another resident who was extracting a few envelopes and a stack of junk mail from his own box.

“Hello,” he replied cheerfully. He shuffled his stack of mail into his left hand, then held out his right toward her. “I’m Chase, by the way. I just moved in.”

Jane shook his hand and looked up at his friendly face. Their eyes locked, and suddenly…she couldn’t look away. It felt like he had turned on a tractor beam and would not release her. It took her a moment to gather her wits and make her mouth function again. “I’m Jane,” she sputtered. “I’m up in 3C.”

“2D,” Chase replied, still clutching her hand lightly.

Jane had taken self defense classes, and the moves to twist Chase’s arm behind his back and utterly disable him flashed through her mind, but she had never learned a defense against his tractor beam gaze.

Then, out of nowhere, it struck her. It hit her hard, right in the chest, somewhere near her heart. A sharp inner pain there made her gasp slightly, and she withdrew her hand abruptly and finally managed to look away from his piercing gaze.

“Gotta go,” she said lamely, slamming her mailbox shut and heading for the stairs. Usually, she took the elevator, but she couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for it to arrive. She only wanted to get away from Chase and figure out what just happened to her!

Had he slipped her some diabolical toxin through their handshake? Was she about to pass out, or curl up and die, or transform into some disgusting alien creature designed to join him on his quest to take over the world, starting with some random Chicago apartment building?

No, probably not, Jane reasoned, but the pain persisted and she made her graceless exit as fast as she could go.

The post 1-2-3 Connect appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

I bought an ice cream sandwich from a vending machine during a break between classes on campus. After sitting down at a nearby table, I pulled a book from my backpack and opened it to finish up some homework before my next class.

“Mind if I sit?” a girl asked. The room was crowded, but I was the only one occupying this table.

“Help yourself,” I said, glancing up from my book.

That was my first look at Julie. She was beautiful, blonde, and had bright green eyes that danced with friendliness and life.

We chatted for a bit and somehow I mustered up the courage to ask for her number, then called her a few days later and took her on a motorcycle ride and a picnic up the canyon.

We stopped at a secluded picnic area near the river and sat down on a blanket in the shade. As we began getting acquainted, everything about her made her seem more and more like the perfect girl. She was intelligent, fun, charming, confident, thoughtful, and easily in the top 1% of beautiful girls I had ever seen, whether in the movies or real life.

But just as I began getting ideas about pursuing her romantically and seeing if it turned into something permanent, she began to hum a pleasant little tune under her breath, and birds in the nearby trees began to sing along. A pair of butterflies flitted by, hovering briefly over her head like a halo, suspended in a stray shaft of afternoon sunlight. I felt quite certain that a young deer raised its head to listen, hidden somewhere in the nearby undergrowth.

“Oh, great,” I thought dejectedly. “I should have known.”

Julie was a Disney princess. If only I had been a handsome prince, I might have stood a chance. Then we could have lived happily ever after.

But no, I had learned all too well many years ago that I was the ugly duckling, and I had no place with such a perfect princess.

In hindsight, I ought to have recalled the end of the ugly duckling story. The part where it turns into a beautiful swan. Maybe I was a handsome prince after all, but whether I was or not, in the end, made no difference. Instead of reality, my deep-down, unconscious beliefs and expectations dictated my behavior and destiny, and despite staying friends for a while longer, I never even held Julie’s hand.

Discussion Quotes & Questions

1. What do you believe about yourself? What do you feel perfectly capable of accomplishing and what could simply never work out? What do you deserve to enjoy, and what is “out of your league”?
2. How have such beliefs steered you through the billion opportunities that stand there waiting for you to recognize them every single day and hour of your life? Do they encourage you to dream big and go for it, or to know your place and play it safe by staying small?
3. When was the last time you wanted something but didn’t try to get it?
4. List at least three things you’ve wanted for a long time but have not pursued.
5. Pretend you’re finally going to “go for” those things and get them! What feelings does such a decision stir inside you? Do you feel excited or uncomfortable and afraid?
   
   “You act based on what you expect, not what you want.” – Jennice Vilhauer
   
6. Why haven’t you pursued those things?
7. Does it have to do with expectations? Do you think it would be too difficult or that you would fail in the end?
8. Do you believe that such deep-down expectations can change?
9. If so, how?

…

The post Expectations appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

Of course cheering for opponents and underdogs came to an abrupt halt the instant anyone was beating his team. Not only in a game, but in the polls. If a team was ranked better than his team, he wanted them to slip just a little so that he could move back up to the top, back into his comfort zone, where nothing could threaten his standing and he could afford to be magnanimous once again.

He was a good friend in the same way, cheerful and affable, always reliable to be there for you when you needed a hand, generous almost to a fault. You could easily count on him 98% of the time. And because anything above 93% earns an A, who could complain about that?

And that other 2%? He was never a bad friend, exactly, at least not in any way you could clearly point out and make him look bad. It’s just that he could feel a bit insecure at times, and if you happened to be a little better looking or more interesting or successful, well, that left him with two options.

The first option was to compete and catch up. He worked hard, which won him many successes and accolades. He found various ways to become more interesting and set himself apart from the crowd.

He took up hunting, and decorated his high-ceilinged living room with trophies of “the big five.” One plaque remained empty, however, and when anyone commented on it, it gave him the opportunity to humbly and magnanimously repeat the story of the one that got away, proving how comfortable he felt in being a regular mortal like the rest of us.

Truth be told, he probably had that mild insecurity to thank for the majority of his drive and half the successes in his life, so how bad could it be? In fact, could you accurately judge it as bad at all? Nobody’s perfect, after all, and maybe insecurity, which in his case so often played out like humility and other admirable virtues, is one of the best imperfections to have.

The second option was much easier than hard work, and it came even more naturally to Beckett. When you analyze it logically, it even makes more sense. If you wanted a house with a better view, would you be wiser to go to all the trouble of moving, or set hydraulic jacks under your house and raise it up a few feet, or simply chop down the trees blocking the vista?

So whenever Beckett found himself near anyone who triggered his sense of insecurity, who was perhaps a bit taller or better looking, or more interesting or successful, whether friend or opponent, why not jokingly point out that one minor flaw, or cheerfully relive that one time they did something stupid, or draw attention to some other area where Beckett excelled, as long as that made him feel a bit better, and no one was ever really injured.

You may be thinking that Beckett had a third option for comportment in such circumstances, but you would be wrong. You may argue that he would have been wise to choose to address his true enemy instead, to face and vanquish his insecurity once and for all. But choice requires awareness, and because it never occurred to Beckett to do so, he was never free to make such a choice.

Beckett’s life may have continued thus indefinitely, and perhaps he would eventually have grown aware of the third option and chosen to exercise it, had not his best friend and top competitor (secret competitor, that is – he would never admit it, even to himself) won a large promotion at work.

In order to reset the scales in his favor, Beckett requested two weeks of leave and flew to Africa to complete his trophy room.

He awoke on the third morning of his safari and sat up in bed, yawned, then turned and set his feet on the dirt floor of the tent, which happened to be where a king snake had slithered in overnight to rest in the relative warmth.

He hadn’t yet fully woken up or recovered from the shock of the snake bite when he found himself standing, rather dazed, at the Pearly Gates.
“You suck,” said St. Peter with a disapproving shake of his head, “but come on in.”

The post Grade-A Frienemy appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

On the very first day of trying out her new self, her new plan paid big dividends. She quickly discovered that being positive allowed her to share her private thoughts that she had never spoken aloud before, albeit with a positive twist that she would attempt to talk herself into believing. It wasn’t easy, but if she could do this, she could do anything, and she would become the most cheerful person in town in no time!

“I love your musk,” she told him that evening.

“I’m not wearing any musk,” Tom said with a sneer. “You know I detest cologne. Leave that for the girly men.”

“I know,” Melissa agreed. “I mean your natural musk after working at the garage all day and when you don’t take a shower before you come over. It reminds me of buck scent, or goats who pee all over themselves to attract hot goat babes.”

Melissa knew all about buck scent because Tom sometimes wore that during hunting season. “Why wash it off,” he asked, “when I’d just have to reapply it tomorrow?” It was the most pungent aroma she had ever smelled, and she gagged whenever Tom got too close with it, so she would hold her breath as long as she could, then find an excuse to step away for a moment, long enough to take a few deep gulps of air from a distance.

Tom’s second most common complaint was about Melissa’s cooking. “These alligator tacos could use more avocado,” he mused over dinner, “and the ice in the grape juice is a little too cold.”

“I love your attention to detail,” Melissa replied, “and the fact that you’re willing to eat avocados, that you don’t say they’re only for girly men anymore.”

Tom found so much love and affirmation and cheerful positivity disorienting. Every time he turned around, there was more love just waiting to knock him off his feet, putting him in unfamiliar territory, which made him feel like he wasn’t in control anymore, and that made him grumpy.

“Will you please stop saying you love everything?!” Tom shouted.

“You certainly know when enough is enough!” Melissa replied, skillfully avoiding the word ‘love’.”

“You certainly don’t!” Tom accused, pointing a finger in her face.

Melissa drew in a sharp breath. An astonished look crossed her face. An epiphany lit up her brain. “You’re right!” she whispered as she abruptly realized the truth. The truth that had been kicking her in the shins for three years, trying desperately to get her attention. “I don’t!” The past three years of dating Tom flashed through her mind. All the crap she had endured, and for what???

Brand new possibilities began to flat through her mind – or rather, one new possibility flashed through her mind over and over, in full color, like a string of Christmas lights. She could leave Tom. She could be with someone else, or be alone! Any other option would be better than this!

“Okay, I learned. Now I do.”

“Do what? I hate how you always have full-blown conversations in your head and then expect me to read your mind when you bring me in to the tail end.”

“Now I know when enough is enough,” she explained. “And I just realized what I like best about you.”

Ever ready to hear a compliment, ever eager to reinforce his arrogant belief that he was great and everyone else was the problem, ever hungry to punch the much deeper belief that he wasn’t good enough in the face, Tom paused and put his next complaint on hold. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I love…,” Melissa began, “when you leave.”

“Because you miss me?” Tom asked with a charismatic smile. “Because you realize how much you love me and how great I am, and absence makes the heart grow fonder?” he prompted.

“The opposite, actually. Now please make yourself lovable and vamoos.”

“Ha ha,” Tom replied, unsure of what else to say. “Very funny.”

“I’m serious,” Melissa said, standing up from the table and waiting for him to do the same.

“What’s gotten into you?” Tom asked, lifting his fourth alligator taco to his mouth.

“Would you like more avocado on that?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, please!” he replied, putting it back on his plate and handing it to her.

Melissa took the plate, stepped into the kitchen, and dumped to the whole thing into the garbage can.

“Looks like we’re all out of avocados,” she said flatly, setting the plate back on the table. Tom looked down at the empty plate, then up at Melissa with a confused look plastered across his face.

“Go,” Melissa ordered, nodding her head toward the door impatiently.

“You’re crazy,” Tom said slowly, still trying to figure out what was going on.

“I certainly was!” Melissa agreed. “Whew! I’m glad I got over that!”

“Go!” Melissa ordered more loudly when Tom still hadn’t budged.

Tom stood slowly, the confused look lingering in his eyes, and took one furtive step toward the front door.

“Ew!” Melissa exclaimed, taking an abrupt step back when he leaned forward for a goodnight kiss.

“You’re weird,” he merely observed then.

“Okay.”

And then Tom stepped out the front door and out of her life and I’ll update this story with a better ending line when I think of one.

The post Love, Love, Love appeared first on Utah Fast Fiction.

I found this book years ago and LOVE it, and wanted to pass it along to all other aspiring writers.

It’s MORE than just a thesaurus of positive traits, it ALSO includes a REALLY INTERESTING forward section explaining character arcs to help design your whole plot. Very helpful. Very concise and readable.

Get yours from Amazon at bit.ly/ptraitthes

Even if you don’t want to buy the whole thing, download the free sample and get a lot of the value!

While you’re at it, also check out the Negative Trait Thesaurus: bit.ly/ntraitthes

And the Emotion Thesaurus: bit.ly/emotiont

Okay, fine, you don’t want to read a post on UtahFF.com without a short story. Here’s a super-super-super-quick one for you:

Once upon a time, a hard-working, diligent, industrious, tireless, indefatigable, unrelenting writer ordered The Positive Trait Thesaurus, which saved her so much time and energy that she also took up water skiing, basket weaving, and even earned a degree in Russian.

The End.

Yeah, I know, that was the worst short story ever. Aren’t ya glad it was so short?!

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