iPhone, Teddy Geiger, Anakin Solo, and Crossing the Threshold into Adulthood

My iPhone just started serenading me (and no, I didn't ask it to, it did it by its own... free will?). Upon calling someone and getting their voicemail, as always, I went about more productive tasks, like scrounging through my first semester scrap materials to find relatively blank notebooks to nBlog in (notebook blogging, it's the new big thing). But within the minute, my phone started playing a really sappy love song, a song I hadn't listened to in its entirety for four years. In fact, I had only bought the video version of the song because I had seen it over breakfast on MTV and thought it really cute before heading off to school.

What song? A one hit wonder, really. I've never heard any other songs by this guy. Teddy Geiger (one can only assume his grandparents were really fond of earthquakes). His one song For You I Will (Confidence) is as horrible as its title makes it sound. It's awful. In fact, thinking back on it, it was probably one of the worst iTunes Store purchases I have ever made in my life. But the video is so adorable! (Even Bad Day by Daniel Powter appears to be more enduring, and the actress in his video was Seth Cohen's totally awesome love interest in the OC (but I am in no way angry that he chose the more mainstream Summer... or am I? (Of course Summer, also known as Rachel Bilson did star in that movie Jumper with Hayden Christensen who I'm obliged to love because he's been in three (or four?! WHAT THE FUCK RETURN OF THE JEDI NEWEST RELEASED VERSION!) Star Wars movies).

But whatever. So it's the last song my iPhone should logically play if it were to logically malfunction and start playing a song. But there it goes. Randomly playing music. Is it serenading me? Is it trying to comfort me? Is it trying to tell me that everything's going to be alright? Or is it simply trying to tell me "For You I Will" as it should, since I am its human overlord. Is my iPhone available? Would it date me? If it can play random songs, that's nearly as good as a boyfriend, right? Boys are really only good for making you feel better about yourself, playing you songs on their guitars, and having sex with. Right? Maybe I've formed too many misconceptions from being a virgin way into my twenties (I'm looking to the future and deciding that this will be true way into my twenties).

But maybe this was a more important sign for me to get back into the game. (Confidence) is after all part of the completely unnecessary double title of the song by Teddy Geiger (who is, himself, probably very confident because he's incredibly attractive (actually, when I finally got around to trying to stop the song the screen lit up to reveal Teddy Geiger's face (it must have been the picture connected to the video in my iTunes library). Surprise surprise, Mr. Geiger has black hair and ice blue eyes, not unlike my first real crush, ever. I am, of course, talking about ANAKIN SOLO. (take cover if you're not ready to get nerd all over you).

For those of you who do not know, Anakin Solo has never been played by Hayden Christensen (Anakin SKYWALKER) or by any actor that I know of. He is a completely fictional character, only represented in books. But not just any books. The books I grew up with. I have read every single Junior Jedi Knights book in publication. AND I LOVED THEM ALL. But mostly I loved Anakin Solo. He was the coolest person/jedi/fictional book character ever. I didn't even mind when in his mid-teens he decided to start dating Tahiri (she was pretty cool... raised by sand people in the deserts of Tatooine... they grew up together, okay?! I can't compete with that. Also she had blonde hair... what a bitch). I still loved him. I did mind, however, when he DIED. At age seventeen, he was stabbed in the spleen (which resonated with me having lost the function in my pancreas, a related organ) and then exploded by the Yuuzhan Vong (evil doers from another Galaxy). I stopped reading Star Wars novels after that. If they were going to kill the man/young adult I loved then I wasn't going to be a part of them any longer. (But maybe I should have kept reading because he was apparently resurrected as some kind of robot? Who runs into Luke Skywalker's son Ben?! Who's apparently a GINGER?! WHAT?!?!))

Yes Confidence. Maybe I should get some of that. And why not? Well I'll tell you why not indeed.

Basically, being single is like being caught in a giant loop of repeating failure. You get rejected once. You feel bad. You act slightly insane. People notice that you're insane. They make you feel worse. You try to hook up with someone, but you remember how people thought you were crazy, and you become xenophobic instead. You don't like the way you look because no one ever compliments you because you don't interact with people. On and on and on. And before you know it you're in your late twenties. A virgin. With no people skills and a shrine to some dead fictional star wars character in your studio apartment on the 52nd floor of a skyscraper in Chicago which no one is invited to ever. I guess.

What's worse, is that being a young adult is a pivotal time in people's lives. It's the time we take to determine who we really are or if we should get exploded by a thermal detonator set off by Yuuzhan Vong. And while some people mess up this stage by interacting with too many people and losing themselves, I feel as if I'm going to have the exact opposite problem. I know who I am. I've pretty much narrowed it down to awesome, hot, funny and intelligent or awesome, hot, funny and a total nerd. What I need now is people to challenge my self view so I can see what I like and what could use some more changing. I would appreciate it if this person came in the form of (rated in order of acceptableness): Anakin Solo, a boyfriend, or a robot capable of love.

Without this, I might become more of a pompous asshole than I already am... I think. I don't know, because nobody confronts me about it... or anything at all. I believe scientifically this is the period in my life when I'm supposed to form intimate relationships, which sounds scary, but is a hell lot better than staying at the maturity level of a high school freshmen for the rest of my life (or well into my late twenties).

This:
The adolescent is newly concerned with how he or she appears to others. Superego identity is the accrued confidence that the outer sameness and continuity prepared in the future are matched by the sameness and continuity of one's meaning for oneself, as evidenced in the promise of a career. The ability to settle on a school or occupational identity is pleasant. In later stages of Adolescence, the child develops a sense of sexual identity. (wikipedia)
I've accomplished.

Now I need this:
Intimacy vs. Isolation, is emphasized around the ages of 19 to 34. At the start of this stage, identity vs. role confusion is coming to an end and it still lingers at the foundation of the stage (Erikson 1950). Young adults are still eager to blend their identities with friends. They want to fit in. Erikson believes we are sometimes isolated due to intimacy. We are afraid of rejection; being turned down, our partners breaking up with us. We are familiar with pain and to some of us rejection is painful, our egos cannot bear the pain. (wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosocial_development

Hey guess what! I'm 19! I feel like I should be getting a move on. I think my iPhone feels that way too. It knows that I've downloaded the completely useless SpinTheCoke application not just because I love Coca-Cola but because of a real need to play spin the bottle. It knows that the pictures I've taken and the NYTimes articles I've read on it are much more mature than what my Facebook says about me. It's heard the shadier phone conversations and read the desperate text messages.

It also knows that I have 17 episodes of Star Wars Clone Wars the cartoon in iTunes and a functional lightsaber app. And it still loves me anyway. Or at least enough to tell me to get out there and stop being so xenophobic. I firmly believe that my iPhone sincerely wants the best for me. And while it might not be able to tell me anything, because I'm pretty sure, amazing as apple is, it still has not created a flawless AI system, it will help me out as best as it can.

So thanks iPhone, for simultaneously making me feel like the biggest loser in the world AND a prospective new adult with the world at her fingertips. I won't let you down. For You I Will.