I stared at the fake snake plant at the corner of my room and wondered why it looked so disfigured. I don't think I had ever even looked at that plant for more than a few seconds, afterall, it was fake and didn't need water. Now I stared because I had looked at everything else in my room for way too long.
My plant's irregularities were not intricate enough to keep me from thinking of what had been on my mind for days: I am a loser. I graduated from college five months ago and now live in the guest room in my parents' home (after I moved out for college they had turned my room into a gym). I guess many others are in the same circumstances as I am after graduating, except I had absolutely no job and had absolutely nothing to do as I sold off all my belongings except for a few books as a way to have some spending money as I tried to figure my life out. No TV, no laptop, nothing.
My inescapable boredom ceased momentarily as I got a text from an old friend named Tara. She told me she was in town and wanted to see me. That same night, I found myself at a small bar within walking distance. Tara was already waiting for me when I got there, as I entered the bar, I could notice people looking at her. Her back was to me and her curly, red hair reached long to her lower back. I approached her and gently tapped her shoulder. She turned around and smiled in a way I did not recognize. Her face looked different from what I remembered. Her smile showed both her upper and lower teeth. I don't recall her mouth being so big.
"Hi! Long time no see. How are you?" she asked me and hugged me very quickly before I sat at the bar next to her.
"I'm good, how are you? You look great." I said. We ordered drinks and did a little bit of small talk before she took on a more solemn tone.
"How are you really?" she asked me and we both sat in silence as I smiled before answering.
"Not good, really," I said and she nodded. "Since I graduated I haven't been able to find a job and have found it very hard to think positively, to say the least."
"Yeah, I was there too." She graduated a year earlier than me, but since I was a bit busy during my senior year of college, I never bothered catching up with her. "After graduating, I moved right back in with my parents and went to like twenty interviews and nothing..."
"So what'd you do? I asked.
"Well, I work independently now," she said.
"Doing what?" She smiled, showing just how big her mouth is again. Every time she smiled, I felt a little unsettled. I had rarely seen anyone show so many teeth when smiling.
"I do live streams... on this website. A lot of men watch. I usually tell people that I am a phone-sex operator as it's not looked down upon as much. But I basically just livestream while touching myself," she said. I knew my eyebrows were raised, it has always been very difficult for me to control my facial expressions. "It makes good money, though. And I don't think I will be doing it for long - not like any man pays to watch an older woman with no surgeries touch herself!" she laughed a big laugh and snorted at the end.
"Don't worry, I don't think badly of you. Even if it didn't make you much money, I could understand. Before you texted me, I was literally just staring at a wall in my room and well, I'd rather be doing something than nothing... just so I could feel a bit... alive or... I don't know if that would be the right way to say it but... yeah, I just feel very... useless," I confessed. We both laughed.