I'll Never Be James Dean
by Ayyub Hussain
There’s a part of myself that wishes I was mysterious. I wish I was the “elusive” and “private” cool guy. The one that everyone wants a piece of. The one who’s unattainable no matter how close one gets. When you take one look at them, your eyes glance at their slick hair. You know that it’s been drenched in gel, yet your mind’s first thought is that it’s natural. You become jealous of their puff pastry skin because it’s so perfect. You instantly realize that no 15-minute influencer skincare routine is going to make yours just like that. You spare some time to stare at their black leather jacket because even though they bought it five years ago, it still looks like it was bought yesterday. The dark shade makes them shine just enough to make it easy on the eyes. When you factor into all of that, you realize why nobody wants a piece of you.
My mind believes that mystique is a trait that only cool people have because they give just enough. You only get slivers of them, and yet they remain on your mind for days on end. They never break a sweat, but when you try to emulate them, you end up losing breath and leaving sweat stains on the most embarrassing places. The way they live their life makes you question if they were God’s prototype for humanity. If they were the way that humanity was supposed to be, then God had arthritis by the time he came to you.
No matter how hard I try to be avoidant, the façade breaks when I look at someone. The mask I spend so hard putting on immediately breaks, and the scars I’ve tried hiding are out in the open for judging eyes to look at. I spill my guts to someone over intimate moments until they inevitably wound me like the others. I let them touch my face until they bury their nails into my skin. I let them gaze at me, until their loving glances become a death glare. Just as I destroy a mask, a new one is formed from its broken pieces. No matter how hard I try, I can’t be James Dean.
Every time I feel the desire to be mysterious, I remind myself that it’s a trauma response. The reason why I choose to hide in the shadows and slowly rot is because I somehow convince myself that everyone, I meet wants to scratch my face instead of appreciating it. Therefore, I settle into the belief that it is better to run away and hide because I don’t want to be scratched anymore.
The shadows feel safe, and you get used to isolating yourself from others. You often get bored, but then you remember that you’re not getting hurt, so everything is fine. You tell yourself to get used to this feeling because you’ve never felt peace. You tell yourself it’s worth holding on to because once you let it go, once you let someone in, they will be hellbent on destroying your comfort. You’ve spent so long building this mask. Why would you want to break it?
But every day, the mask gets tighter to the point where it gets hard to breathe. Hiding in the shadows gets suffocating after a while. It gets depressing watching other people live their cute little lives, knowing that I’ve done nothing.
I stare into their smiles, and then I realize that I haven’t authentically smiled in years. You know it’s genuine because they clearly don’t care that their left front tooth is slightly crooked. You admire the chicness of their outfits, and you admire them more when you notice that you’ve worn the same blue shirt for two weeks.
You lowkey cringe at the caption because it’s always like “living my best life”, but at least they could write it and actually mean it. Meanwhile, you’re writing poems about people you haven’t spoken to in months, wanting to see them again, but knowing they’ve probably forgotten about you.
In these moments of uncertainty, you try to ground yourself in the prison walls you’ve built. You remind yourself that social media is a highlight reel, and they’d never share their darkest moments “on the gram”. You call yourself an ‘outfit repeater’ instead of lazy. You tell yourself that you don’t want to smile, because it’s “not authentic” and “so much work”. You cringe at the caption because you know you’ve written better poetry than that. But no matter how hard you are deep in your “world”, or the number of words you write, it is never enough. You can never replace the fantasy you create in your head with reality. It gets exhausting being a lurker, when everyone else is an influencer.
So, I decide to break the mask, but I’m afraid to go outside. My body freezes in silence because my soul’s scared it will fall apart again. That’s when I realize that my risk averse nature goes against the fabric of life. No matter how hard I try to protect myself, my heart will inevitably break. No matter how strong my helmet is, I will fall down and my face will kiss the ice. I can’t avoid getting scratches on my face.
But, instead of fearing the inevitable, I have to look at the bright side. All the moments of self-growth have stemmed from getting my heart broken. Moments of heartbreak and deep periods of depression have given me the opportunity to reflect on what went wrong, and to figure out how to move forward. Isolation has given me a perspective on things. Being mentally separated from others has created this hole in my heart—a sense of emptiness that won’t go away without human connection. While isolating myself, I’ve realized that I’m an extrovert and not an introvert. I love talking to other people and making new friends. I love putting myself out there even if sometimes I stumble publicly. I let myself be dominated by the past without realizing that tomorrow is a new day. It’s a new chapter in my book, and it’s a waste of time trying to figure out the storyline. Sometimes, you have to let things play out.
No matter how hard I fall, I have to get up and skate again. I have to remind myself that not everyone is there to give you a reason to hide. There are some people that don’t have sharp nails. And there are some people that do, but they’d rather look at them than mess with your skin. There are some people that have zero weapons. There are some people whose bright smiles and good heart aren’t a façade. For the longest time, the fact that I couldn’t accept was that sometimes, people can be good. I couldn’t accept it because that meant realizing that the people who’ve hurt me in the past had the opportunity not to. It was a choice they made instead something that was woven into their design. But no matter what people have done in the past, there are still good people around us, if we open ourselves to them.
So, I walk freely until I find people kind enough to make me stop. I choose to open my heart knowing that it could backfire. My heart will beat strong regardless of the conflicts I face. At the end of the day, opening oneself to potential rejection is much better than closing oneself to the world completely. There is nothing wrong with not being mysterious. However, it is important to remember that the reason why people are “cool” in the first place is because they are authentically themselves. And yes, sometimes that means being private to the point where you are a caricature. God doesn’t have a prototype for humanity because the whole point is that we are all so unique with different personalities, appearances and tastes. To live means to cherish the best parts of being open to others and make peace with the worst-case scenarios. At the end of the day, the way to closely emulate the coolness of James Dean is by being yourself.
credits:
Portrait of James Dean in 1955. James Dean in his agent’s office in 1955. Photo: Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos
James Dean in his agent’s office in 1955. Photo: Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos
