“We are all in one of two places.”
The kid paused and glanced around before continuing.
“Either one is chasing false hope, or realizing their hope is false and despairing.”
He had everyone’s focus. No way he could spit this shit and not. I swear, he had a weird thing about him.
He looked at me.
“You, for example. You’re female, white. About twenty?”
And you’re what? Seventeen? And in college?
“Twenty-one, actually.” I was younger, but no way was I gonna let on.
“Okay. Culture says that you have to conform to certain standards of beauty to have value as a person. So, you probably try to emulate those standards, no?”
I hadn’t a clue what emulate meant, but whatever.
“Uh, yeah.”
He nodded. “That’s an example of false hope.”
Was he saying I wasn’t pretty?
Bastard.
He continued. “However, once you realize all the ads use altered photos of models that you can never look like, what then? What happens when your hope is unfulfillable?”
I didn’t know what to say.
The kid shrugged at my silence.
“You despair.”