Apr 9th, 2008
Tupperware Girl
We are all haunted by our past. Whether it’s that blubber on your waist reminding you of that extra piece of liempo you binged on two years ago, or a mannerism or tick that automatically registers everytime you hear a certain name, or perhaps that song that rings in your head right after the rain or a certain exact midsummers day.
How you say hi, how you say bye.
How you make a firm commitment to see that movie, and then later just don’t show up or acknowledge to someone that you have other plans.
This is nurture winning over nature, how we are shaped by our day to day lives. Our past merging into present, an ever changing moment of NOW. Whether it’s positive or negative, or any more relativistic observations, it’s this idea of the trauma of living shaping us that has gotten me thinking lately.
Gotten me thinking of Tupperware Girl.
Tupperware girl was someone I used to see a lot of. From those who know her, she’s a young bubbly person, about her mid twenties as of the time of this writing, very charismatic and pretty much a fun person to be with. The kind of person who makes you feel so special when you’re with her.
As you might expect, Tupperware Girl made friends quite easily wherever she went. Which could be a good thing, right? Well that’s actually the problem with Tupperware Girl, not the number of friends she makes…
It’s the number of BEST FRIENDS.
Get whiff of Tupperware Girl’s charisma, and you’re on Cloud Nine. Her company is so intoxicating, you can’t get enough of her. It’s like you’re in the center of the universe. Just you and Tupperware Girl.
Put her in one area, and soon everyone thinks they’re close to her, and no one wants to share.
That’s the problem with Tupperware Girl. She likes to be friends with everyone. And her version of FRIEND is equivalent to BEST FRIEND, perhaps GIRL FRIEND to everyone else. And I was one of her victims. I fell in love with Tupperware Girl, or so I thought I was. Until I realized everyone was in love with her too.
Tupperware Girl is good, and she doesn’t know it. Because deep inside, what everyone thinks is intimacy, is actually a formality for her, a preconceived wall, a distance. Tupperware keeps you close, to keep you from getting too close.
That wall hits you with quite a wallop when you start yearning for it. Like a junkie high on withdrawal you crave the intimacy, the closeness, when you realize it’s all a farce. Tupperware Girl has kept you at bay, and the sickening sensation is unmistakable–she has deceived you into befriending her.
And if you are weak, as I was once weak, you will cling on to that faint friendship–because an almost friendship with her is better than no friendship at all. A taste of that closeness that never was, never could be, never will be.
Tupperware Girl has struck, and you will never recover.
Which brings me back to the beginning: how our past haunts us.
Tupperware Girl was not born that way, she was made that way. Her power was learned, perhaps not intentionally nor explicitly–but granted over years of living a life not too close.
Perhaps she was denied affirmation once, or was deprived the intimacy she now so skillfully controls. Was it a childhood friend, a teenage romance, parental, familial intimacy gone sour? Did she fall off the bed, did she get hit by lightning, did she eat one too many Kenny Rogers’ corn muffins?
Whatever it was, it haunts her, as it haunts me, as it haunts us. We will never be the same. With her, but especially without her.
Us victims of Tupperware Girl.
