MOOP!

My practical side far outweighs my romantic, and therefore, I don't need flowers.

Flowers wilt. Flowers die. Flowers are given as a meaningless gesture, a way to imply True Love without doing any of the work of actually showing your affection. Here, I bought you these things that will get brown and crumble as a symbol of our love. Flowers are proof of attention: if a girl is given flowers, then clearly she was somehow good enough to earn this attention, or that she begged enough, or hinted, or sighed.

Flowers are proof that you are good at being a girl. Flowers are for people who understand how to play that particular game of femininity. I don't.

I have gotten one living flower in my life. It was a purple carnation, and it still sits on my bookshelf in Maryland, fragile and crumbling. At Long Reach, they give all the nice graduating boys and girls carnations, and at the 2005 graduation, one of those boys gave his to me. It was a simple and quick and little gesture, and it stopped me in my tracks, because he meant it, whatever it was. And then he moved south, and I never saw him again, and we quickly lost touch online. That happens sometimes. It's okay.

And so I don't need flowers.

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Starting in 2003 or so, I was going to the Renaissance Faire every year. One of the traditions I started for myself, at that first faire, was to buy myself a little leather rose. It did a nice job of sating the urge to buy things, and was inexpensive, and beautiful.

In 2005 or so, I ran into some friends one day at the faire, and the female half of the pair presented me with another rose for my collection. I don't think it was an carefully chosen gift, so much as she had bought a bouquet and was sharing with all her friends, but it was beautiful nonetheless, and of a colour I did not have.



That was the first time someone gave me a flower that wouldn't die. I look so dubious because what has happened since is best summed up in a quote from a caustic friend: "When you look into those eyes and see the direct line to crazy dot com, it doesn't matter how good the sex is."

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In May of 2006, I made a very bad decision. (In 2008, I made the same decision, but for all the right reasons as opposed to all the wrong ones, and as such, it can safely be considered a very *good* decision.) Eventually, I straightened it out, and it was awful, but happened and that was okay.

Quite shortly after it had been sorted, I received a package in the mail. Two letters, on yellow notebook paper. And an orange rose, made of something that appears to be spun sugar (though it must be something more sturdy).

You mentioned something about wanting a flower, even though flowers do not last. That is not true. Flowers last a very long time if you take care of them, and there are some flowers that can last you forever.

And thus far, though four years is hardly forever, it has lasted that long, always in a place of honour in my room.



That was the second time someone gave me a flower that wouldn't die. I look so scared because I am not used to love everlasting, even though I've known I had such a beast since a cold day in January, in 2004.

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In January of 2010, I gave support to a boy when he needed it, paying back the tiniest, most infinitesimal fraction of the support he gives and gives and gives to me. I pulled him away from the rest of the world for a time, and told him he was wonderful and amazing, and all the truths that are so hard to believe sometimes.

The following day, when he saw me, he handed me a duct-tape rose, with a simple "thank you". I wore it in my hair at dance the next day, terrified I'd somehow lose it.



That was the third time someone gave me a flower that wouldn't die. I look so lost because I still don't know what I'm doing, and I still can't believe him when he offers me support.

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In May of 2010, I went to a con, and found myself in the middle of quite a Story, and because I do not have the props for half of this story, I cannot tell the full thing.

But there was a boy, and he found himself with a bouquet of brass roses, to give away to lucky girls who attended his particular panel. I could not make it, alas, though I wanted to, in hopes of winning the one of the beautiful flowers for myself.

He found me late that night, and presented me with the last of them, which he had saved. It made perfect sense for the time and the story, but still astonished me. I am not used to such flirtation from strangers.



This was the fourth time someone gave me a flower that wouldn't die. I look so shocked because a stranger was a gentleman, in the finest sense of the word. I am not used to such kindness.

---

My practical side far outweighs my romantic, and therefore, I don't need flowers.
But not all flowers wilt, or die. Not all flowers are transient, and not all flowers are meaningless.

And need has never been the same word as want.



These are the flowers I own that will not die. I look so honest, because it is a collection I do not tell people about. Most of them I found, or bought, or begged all on my own, because I like flowers that do not die, and not because they are a proof of attention. I like them because they are beautiful and strong. The world needs more of that intersection some days.

~Sor
MOOP!

ETA: See also Number 6