Big black nemesis parthenogenesis.

I came to a realization the other day that made me feel terrible. Oddly, it pleased one of my friends to no end. She was actually gleeful. Me, not so much. I realized that…this is embarrassing…I have a nemesis. Doesn’t that sound terrible? A nemesis. How awful a person must one be to have “a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent”? Technically not so awful.

Actually, years ago I CHOSE a nemesis. And that nemesis remains a nemesis but pretty much just for comedic purposes. It happened one day at work, we all decided that we needed an evil nemesis and I chose a co-worker. He actually chose Yum-Yum Doughnuts, so you can tell we weren’t being all that serious. But my new nemesis…this person just makes me feel like crap. As if nothing I will ever do will be good enough, or cool enough. And I realize that it is totally ME putting that out there. Well, they certainly sent some nefarious vibes my way, but there was no actual threatening or mockery. Just the feeling that no matter what I do, I will always be inferior to this person and thus I must not like them.

I have had a real nemesis once before, in college. That time it was a guy who was basically me as a dude. We met because I was wearing a Hoodoo Gurus t-shirt (with boxer shorts…in public…yet another shame of the 80’s) and he saw me across campus and yelled “Hey, Hoodoo Gurus! Come here!” Turned out that we had pretty much everything in common, and that made us…enemies. In him I could see every thing that was annoying about myself, and I am guessing he saw the same in me. I KNEW when he would procrastinate on a project, or not show up for a meeting, because they were the same things that I would do and man did that annoy me! But through it all, I thought we were friends who just irritated each other. Little did I know that our irritation was evident for all to see. It became interesting when we were both invited to the same party. One of the hosts called me the day before to “warn” me that he would be there. She wanted me to know in case I would have issues. I didn’t. As far as I was concerned, he was a friend. Turns out, she did the same to him. So our rivalry or nemesisery, or whatever you would call it was apparently…apparent.

I don’t like feeling this way about people but I suppose in the long run, or at least, I HOPE that in the long run, it makes me a better person. If I can recognize the bad parts of me in others, maybe I can make them better. And vice versa. Or what have you.

(And I’m am not suggesting (by the title) that my nemesis is big or black…that’s just the lyrics of a Shriekback song…and the color and size of my horrible soul for having a nemesis at all.)