KILL YOUR TIME

 Love is a crapshoot. You hope to find someone, somewhere throughout your journey in life, who will completely alter the course of your — up until this point — somewhat shallow existence, or who will fulfill those dreams of getting married and “having it all.”

We’ve all had our fair share of failed relationships, even if it was just that high school romance or that one stint in college. While you may discredit them as “stupid” and “juvenile,” they were the first necessary experiences to figuring out why so many of your relationships will fail in the future.

It’s all the people you let into your life and then let go (willingly or not) who harshly showed you that every relationship you enter into has a very high chance of failing.

However, beyond the important, harsh life lessons about the reality of falling in love, your dating history should have also have given you a pretty good idea of the kind of person who is bad for you.

It’s the guy who never answers your texts and only calls you Friday night at 2 am. It’s the girl who can’t commit. It’s someone who uses you for company to assuage his or her loneliness.

It’s someone who doesn’t further your goals, who keeps you around for the drama and the intensity. It’s the girl who never calls you back and who flirts with your friends. It’s the boy who is aloof and self-centered and doesn’t want a relationship.

It’s the hot girl who starts checking your phone after two days. Many times, it’s similar to the reason your last relationships didn’t work out. So why keep chasing this kind of person?

Why stay with someone you know isn’t right for you? Why we do keep finding ourselves drawn to relationships and people who are just wrong for us? Why, at the first sign of knowing it’s just not going to work out, don’t you just leave?

In reality, what keeps you yearning for good in the people who are wrong for you — whether it’s the hot girl who threatens to end your life every time you don’t respond to her texts or the guy who is clearly just a self-centered assh*le — is that you know it won’t work out and you like that.

You’ll take the drama and the excitement over the emptiness of feeling alone. Because, when someone is wrong for you, at least it’s someone at all.

What happens with people who are wrong for you is they temporarily fill that void and add excitement to your life, however shallow and inauthentic that excitement is. Feeling pain is better than feeling nothing at all.

Isn’t that why we willingly enter into a relationship knowing there’s a very high probability it’s going to hurt?

Whether you’re about to get your heart ripped out or have to deal with the drama of breaking someone else’s, it’s exciting and it makes you feel alive (even if you feel like you’d rather be dead).

Choosing someone who is wrong for you is as addictive as indulging in cigarettes and gambling. Many of us like the high stakes and the rush that comes with knowing it’s bad for you. It’s the thrill of not being sure, because in our increasingly dull lives, we look for any bit of excitement and spontaneity we can get.

And that’s not bad, or wrong. It’s just an examination of our tendencies. The problem comes when you don’t learn from this. You can’t find what’s right for you until you rule out what’s definitely wrong for you.

For many of us, we are still discovering ourselves and have yet to discover what kind of people we truly are. The problem really comes when we do start figuring out who we are and decide we really don’t want to listen to what’s really right for us, because many times, that means accepting ourselves.

It means accepting your flaws and your tendencies and coming to terms with the kind of person who is actually going to make you a better person.

Maybe you need someone who is quiet because you’re really loud. Maybe you need someone who isn’t going to take all the attention because you secretly like a lot of attention. Maybe you need a guy who isn’t going to dote on you and treat you like a princess because you’re already too spoiled.

Accept your worst self and understand what you need to do to become a better person before you are actually able to share your life with someone who understands you.

But when someone right comes along, you will know. It will be exciting, without the drama and the nerves. You won’t crave the fights and constant fear and excitement of ending it.

There will be an excitement that doesn’t come from the drama, but one that comes from knowing this person is just right for you. It will be a calm that you never felt from having someone who is actually right for you.

It will be easy; it will feel like an old sweater you never realized you had hanging in your closet that fits so perfectly and nothing will ever feel as right and comfortable on you again.

So don’t stop dating, or spending nights at bars looking for someone who you think could complete you. Because that person could be out there, and it’s noble to give everyone a chance. Start learning and growing from your past. It’s juvenile to keep entering toxic, superficial relationships because you are lonely or bored.

John Travolta, Chevy Chase, and Bill Murray all turned down the role of Forrest Gump.

In reality, Sally Field is only 10 years older than Tom Hanks.

The scene where Forrest sits in the hallway of his school while his mother talks to the principal was inspired by the Norman Rockwell painting “Girl with a Black Eye.”

Ice Cube and Dave Chappelle both turned down the role of Bubba.

Jenny’s last name is Curran, but it is never said in the film.

This was Haley Joel Osment’s first film role.

Kurt Russell reportedly provided the voice of Elvis Presley in the film, but was never credited.

The line “My name is Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump” was ad libbed by Tom Hanks while filming the scene.

Forrest has his eyes closed in every photo you see of him in the movie.

Tom Hanks’ younger brother Jim Hanks doubled for him in the wide shots of the running sequences.

There was no ball in the Ping-Pong matches scenes; it was entirely CGI.

The Doors have a total of six songs in the movie, more than any other band.

The line Forrest says when his microphone is turned off at the Vietnam rally is:

“Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.”

Forrest always wears a blue plaid shirt in the first scene of each age transition.

Following the huge success of the film, Winston Groom (the author of Forrest Gump) wrote a sequel novel, Gump & Co.