I’m Special by Ryan O’Connell

clandestine make-outs, hazy sex, and a set of Cisco Adler balls. When you’re twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three, sex is constantly vibrating off your body and it doesn’t matter if you’re the hottest thing in the world. You’re young, you’re ripe, and you deserve to be picked. That attitude had infected all of my friends, but I had yet to experience it on my own. Now I wanted all the penis, all the love, all the experiences that came with being someone who likes himself.
    This confidence continued to stick with me all throughout college, but eventually I found myself slowly regressing back into the insecure person I was before. As wonderful as it was to be able to leave my disability in the dust, it was just a Band-Aid solution to a much larger problem. Lies can boost your confidence, they can get you accepted by a group of friends and get you laid, but anything that’s not the truth is going to fade.
    When I look back at college, I think of people like Emma, who wanted me to believe she was a professional tennis player, and I think of Evan, who was so heavily invested in this idea of being cool that he forgot to be a decent person, and I think of Stephanie, who went from an academic to a cokehead in six months. Most of all, I think of me—denying my disability so I could live what I thought would be a happier life. I can’t help but feel so sad for us. We were all under the impression that these reinventions would change us into something better, but they just made everyone more miserable and confused. You can try on different personalities like they’re clothing for as long as you want, but I guarantee that the outfit you were originally wearing will always be the one that fits best.
    The more distance I have from my college years, the more I realize that it was like a four-year summer camp where your only assignment is to read Judith Butler and feel emotions. I thought it was real, but it was actually just a very expensive dreamworld. And you know what else is a poor imitation of real life? A diet adult world that’s meant to give the impression that we’re people who are going places. Internships.

The Devil Wears Urban Outfitters
    Official Definition of an Internship (According to Dictionary.com )
    in·tern·ship, [in-turn-ship] noun
    Any official or formal program to provide practical experience for beginners in an occupation or profession
    My Definition of an Internship
    A period of time in which a twentysomething works for free with no promise of it ever turning into a paid position. Duties include working for someone who is only a year older than you and bringing them coffee, Luna bars, and the occasional Valium. Must know how to photocopy and organize large piles of paper while giving the impression to your boss that you are living the dream!
    I first became familiar with the concept of internships from watching The Hills —a life-altering reality TV show that followed Lauren Conrad, a beautiful and wealthy high school graduate, as she left behind the sandy cocaine beaches of Laguna Beach for Los Angeles to work a very prestigious internship at Teen Vogue . When Lauren found out she got the gig, she acted so excited you would think she had landed a paid position. It was going to be amazing! Her life would never be the same! Move over Diane von Furstenberg. LC’s putting on one of her funky headbands and taking over!
    When Lauren first came into the Teen Vogue offices, the employees prepared her as if she were meeting the pope when she was really just meeting Lisa Love, the West Coast editor in chief. In one truly bizarre scene, they even restyled her outfit so she could look more chic and “ Teen Vogue appropriate.” All this effort proved to be for naught, because Lauren ended up doing jack shit at the magazine. She just sat around a room that looked like a set and gossiped about boys with her fellow intern, Whitney “Just Say No to Having