Is This Real Life?

Taylor put his head back at his favorite restaurant trying to forget the night he just had. He was a physics undergraduate who spent most of his time in the lab. He felt more comfortable among his numbers and theorems than he did around his fellow students, which was nothing new in his life. Tonight was supposed to be different, some of his lab partners had invited him out to a party. They told him there would be drinks, music and girls. Taylor was a bit nervous but agreed to go. Once he got there he tried to overcome his shyness and mix in and for a while he was doing just fine. The longer he was there though the harder he found it to keep up with the conversations, scrambling to think of funny things to say. He began to slowly recede from the party until he found himself outside and on the sidewalk. Taylor could have easily walked back in, no one would say anything. Most likely no one had even seen him leave. His anxiety was just to much to overcome, Taylor walked away slowly in to the night to find comfort in the familiar. Sitting in his regular booth sipping on his mai tai he alternated between congratulating himself for knowing when to leave before he embarrassed himself and punishing himself for being a chicken and running. The alcohol had fuzzed up Taylor's thinking and his mind drifted. He thought about the odd dreams he had from time to time ever since he was a child. In the dreams he was a girl, now a woman in the current incarnations, who was similar yet completely different than him. She had the same parents and she was very smart yet unlike Taylor she was very attractive and very popular. She had no problems making friends and living life. Taylor never told anyone about his dreams as he knew it would be frowned upon. He was attracted to women, although he did very little to pursue them, and chalked up the dream to his envy of how beautiful girls were treated by society. Taylor couldn't help but notice how they were welcome everywhere they went, fawned over and catered to. Taylor closed his eyes and drifted to sleep thinking about how life would be so much better if his real life was more like his dreams.

"TAYLOR!!"  a loud voice shouting her name snapped her awake. Her hands shot to her face and hair almost as if she was trying to make sure they were still there. Taylor's friend Carly laughed, "Damn girl, did you get roofied?" Taylor shook her head, clearing the cob webs, "Ha no, I've just been exhausted getting ready for finals and trying to find off campus housing for the summer. Which you are supposed to be helping with you hooker!" Carly took a sip from her drink, "Sorry, but you know you were going to be the responsible one when you signed up for this friendship." As Taylor got up to leave with Carly she had a faint sense of the dream she had just had. Ever since she was a little girl, she had nightmares of being an awkward boy, now man, who seemed to be frozen by anxiety in all social settings. Her dream self was dumpy and constantly sad and, worst of all to her, a physics major. Taylor couldn't see herself wasting her intellect on such a theoretical science. In real life she was a chemistry major. Chemistry was where the big science bucks were to be found. Of course it didn't hurt that on top of her smarts Taylor was hot. She was proud of her toned sexy body, she got up at four in the morning most days to work out before classes to keep it that way. She knew that it gave her extra power and control in the world and shuddered a little inside at the times in her nightmares when her male self would get naked and she would be looking down at his belly and man boobs. As Taylor left with Carly she felt grateful that those were just dreams and that her real life was much, much better.