CONT, because I was inspired to yak at great length and already feel superdefensive about it and like I shouldn't post this. But hey, nondefensiveness, being open, the whole point, right?
****
I don't know what to say to people anymore.
I frequently feel like I don't have common ground with, say, my neighbors or people I wind up working with (LJ is another, huge, wholly different story) but I can fake it really well. That is, til the toll of faking it gets to be too much and I sort of snap and run off and hide in the bathroom and wish either I or everyone else could just painlessly instantly disappear. I was Trained to be Social. I am in fact rather good at it, despite being introverted and reclusive and anti-social and fairly agoraphobic by nature. I HATE crowds. I HATE big parties. I don't like most social occasions. Yet if you plunk me in the middle of one, I'll manage to impersonate someone at ease and having a fairly good time. But it's pretty much a Big Fucking Lie, at least from the inside (as someone said, "charm is always a con"). I can slip into this manner really easily and without thinking about it, even (talk about defensive mechanisms) which leaves me in a quandry. Should I be polite and make chitchat? Should I try to feel this person out about favorite books, movies, television shows? Should I just let them go on about whatever? (As you can tell, when I was a drinker this made parties a helluva lot easier, because I would just get all nicely mentally lubricated and then it would all be Fine. Ha.)
The social experiment is this: be less defensive. That's all: be less defensive.
I'm one of those people who would probably say, "Well I'm not defensive," mainly cause I blab about my life on my LJ (although not completely open even there -- there's flocked posts, a lot I don't put online about my life, &c). I can look outgoing and even confident in RL (see above), but in RL I'm really not inclined to talk to people about what matters most to me -- writing, sobriety, family issues, books, individualism vs. conformity -- and just stick to safe, dull, whatever topics (usually what they have seen last on television, which is never what I have seen last on television, because I don't watch sitcoms). I can feel people out in a sort of gingerly way to see if it's safe to "really" talk to them, but if you're stuck chitchatting about television programs, Real Stuff just isn't that likely to come up. I try to be open about certain things, like being a sober alcoholic, having depression and taking meds for it, blahblah, but those are more sort of political considerations than anything else.
Do you know why people try to make you feel bad about not having the exact life they do? It's because they're terrified that their life might not be the right one and want confirmation that it is.
Heh, that reminds me of something Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in a YA novel that I read a long time ago: ((paraphrasing)) if We all sew the patches on our blue jeans exactly the same way, then We are all together and no one has to be alone or die. But then there's You, standing over there with the wrong patches on your jeans even if you tried to sew them on right. If You're lucky We'll ignore You. If not, We'll throw rocks. Because We don't like You standing there reminding us that we're really all of us each along and none of us is safe and in the dark.
I like it because it's vaguely Taoist.
Taoism is good.
((trying to be all open and nondefensive)) I wish you posted more. I really like your insights and dry way of putting things. There's some cool quirky way your mind works that I really like.
Well UGH, that felt all horribly vulnerable and grossly needy. Still, now it's out there. ("I can't take it back, it's already out there....")
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branchandroot
CONT
Date: 2004-07-10 12:03 am (UTC)****
I don't know what to say to people anymore.
I frequently feel like I don't have common ground with, say, my neighbors or people I wind up working with (LJ is another, huge, wholly different story) but I can fake it really well. That is, til the toll of faking it gets to be too much and I sort of snap and run off and hide in the bathroom and wish either I or everyone else could just painlessly instantly disappear. I was Trained to be Social. I am in fact rather good at it, despite being introverted and reclusive and anti-social and fairly agoraphobic by nature. I HATE crowds. I HATE big parties. I don't like most social occasions. Yet if you plunk me in the middle of one, I'll manage to impersonate someone at ease and having a fairly good time. But it's pretty much a Big Fucking Lie, at least from the inside (as someone said, "charm is always a con"). I can slip into this manner really easily and without thinking about it, even (talk about defensive mechanisms) which leaves me in a quandry. Should I be polite and make chitchat? Should I try to feel this person out about favorite books, movies, television shows? Should I just let them go on about whatever? (As you can tell, when I was a drinker this made parties a helluva lot easier, because I would just get all nicely mentally lubricated and then it would all be Fine. Ha.)
The social experiment is this: be less defensive. That's all: be less defensive.
I'm one of those people who would probably say, "Well I'm not defensive," mainly cause I blab about my life on my LJ (although not completely open even there -- there's flocked posts, a lot I don't put online about my life, &c). I can look outgoing and even confident in RL (see above), but in RL I'm really not inclined to talk to people about what matters most to me -- writing, sobriety, family issues, books, individualism vs. conformity -- and just stick to safe, dull, whatever topics (usually what they have seen last on television, which is never what I have seen last on television, because I don't watch sitcoms). I can feel people out in a sort of gingerly way to see if it's safe to "really" talk to them, but if you're stuck chitchatting about television programs, Real Stuff just isn't that likely to come up. I try to be open about certain things, like being a sober alcoholic, having depression and taking meds for it, blahblah, but those are more sort of political considerations than anything else.
Do you know why people try to make you feel bad about not having the exact life they do? It's because they're terrified that their life might not be the right one and want confirmation that it is.
Heh, that reminds me of something Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in a YA novel that I read a long time ago: ((paraphrasing)) if We all sew the patches on our blue jeans exactly the same way, then We are all together and no one has to be alone or die. But then there's You, standing over there with the wrong patches on your jeans even if you tried to sew them on right. If You're lucky We'll ignore You. If not, We'll throw rocks. Because We don't like You standing there reminding us that we're really all of us each along and none of us is safe and in the dark.
I like it because it's vaguely Taoist.
Taoism is good.
((trying to be all open and nondefensive)) I wish you posted more. I really like your insights and dry way of putting things. There's some cool quirky way your mind works that I really like.
Well UGH, that felt all horribly vulnerable and grossly needy. Still, now it's out there. ("I can't take it back, it's already out there....")