I am anti-social.
This does not mean I have an inability to socialize, I'm actually quite good at it when I have to be, but I am no fan of socializing. I've just spent most of my life by myself and haven't found things improve much when I'm around others. I'm guessing the fact that I equate "antisocial" and "not interested in socializing" is incorrect, since no one else seems to think the same way.
This does not mean I don't like other people.
I mean, I don't, but that's because I'm a self-centered jerk. That might be a joke, I can't really tell.
I usually spend time around people until they start getting too attached to me then I fuck off. I try to fuck off nicely, but there's an implied negativity when I describe it as "fucking off."
I tell myself it's because I'll never care as much about them (history indicates that this is the truth), but that may be fooling myself.
This is the wall I've chosen to erect around myself, and it's a wall that I take full responsibility for and know fully well I can tear it down whenever I chose. There's comfort in my little isolated world because nothing threatens my carefully constructed universe full of random thoughts no one cares about but me. Some of this may come from the fact that I'm a compulsive talker and have a lot of trouble not saying everything that's in my head (the unnecessary length of my comments and blogs are indicative of this). Some of my coworkers have been really annoyed by this because they often (often = never) don't care about the repair I'm doing and the weird problems I find.
Don't know why that came out, but it seemed to want to be written somewhere.
What I've been thinking about lately is the relationship between what we are and what we do.
See, I identify myself by qualities I possess internally. People don't often see me as insecure and lacking confidence, but I do. I am insecure and I do lack confidence. At least I think I am and I think I do.
If no one else sees it, and I don't express it externally, then does it exist?
Are they qualities I used to have that I have shed over time and I just can't step outside myself and see that things have changed? How does one do that? And I still think everything bad that happens is my fault and that everything good came from an outside source. This sounds a lot like I'm insecure and lack confidence.
But people are often surprised when I describe myself as that.
So what's real: what I feel or what I show?
I went to a job interview years ago where I had to do a personality profile, and they couldn't figure out why my self confidence tested as stupidly low when they had met with me and talked with me and thought the exact opposite. I'm not saying those tests are right (I firmly believe that all answers require some explanation and that multiple choice/True & False mean nothing because there's no context or test of actual knowledge. I'm not bitter, I'm really good at those tests), but it suggests that the internal is true and the external is false.
If so, am I just living a big lie? That can't be right, because I don't express false opinions or back down in an effort to maintain social comfort. But that suggests some amount of self-confidence, which means that the external is true and the internal is a lie.
The truth must lie somewhere in the middle, but that's a logical conclusion and not an emotional one.
As an emotional being, it nigh impossible for me to govern my internal struggle logically.
I guess it's just one life's little mysteries.
Fucking life's fucking stupid fucking little fucking mysteries.
Make a little birdhouse in your soul.
DO IT! MAKE A BIRDHOUSE
J.R.
This does not mean I have an inability to socialize, I'm actually quite good at it when I have to be, but I am no fan of socializing. I've just spent most of my life by myself and haven't found things improve much when I'm around others. I'm guessing the fact that I equate "antisocial" and "not interested in socializing" is incorrect, since no one else seems to think the same way.
This does not mean I don't like other people.
I mean, I don't, but that's because I'm a self-centered jerk. That might be a joke, I can't really tell.
I usually spend time around people until they start getting too attached to me then I fuck off. I try to fuck off nicely, but there's an implied negativity when I describe it as "fucking off."
I tell myself it's because I'll never care as much about them (history indicates that this is the truth), but that may be fooling myself.
This is the wall I've chosen to erect around myself, and it's a wall that I take full responsibility for and know fully well I can tear it down whenever I chose. There's comfort in my little isolated world because nothing threatens my carefully constructed universe full of random thoughts no one cares about but me. Some of this may come from the fact that I'm a compulsive talker and have a lot of trouble not saying everything that's in my head (the unnecessary length of my comments and blogs are indicative of this). Some of my coworkers have been really annoyed by this because they often (often = never) don't care about the repair I'm doing and the weird problems I find.
Don't know why that came out, but it seemed to want to be written somewhere.
What I've been thinking about lately is the relationship between what we are and what we do.
See, I identify myself by qualities I possess internally. People don't often see me as insecure and lacking confidence, but I do. I am insecure and I do lack confidence. At least I think I am and I think I do.
If no one else sees it, and I don't express it externally, then does it exist?
Are they qualities I used to have that I have shed over time and I just can't step outside myself and see that things have changed? How does one do that? And I still think everything bad that happens is my fault and that everything good came from an outside source. This sounds a lot like I'm insecure and lack confidence.
But people are often surprised when I describe myself as that.
So what's real: what I feel or what I show?
I went to a job interview years ago where I had to do a personality profile, and they couldn't figure out why my self confidence tested as stupidly low when they had met with me and talked with me and thought the exact opposite. I'm not saying those tests are right (I firmly believe that all answers require some explanation and that multiple choice/True & False mean nothing because there's no context or test of actual knowledge. I'm not bitter, I'm really good at those tests), but it suggests that the internal is true and the external is false.
If so, am I just living a big lie? That can't be right, because I don't express false opinions or back down in an effort to maintain social comfort. But that suggests some amount of self-confidence, which means that the external is true and the internal is a lie.
The truth must lie somewhere in the middle, but that's a logical conclusion and not an emotional one.
As an emotional being, it nigh impossible for me to govern my internal struggle logically.
I guess it's just one life's little mysteries.
Fucking life's fucking stupid fucking little fucking mysteries.
Make a little birdhouse in your soul.
DO IT! MAKE A BIRDHOUSE
J.R.