Eccentric Flower:199904/staring red-eyed at the rift
From Eccentric Flower
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april second staring red-eyed at the rift This is the strangest feeling. I've had it all afternoon. I've never been euphoric and dejected at the same time. Let me begin at the beginning. I have a friend, a friend who doesn't know me as well as he'd like but is an astute judge of psychology. In fact, he has a degree in it, albeit one acquired long ago and far away. I did not go to him because of his psychological background. I went to him because I knew he was fast enough and smart enough to not let me talk circles around him, to carefully and methodically fling my own contradictions in my face until I was forced to reexamine my own premises. And that is exactly what he did. I arrived there at about ten-thirty at night, and we talked - talked without stopping - until five in the morning. I drove home, had sex (hey, we're never both awake at that hour), decided work wasn't as important as letting my head settle, slept until two, cleaned the house for Nonelvis' seder until nearly five, brewed a pot of coffee, and here I am. I still hurt. I feel like I have been given repeated electrical shocks. My skin is numb. - - - I have become convinced that one of these two situations is the case: Either I don't know my own personality, or I know it very well indeed and have taken elaborate subconscious measures to deny it. I favor the latter theory, since I am normally a compulsively self-aware, self-analzying person, but it doesn't really matter which is true. Neither is particularly attractive to me. If it's the former, I feel like I'm being stupid; if the latter, I'm being self-deluded. I don't know which is worse. - - - Imagine a number line, a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum is a personality we'll call Columbine. You've never seen this Columbine, so don't assume it's the same as the personality you get from reading these pages. Abandon your notions; I had to. Columbine is someone I see very clearly. She likes to accumulate information, compulsively, but she dislikes having other people be aware of that; she doesn't advertise the fact that she knows things. She doesn't offer theories; she doesn't let people know her opinions. She is tremendously frightened by the idea that anything she says could be construed as controversial, that she might piss someone off - so she keeps herself to herself, observing the world quietly, filing it away, and only now and again offering a wry comment, in a demure Victorian voice, when she is strongly moved. She is a creature of manners, carried to a ridiculous extreme. At the other end of the spectrum is a personality that we'll call Julian (simply because it's a name I don't care for). Julian is very insecure and compensates for it through intellectual and conversational aggression. He likes things exactly thus and so, and tends to fight people with an onslaught of words and ideas, overwhelming them with sheer force of verbiage - even though he may not actually be correct, or have the foggiest notion what the other person's feelings or point of view is. Julian has an opinion on everything. Julian is stubborn and often rude. Julian is not good at interacting with other humans in a way that Columbine would find worthwhile. On the other hand, Columbine doesn't have any more friends than Julian does, because she's too timid to ever assert anything. I have spent the last year of my life really wanting to be Columbine. I believe that I have been doing this to try to conceal from myself the fact that I am much closer, on the spectrum, to Julian. My internal image of myself is as a very introverted, non-aggressive, personality. I am realizing that my internal image is wrong, or at least at odds with what other people are seeing. But only in person! Online, you get a personality that's a lot closer to the Columbine end, because I am consciously trying to achieve it. You don't ever get it in its pure state, though, because Julian keeps butting in, offering opinions whether they're solicited or not, trying to control and shape things his way. I wonder now how much of my avoidance of other humans - especially people where the friendship originated online - is because I figure they're going to meet me and get Julian and be very dissappointed. I know I would be. See, that's the problem. I loathe and detest Julian. I cannot convey to you how much I don't want to be Julian. But - and was not lost on me before, even though part of me denied it - if I ever did achieve Columbine, I don't think anyone would find her fun to be around either. Most of the characteristics I rail about in Fandom or hackerdom - the ones I have structured my life around avoiding - are Julian characteristics. The willingness to endlessly argue a minor point that no one really cares about. The refusal to ever truly drop a subject until it is settled to his satisfaction. The compulsiveness. The lack of social grace. The intellectual smugness. I can't handle those. Therefore I just decided to cover up the mirror, and have for several years. I am becoming aware that this is not a viable solution. To say the least. - - - Notice I didn't mention gender anywhere in there. Yes, I have gender dysphoria. Yes, I will always have a few problems - which I may settle sooner or later - because I want to wear a skirt to the office or wear makeup on bad mornings, or, more importantly, because I look in the mirror every day and think, "Damn! I'm still not a girl!" But those are the least important of my problems right now, and I hereby table them for an indeterminate period until I can resolve the two halves of my personality. Bear in mind my basic tenet is that I don't consider myself likable. Oh, sure, you like reading this stuff, but I continue to maintain you'd find me quite unpleasant if you met me. (And, by the by - for Patrick, and Molly Zero - if you detect some reticence in my willingness to meet you face-to-face, now you know why.) More importantly - even if people do like me, I don't like me. I suppose I've been telling myself for a long time that if I could only ditch the Julian aspects, I'd be happier with myself. Now I realize I won't be happy with Columbine either. I have to find something in the middle. That's much harder than just overcompensating in one direction or another. - - - So ... bear with me, folks, if I seem more schizophrenic than usual for a while. It's just me, trying to get inside my own head and straighten things out. At seven o'clock this morning I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I didn't do either. I repeat: I have never felt anything remotely like this before in my life. It frightens me. © columbine |
