Eccentric Flower:199905/i will i will not
From Eccentric Flower
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may twenty-third, two am i will i will not There are other postcards from this weekend. You want to skip this one. Honest. It's for me. Everyone else will find it whiny and a little psychotic. - - - I will not volunteer advice on someone else's problems unless asked, and asked in a way that I don't think they're just being polite. I will offer sympathy, condolences, and other generic comforts, even if I secretly think I'm just being polite. I will not discuss my own problems except to Nonelvis (who's entitled to know) and in my journal (where it's safe). I will not disparage myself - except in my journal. I will not praise myself - except in my journal. I will be cheerful when in the company of other humans, with the following exception: My face is not constructed for smiling, and people are just going to have to learn that I can be cheerful without it. If I can't be cheerful, I will be alone. If I can't be alone or cheerful, I will be quiet. - - - Dear Me: You have a problem. There are two kinds of interesting people and you claim to be tired of being the second kind. You seem to want to be vivacious, bubbly, effervescent; you seem to resent being classified as moody, cryptic, and/or provocative. But you won't take that idea all the way. You don't want to be the Mysterious Somber Person, but you refuse - literally and metaphorically - to wear any more colorful clothes in public. The fact is, as much as you profess to hate it, you've grown comfortable with wearing the same jeans and t-shirt every day. That way you don't have to worry about what to wear, let alone how people will react to it. Being a more vivid person requires risk, and you don't do risk well. You don't want a long-term relationship, even though you're quite happy with that relationship, because of the risk it may collapse; you won't take positive steps about your gender issues in either direction because you are scared of the changes that entails. You were confronted a while ago by someone who told you that your dreams involved change and change involved risk. You spent three days after that mooning around with an idea-displacement hole in your head, filed the information away, and didn't actually change anything. You comfort yourself with the number of online friends you have, but you know that you can present any front you like online with very little risk. That doesn't count. There is no real sacrifice, no change involved there. As soon as you meet anyone in person, you begin to worry constantly about the impression you make on them; eventually this will either lead you to not care about their feelings, secure in the knowledge that they'll accept you no matter what you do, or it will lead you to sever the friendship, through action or inaction, because you can't take the risk anymore. In short, your interpersonal relations devolve to "Accept me on my terms or I won't play." Whenever someone questions your terms, you give up on the friendship. Now you are seriously contemplating abandoning a long-held friendship because you don't understand the other person involved and you are deluding yourself that the best solution is not to try. You tell yourself that it would be easier to become a hermit, to go off somewhere and write and not worry about pesky interpersonal relations. Remember these two things: 1. Even as independent as you are, you need friends. Your first act upon coming to Boston was to ask a stranger to dinner. You spent a lot of your last year in Baton Rouge unhappy over loneliness - remember, or have you blocked that out? I know you remember fondly when you were in a group of friends that met every week to play cards and talk. But your persistent refusal to join any club that would have you as a member makes that difficult. I understand, really I do, the thrill of pariahdom, the joy of being able to stand aloof. But that's outlived its welcome, don't you think? It's time to admit that sometimes aloof is just concealment for lonely. 2. Humans are your best material. How many of your characters are based on yourself, or on people you knew from your Rocky Horror days? How long will it take for you to build Molly into a story simply because she's the first new human you've had any substantial contact with in several years? How long do you think you can keep mining the same ten-year-old territory for stories? You make me sick, Me. And that's our real problem. Because I'm stuck in this body with you, and while you're still unwilling to change anything - because of risk - we're getting a worse case of self-loathing every second. It was pretty bad to start with. I suggest you find a new set of tools before you end up doing something really rash and permanent - and taking us both down together. Love (no, really!) © columbine |
