Eccentric Flower:199907/I like string

Let's clear this up, right off the bat: Patrick is lying.

I don't deny that Molly and I did talk about Italo Calvino and Martin Amis (neither of whom are obscure or artsy-fartsy stuff in their home countries, Patrick) and some rocknroll obscura as I recall, and probably god knows what else.

On the other hand, he neglects to mention that when he and Molly began to talk theatre - I won't dare talk theatre with either of them, they're both way beyond my level - I was the one who felt like I might as well put my finger to my lower lip and make booga-booga noises.

He kept up just fine. He just undersells himself. Frantically. So don't believe him; he lies.

Proof of the pudding: He left so he could go see a movie that most people have never even heard of. Explain that, mister Patrick!

It's a good thing his lies are so entertaining, or several of us would have to tie him up and kill him.

The problem is that Patrick and I are both the kind of people who sit at a table, have a lovely time, and then as soon as we stand up, the nasty inner voice in our heads begins to tear the experience apart ... wondering what other people are saying about us after we've left, wondering what kind of impression we've made, telling ourselves how foolish we looked.

I hate that inner voice.

In Patrick's case, I think, the worries are about whether he sounds dull or stupid. I don't worry about sounding dull or stupid. I worry sometimes about monopolizing the conversation or trying to show off ... but mostly my inner voice concentrates on my physical appearance. It tells me I look like an idiot, the way I choose to dress et cetera.

The older I get, the better I get at ignoring my inner voice. I mostly don't care how I look - with strangers. With friends is another matter entirely.

And once in a while I have lapses of character.

Patrick, the unease you noted on Friday was because Molly and I were going to a club later and we weren't sure whether to ask you, or whether to mention it. As it turns out, going to the club was a tactical error. At a dance club I can either have a really good time or I can be miserable. That night I was miserable. And I hasten to clarify that it had nothing to do with Molly's company. Or Nonelvis'. Just me.

I don't like not being beautiful. Molly linked to my mouth organ column on vanity. A lot of the people who read it felt I was trying to steer in the wrong direction. I was arguing that it isn't wrong for people to try to make themselves as beautiful as possible - that everyone should strive to be beautiful.

No, no, said the correspondents; that sets up horrid expectations; it justifies the existence of a club whose standards are too exclusive as it is. People shouldn't be trying to fit into the standards of beauty; they should be rebelling against those standards, trying to change them.

Get real. It isn't going to happen. Beauty wields too much power. I walk down the street, an unbeautiful person, and I see the reactions I get, the way the unpretty are considered and discarded. The fact that most of us aren't pretty people doesn't mean you're going to succeed in changing the standard. People don't have that much sense. I don't have that much sense: I want to be pretty.

Tonight I was walking part of the way home and watching people react to me and I thought to myself:

Just once I would like to see a person look at me in passing in a way that says they think I'm sexually attractive. Just once.

It's a very specific goal, and one I do not realistically have any chance of achieving.

Today I asked Melissa, after she'd been around me for a while and the initial shock had worn off, "So, am I more of a freak or less of a freak than you thought I'd be."

She said she wouldn't consider me a "freak" at all (shucks, that's no fun) although she was surprised that I talked as much as I did.

I explained to her that I didn't consider her a stranger. I only clam up around strangers. On the other hand, if it were a stranger, I wouldn't have cared what they thought. The people who get the most impact from my weird personality, who are most likely to shy away from it, are the people where I worry the most about the impression I'm making.

But now I think I'm just repeating myself.