"this
is how I feel about my idea of you!!"
That's what I hear, when people who don't know me try and tell me who they think I am and/or how they feel about it. I mean this in the self-righteous-rejection-of-criticism kind of way as well as in the somewhat less understandable exasperation-with-the-overly-enthusiastic-affections-of-strangers kind of way. The following is the procession of my thoughts as I try to identify and understand myself relative to the above little revelations of character imperfection there. (No irony intended here, but it I think it just showed up anyway. Whatever.)
When people
who don't "really know me" come to me and tell me they like me or in
any other way show me affection and indicate that they have it for me
personally, for any reason at all, I am generally some degree of impatient
and/or exasperated with them at best, and some degree of contemptuous towards
them at worst. And I'm not sure why that is. I should say when people do this
virtually, because in person it's [usually] okay, though rarely do people I actually even know somewhat well just come right up to me directly and
overwhelm me with their feeings and shit towards me (positive or not). People being that direct and open in person is, at least for me, an uncommon occurrence, let alone
when I don't even actually know them, and all they have done is observe me from afar (or, whaever the physical equivalent of reading my facebook and deciding to
dis/like me because of what you see on it is.)
But online it’s a whole different
thing. I used to accept every friend request I got, on principle, wanting to be
the kind of person who would, when given a choice, opt to accept people and their extensions of friendliness. By default, anyone and everyone who wanted to be my friend, I wanted to accept. I think that's a more reliable indicator pf an actually superior character than is rejecting whomever I felt I was better
than the friendship of (for whatever reason I may have decided to do that instead... even if it were
"because who the fuck are you?!") When strangers want to be my friend,
I reasoned, I should allow it, because why not?
Well, I learned
why not. Dick pics from random 45 year old men who don't speak English and repeated solicitations from virtual strippers with fake names are a begnin couple of examples of halfway decent reasons for me to say "fuck that shit" and not accept. Insane conversations
with overly sensitive, socially graceless internet psychos who might stalk and murder me for being less than Jesus Christ levels of warm and receptive towards their bullshit might be up there too,
though.
So I gave up on the idealist quest to be super nice to everyone who wants to be my friend. I feel bad even now just saying that, that I withhold a certain amount of my previously principled tolerant acceptance for random internet trolls, simply out of wary impatience for strangers who fuckin talk to me too much. Sometimes, I am a bitch, I suppose. Ahh, well.
I'm not proud of it, the way I used to
frequently respond to some of these random people who would show interest in me
online. I wish I didn't have to say that
it's true, but more often than not I was kind of a cunty bitch (perhaps defeatin the noble purpose i had initially in accepting everyone who tried to friend me.) I feel inclined to
rationalize my way around this one until I can find some avenue of explanation
that invalidates that confession there, but I can't, and I can't feel right
about trying to. I can just feel slightly better than I do about outright admitting
that I am not infrequently unkind and callous in dealing with the affections of people I
don't know (or more accurately, that I don't have feelings towards, because to
be honest, does it really matter if they know me? No. It mostly matters how
much I feel like thru do; in
simpler terms, it matters how much I feel…
about them). I can only conclude somewhat shamefully that I will not extend empathy and compassion to random people on the internet as readily as I will award them with my exasperation.******
I really wish I didn't
have to say that is true. I wish it wasn't. But it is. People have hit me up to
tell me how much they think I'm great for this reason or that reason and I just felt nothing, if not mild annoyance, often. People would tell me these things hoping that it made me feel
something, hoping that it meant something to me, maybe. Maybe they just did it
to make themselves feel something.
"I feel good about having said something nice to you", but then do I
get like that when I say nice things I don't mean?
Sometimes. For example, if my goal is to make
someone feel good, and so I compliment a shirt they have on that I don't particularly like, I still
feel good about telling them that I like the shirt, if it appears to make them
happy in some way. If someone made me feel obligated to compliment their outfit
but I didn't particularly like it all that much, I'd likely feel some sort of
uncomfortable resentment for being put in that position, where I have to lie and I have to be nice, even though I don't like
lying or being made to do anything, and
my natural response to that is
resentfulness and reservation.
If I was made to feel obligated to compliment
their outfit and I DID happen to really like their outfit, I might overlook the
general resentment I have for whatever meaningless social obligations
would force me to use my brain to think of some bullshit complimentary
blahblahblah in order to appease whoever the fuck would [/be a] bitch if I didn't. I MIGHT.
"Hey, I do feel a positive way about
this, and I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to express that, because that
shirt is pretty rad!"
I'm glad to express myself there, though is it
more glad for that self expression than I am just to say something nice to someone that might make
them feel good? Hmmm..
Its not
necessarily about not being cool with lying, because I'll lie to make someone
feel good about theirself, and even enjoy doing it, even though I'm generally
pretty against lying. Not if it's like "hey you're a great singer!"
and they are terrible, because then they will make a fool of theirself at some
point and I'll be responsible for encouraging that. That'd make me feel bad.
But if it's like "hey your shirt looks great!" but really it is
unremarkable and idgaf, I'll feel good about that one. As long as they do.
I was about to say "it's not about the
self expression, either…" but then I realized that maybe it is. Maybe it's
about getting to express myself and liking being able to do that. You'd think
if it was only about self expression it wouldn't count when I say I like some
shit I don't actually like, except that when I express my liking for an ugly
shirt just to make someone happy, I'm still expressing myself, only I'm not
really expressing my opinion of the shirt. It just looks like I am. What I'm
really expressing is my general affection or wish for the happiness of whoever.
I feel impelled (not compelled!) to reach out towards them with friendliness
and the words I use to express that are meant to communicate that feeling more
than they are to communicate whatever the actual content of the sentence is. If
that desire for a persons happiness is significant enough for me to consciously
notice it and decide to lie about liking said persons unremarkable shirt in
order to make them feel good, then the literal content of my words must not be as
important to me as expressing the feeling that motivates me to speak them.
Is expressing myself therefore more about expressing my drives and my feelings
than it is about expressing the honest
truth about my opinions and beliefs? At least some of the time.
If I knew
ahead of time that the person was extremely paranoid and distrustful and would
be more liekly to take the compliment suspiciously as an indication of my
trying to win them over, I'd feel less good about expressing my benevolence
towards them then. If I knew that they weren't going to believe me, than I
wouldn't feel as good about complimenting them and would probably inhibit the
desire to almost immediately following the conscious realiziation that I had it
in the first place, because that instant consideration would leave a bad taste
in my mouth, so to speak. It would make me feel negatively and reluctant in
response to the thought of saying that nice thing, because I'd judge it to be a
wasteful effort likely to be made in vain, and would decide therefore not to
make it. I need to mean it, and you need
to believe me, or I won't feel altogether right about being nice, either for
one or the other crucial piece there being absent. If I don't mean it and you don't believe me
that's probably the most discouraging expectation I can have ahead of time as
far as still deciding to be nice goes. Why would I do that? That's the most
pointless exercise of why-the-fuck-am-I-bothering there could be. I guess.
If I really really want something that I'd be
more likely to get if you favored me more, I might be motivated to be nice
still, but not really feeling like I like you that much and not anticipating
that you'll believe me would dampen the energy behind my effort significantly
and it would be an unenthusiastic and likely transparent manipulation. Being
that manipulations are generally not so effective when they are not convincing
and don't engage the energy of the other person (for example, by infusing them
with positivity), that'd still be a waste of time and I'd probably be more
likely to give up on the effort before making it than I would be to proceed
with the empty flattery, because my motivation would be sapped by the
anticipated failure enough that the thing motivating me to be manipulative and
sycophantic in the first place wouldn’t be enough to overcome that. The idea of
obtaining it would have to be immensely rewarding to me; Unless it was
something I really, really wanted, "theres a change this might work!"
becomes more "this probably won't work" and my dopamine levels drop,
decreasing my drive to pursue the rewarding objective. Like when you think
about how great it'd be to win the lottery, but you don't buy the ticket,
because your consideration of probability dampens your motivation with realism.
You can't believe it would even happen enough to really feel THAT excited about
buying the ticket, so you don't, even though winning it would be EXTREMELY
rewarding and you can acknowledge that ahead of time (obviously, that
acknowledgemet is what would make you want to buy one in the first place).
When
realistic consideration of probable outcome isn't as important to me as the
motivating fantasy of "what if it does though?", I know I really want
it bad enough. Then, even acknowledging
the heightened probability of my time and effort being wasted, and even
alongside the accompanying discomfort of lying (which I generally experience
whenever I lie just to get something I want from someone), I will persist in my
efforts with irrational hope and enthusiasm.
This almost never happens for me, personally (that is, having passion
for some outcome or acquisition enough that I give a fuck to really try when
it's unlikely I'll succeed) but I feel like most people probably work this way.
This might be another one of those "basically true about most people most
of the time" kind of generalizations here. I'm fairly confident that it
is, actually. I forgot what the point of all this was…
AHHH that's
right. We started at me feeling shitty over realizing that a few years ago I
responded to every random facebook message I got from guys who would message me
with complete cuntyness because I had no feelings towards that shit but general
impatience and/or contempt. I wanted to examine this and discover the root of
it, what subconsciously informed that behavior. Why did I feel like that? Why
did I feel that way and why did the feeling cause me to be shitty to people? I
like people. I like to make people happy. Even people I don't particularly like
or admire all that much. Usually, anyway. So what the fuck?
I was on a
lot of drugs at the time but I feel like it can't just be that. If anything the
drugs just made me feel some type of way that I'd have felt anyway if I had
naturally induced that state of heightened arousal (overstimulation;
amphetamine intoxication). You'd think I'd be more inclined to be nice feeling
so "rewarded" (flooded with dopamine, the reward neurotransmitter)
but with all that synthetic motivation coursing through my veins and pulsing
through my neurons all I felt motivated to do was be a bitch, and as verbosely
as possible, too. Wasteful words, wasted time, no good accomplished, and I
didn't even start out feeling particularly good when I initially responded to
any of those guys, and the longer I continued to be shitty, the further away
from genuine positivity I got. So what the fuck? What was that all about?
I feel like
hating myself for it a little bit but what will that accomplish, and I'd rather
not stop there, so I'm trying to ignore that feeling of self-loathing that I
earned myself in favor of hyper-analytically considering my motivaitons and
shit. I wanna know what made me be like that, I wanna understand it. Why? I
don't know. I'm somewhat annoyed that I don't know why. Until I can think of an
answer, I have to believe, by default,
that it's probably due to another undiscovered character flaw of mine. I will just feel vaguely bad about it, and be
lost and confused in my self-hatred, consequently, if I can't come up with a
better understanding, or at least a plausible explanation. Even if I'm
explaining something bad to myself like "I was a bitch because x y z underlying causes, as evidenced by x…y…z
examples to support this conclusion. This motivated me to be shitty because of x
y z shitty reasons feeling bad makes you do shitty things. This is an
exposition of weakness and flaw, entirely" I'll still feel better about
it, to have it explained.
Why? Probably because if I feel like I
understand it then I feel like I can intervene in the future to prevent this
predictable succession of circumstantial triggers from directing me into
another expression of character weakness. If only I can anticipate it first, if
only I can be self aware to acknowledge it now, I can prevent it later.
Knowing I'm
equipping myself with the self-awareness tools to use as weapons against my own
character weaknesses makes me feel almost as if I have defeated them now,
without even imagining exactly how I would or could. I just feel more ready to
face the future, more confident I won't have to feel shitty about myself like
this again in the future if I just make it through feeling shitty about the
past right now.
What the
fuck is that? What is wrong with me? I literally can't even remember what I'm
talking about like half a paragraph into writing some bullshit like this let
alone remember writing any of it at all later, in the moment, when it could
potentially come to mind just in the nick of time and divert my otherwise
assholic course of action from coming to it's rotten fruition…however that
would happen.
But none of
that shit will probably happen and no one will care either way. Oh well. Fuck
it.
So theres no
point to writing this, that I can expressly come up with right now. Maybe it
will unpredictably have some effect on me later, for some reason I might be
able to imagine but wont' even bother with trying to, because just fuck that.
I'm getting bored with this exercise of blah blah blah, it's losin me…
This all
came from a comparison of celebrity to my self-importance (can you call it
that? I feel like that's not the most accurate word but fuck it, it's a good
enough umbrella term to indicate something about the quality of my
shittyness).) I was thinking earlier,
like, when celebrities get tons of fan mail from people who are very
personal about their feelings and their affection and admiration towards them,
do they feel the same empty kind of like "yeah that's nice" and/or even outright irritation like "I
don't have time for all this, you think you like me this much, so what?"
that I'd feel sometimes with people who'd message me on facebook like "damn
girl you're so pretty fuckin blah blah blah I'm some guy you don't know but I'm
layin on the flattery thick anyway for some reason…."
Was I
irritated because I felt an obligation to respond?
if you send fanmail theres an implied
acceptance of the fact that many other people are also doing the same thing and
that your very personal shit will get lost in a sea of other peoples personal
shit and will, in all probability, not even be read, and if read, still less
likely be responded to. So theres not as
much of a feeling of obligation on the celebrity side that they have to answer
lest they feel like or be considered as
a shitty person for ignoring the affection and shit of others, who go
out of their way to express how much they "like them". You can just not answer, not even read it,
and not have to feel a thing and nobody could really fault you for it (if you
get enough of it, anyway). You wouldn't have to feel like a jerk who is personally freezing out another
person who is being nice, because nobody
really expects to get answered anyway. Nobody realistic, at least. So that
automatic resentment that I feel begin at once with the commencement of my
obligation to pay attention and respond to strangers isnt really there as much
for celebrities, or it shouldn’t be. There's no need for it. If you don't have
to defend against feeling like an asshole (having bad feelings about yourself)
by responding to someone you otherwise would blithely ignore, why would you
feel resentment at all?
It is easier
to appreciate fame when you don’t have to get personal with everyone who likes
you, maybe. Its easier to be liked by a whole whole lot of people you don't
give a fuck about than it is to be liked by a few people you don't give a fuck
about, because when theres enough of them, you can justify not answering and
not even reading that shit, and it's never personal like "sally I saw your
message in my inbox but I chose not to read whatever you said to me" its
like "who tf are you, Sally? You know how many Sallys whom I don't
actually know send me messages? Do you know how often I don't even read them?
Do you know how many other people with different names also send me messages
that I don’t read, let alone respond to? Its really nothing personal. You have
no right to get all upset with me."
But a
facebook message from a stranger is different because it's a direct
communication and they can see when you opened that shit and they know you
chose not to respond. I don't want to make anyone feel that way, and how could
I specifically desire to make a stranger I don't know feel that way? Why would
I feel inclined to make you feel any way at all, who the fuck even are you? But
people will take it personally anyway and feel right about doing it, and then
get all angry and become embittered and maybe hunt you down and kill you or
some crazy shit later. At the very least they'll send you a million annoying
harassing fb messages like "you're a bitch! Pay attention to me!!!"
and shit. And THEN I will have a specific desire towards them, a desire to
either ignore them more because it clearly really gets to them, or, more
probably, verbally abuse them like the cuntiest cunt I can possibly be because
fuck you motherfucker, idc!
If
celebrities were obligated and expected to answer every bit of fanmail and the
world was generally like "well what the fuck?" instead of like
"totally understandable, whatever" when they didn't, I bet a lot more
people who are famous would hate a lot more of their fans and would be a lot
more openly resentful of the tendencies of said fans to express their misplaced
affections that stem from the root sentiments found in "this is how I feel
about my idea of
you!"
