Known.

original

As it's the middle of Lent, I'm hearing a lot of talk about giving things up. It's never easy to change, and that's why Christians are supposed to participate this month--to make themselves better at something they might not be so good at. [both of those sentences end in prepositions, WHICH I UNDERSTAND TO BE ACCEPTABLE RE: MOST CURRENT STYLE GUIDES, but if you're going to sue me for being a purist you'd better hire some good lawyers because that deposition is going to take years.] Today I was thinking that I'm not so good at being human. Some people know how to connect with others, how to talk without being alienating, and how to present themselves the way they want to be seen. Me? I try to smile and be friendly, but my personality pendulum swings from overbearing to arrogant to reticent to silent to self-conscious to awkward to obnoxious and back to overbearing. I don't have a standardized outward-personality; the way you see me probably depends on how you know me and in what context we see each other.

I almost never volunteer any personal information or talk about my internal self with anyone. I'm perfectly aware that I don't do this, so I become incredibly frustrated when people assume that they know me. I'll bring up a movie or sing a song or quote a TV show or move to music and people go, "Oh my gosh, you know that movie/show/band/dance?" They'll make some judgmental-sounding comment about how weird it is that I said/did/thought that, because it is just so unlike me. Saying this to me when I'm in a particularly unstable mood is one of the few things in life that can provoke me to visible anger. I'm honestly curious: Why on earth do these people think they know me? What basis do they have for forming any conclusions? I haven't given them any information. They know absolutely nothing about me. The mere fact that they've spent time around me gives these people some false sense that they know what I'm all about, like they've been exposed to my inner workings by osmosis. And I must really be giving off the wrong vibe, because what people think I am almost never coincides with what I actually am.

News flash to 99.9% of people with whom I have any sort of social association:
You do not know me,
so stop pretending you're so surprised when you get a glimpse of who I really am.