Being Social

For someone who typically finds comfort in residing in their own mind, the prospect of being social is often a scary one. And it is only getting harder and harder. 

Decades ago, the thought of being anti-social was hardly even a thought - downright unacceptable to the masses. There were certain obligations and standards to be held to by society. Back in the days of Suzie-homemaker wives, husbands wearing suits to the office and children having a different set of evening wear to play outside in, being anti-social simply wasn't "the thing". Men would wake up, eat the breakfast their wives created for them, in the suits their wives pressed for them and be social with their family they provided for. They would be polite to anyone they ran into on the way to the office, be politely social at the office, and then head home to change for the dinner party they were hosting at their homes. Wives would rise even earlier, make the breakfast and press the suits aforementioned, get the children up and running, be polite and social with their family, send everyone off, receive a phone call from a friend, make coffee and cake and be social with their friend (in between incredulous housework and dinner party preparation) and then send off their friend in enough time to accept their family back and change for the shindig. Children would be expected to be polite with their family, their friends as they awaited the bus/made their way to school, at school, and then be polite (or quiet, depending) at the do. 

Of course this would not be every day, but this kind of activity would certainly take up the better part of their existence. 

The existence that would surely give any one of us a heart attack. 

Now, it is much more acceptable - run of the mill, even - to be anti-social. It has become the norm. Granted, I think the lifestyle of the "Leave it to Beaver" days was much too much to expect of a person (*has breakdown from cake not coming out properly*), however I think we have managed to eek into the opposing extreme. Now we are not social with our families. We barely talk to them, for the most part. We make our way to wherever we need to be (work/school) by ourselves, ignoring everyone as much as humanly possible, and once we get to, say, work, we pretty much keep to ourselves. In fact, the majority of conversation I have at one of my jobs is about how awful is it to try and be social. Anxiety-ridden kittens confess their woes to me about their latest attempt thereof. They would much rather just stay in and check their social media accounts (HA. The irony), go online and join the anonymous as they fight pretend wars and battle strange enemies. 

Now I would be lying if I said that staying in did not have its appeal; there are so many days where I am exhausted from socializing at work and cannot wait to have a nice, relaxed day/night at home. Reading a book. Writing in the ol' blog. Even watching the youtubes. On the line. Even so, if the right person connects with me, I will drop what I am doing to go be around them. And talk. Watch some things. Just be around them. (This list is short, but it does exist.) But to not ever prefer conversation over DMs / likes / the reading of other peoples' business? This seems insane to me. I feel as though, in order to have this happen to me, I would have to simply not have met anyone who I like to be around. Maybe that's it; maybe no one has met the right friend/group of friends and connected with them. Maybe it's some kind of catch-22 scenario where they haven't met the friends because they've all locked themselves away on social media. Others have made it quite clear that I am unusual for my age/kind/generation, and I do try to subscribe to "to each their own", but I still will say that it all seems a little sad. Who knows, maybe not having friends you actually hang out with is the way to a better life. Maybe this generation actually has it right, after so many years of unreasonable expectations. But I think being social (in the right ways and settings) is something not to be missed. 

Vacationing

I have had precisely one vacation in my life. It was on the 27th of my birthday month, on the 27th year of my life. I had a grand old time.

Clearly I missed out on those family vacations as a child, but honestly? Wouldn't change a damn thing. I didn't want to go to camp. I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to leave the house as a child; it was all simply too overwhelming. Could you imagine what a vacation would have done to me? *shudders* I am grateful. 

The next possibility, of course, would be to take the "adult/spouse vacation". This is the event you plan with your significant other - and only your significant other (no big family stuff, thank you) - and you take off to some sunny/interesting destination that you mutually decide upon. You ask for the time off at work, you fill those little plastic bottles full of you lotions and potions, maybe even spend a couple bucks on a new outfit for the occasion. You time your flight properly and before you know it: you arrive in that cool hotel room you booked months ago to drop your bags off before heading to the beach. 

You can picture it now. You were picturing it before I even typed into the body of this entry, just by reading the title: "Vacationing". We all know what they are expected to be, what they have been, what they are, but I wonder if we really take them for the reason we think we take them. I suppose, as with most things, it would depend on the individual (taking the vacation). However, as a rule, you go on a vacation to experience a relaxed, alter-environment that is specifically away from the "9-5 grind" that you are used to. We essentially believe we take them to get away from work. To best separate ourselves from that specific stress.

BUT

I wonder if we actually take them to get away from our selves. The self that we are at home. The self that we have pigeon-holed ourselves into being at home. (Sure, you could change, but that would make other people really uncomfortable, so maybe you should just continue to be uncomfortable with yourself instead.) I certainly love getting away from home occasionally, but less due to who I have made myself out to be, and more of what others perceive me to be / expect me to be for/to them. Others see me the way they want. As they must. And regardless of how many seminars I hold on who I truly am, none of the aforementioned people listen to me.

"I'm an introvert"
"I'm not a people-person"
"I don't really watch television"
"I'm a writer, not a painter/artist. I just happen to paint. No I don't wanna talk about paint."

There are so many expectations other people put on me just because they see me as they must (for themselves). They find out something about me (something small or shallow, usually) and then fill in the rest. And then when I am not who they assumed/don't deliver on something I never promised, they get insulted and/or confused. I can't tell you how many times this happens. If I knew what to do about it, I would do it. People think they know my name when they don't, for Pete's sake. How did these people become so blindly confident? At any rate, You can imagine how exhausting this is. That is why this would be the reason I would take a vacation.

To take a break from what others expect from you? Now that's a real treat. That's probably why I migrate once every so often. And it always seems to be for about a year's time. Which is just about when I become less "stranger in a new town" and more "local celebrity". I don't know how this happens. I have tried so hard to stay anonymous before and it just never seems to work. I suppose this is slightly better than being hated everywhere you go. Harsh vibes are never any fun. But every once in a while, it sure is nice to take a break from all of it.

Acquaintances

Perhaps it can be blamed on my age, or the fact that I have been labelled as an "old soul", but I find it terribly odd - and even uncomfortable - when I meet someone for the first time and they immediately search for me on social media and request my electronic friendship.

I think that this go-get-em attitude is completely healthy and beneficial when it comes to the professional aspect; networking at a business after hours, for example. Make those aggressive connections! Grow your name in the community and certainly strengthen your company reputation. But what happened to casual circumstance when it comes to acquaintances? 

And that is the type of person I am referring to here; an acquaintance. Someone you have never heard of that you were introduced to one night while saying a quick "hello" to a friend at the bar. They look up your name. When they can't find you this way, they will search through mutual friend's selection of followers to find you there. Before you know it, you are inundated with private messages from a veritable stranger about things you really don't care to discuss. Which, of course, they will be things you don't care to discuss; this person does not know you! What's more, you don't know them, so even if it were a topic you typically find to be palatable, it is reliable on the company you keep (i.e., I will talk to my sister about her dog's state of being at great lengths, however have absolutely no interest in a stranger's pet or child, I assure you).

What happened to the casual run-in? That small event that once was so usual and has become more and more of an anomaly. Don't get me wrong; I really don't mind when I get to go to the grocery store and enjoy my shopping experience uninterrupted, but I think I would rather gamble on this. Although, I must admit, when we follow each other so constantly on social media, if ever we do run into each other in real, physical life, the distraction is to be much shorter than the run-in catch-up. It wasn't so long ago that I have forgotten: I would watch my mother just trying to get groceries done with us kids. Suddenly, as if alerted, the entire community would bum-rush my mother and assume position for a twenty-five minute catch-up conversation. My mother's face pained, smile straining as she would likely just be considering the fact that this bozo was going to be the reason she didn't get to sit down and read for a few before bed that night (my mother's life was always very precisely timed).

Some friend requests I have ignored, some I have denied but some I have begrudgingly accepted, simply because I do not wish to be rude to someone who means something to a dear friend. Or worse yet; when a co-worker befriends you online. I do not care to be put in this position one bit. Of course I am going to have to accept your request; we bloody work together! And if you are the type of person to put me in this position in the first place, you are likely the kind of person to bring it up at work the next day (or at least silently hold it against me for the remainder of our professional time together). I honestly couldn't tell you the last person I actually searched for online to request their friendship. This community is small. I am going to run into you again without trying. That goes doubly for the work environment; there are only so many of us who work here. It will not be long before your physical self and my physical self are simultaneously occupying the building again. 

Acquaintances: please stop forcing your unwanted personality on me and being so aggressive about you and I being a thing. It is only slightly less uncomfortable to me than a person who is interested in dating me portraying the same behavior. 

How They Make You Feel

My mother said that we get into relationships with people because of the way they make us feel. To me, that sounded selfish. Surely you should just really care about that person because they are such a great person and you should just take good care of them because they are, in general, so precious. Well, while that might work in less invested relationships, it's simply no good (for me, at least) when it comes to romantic love.

There are, for example, a few people on the street that I live on/work on/am social on that I would count as "precious". I genuinely care about them and want them to do well and know they deserve a kind of sweet life for how good of a person they are. To other people, to their children/family, just in general. I do not go home to live with these people, I do not go vacationing with these people, I will not marry these people. It is a much lighter relationship where you are "good" to them when you can be, but certainly they are not specifically counting on you to be as such.

Romantic relationships are much more personal. You could live with this person, you could go vacationing and you could get married. Depending on your beliefs, they may have already seen you naked (!). And depending on your beliefs, that might seem very personal, indeed. So with this person, who is much more of a constant in your life - not only on the minuscule/daily consideration, but also on a grander scale - is to be the person who specifically counts on you, and is to be specifically counted on by you. Since this is on a grander scale, this will have a greater impact on the way you feel, short-term and long-term. Ergo, this romantic relationship will of course hinder on the way that person makes you feel. You don't see a friend as often, and they have (likely) not seen you naked (metaphorically or otherwise), and as such have a significantly lower chance of making you feel like shit. Conversely, on the off-chance that they do make you feel bad, you can always just get your distance from them because: you are living separate lives. Maybe you don't run into them at all the places you go to run errands/get coffee/what-have-you. Maybe you don't even work with the aforementioned theoretical offender. MUCH easier to get physical and mental and emotional space from than a spouse. Plus you have that added benefit of not really having any enormous ties to them (other than emotionally, of course), such as a house, a pet, children... To be clear: I am not down-playing the wound that a great friend can help you achieve, I am simply saying that - for the most part - you can more easily shrug off the small stuff.

Which, naturally, branches off into a thought that I always used to have when I got upset at a spouse's actions: "Would I be this upset if a friend had done this to me?" Which already loads itself as a question, as it is to assume the other party set out to do something to me. Which is almost never the case. And if it often is, maybe get out of that relationship.

At any rate, I used to ask myself this question a lot, in an attempt to better-assess my anger/emotions/reaction. I didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Then I realized: you cannot possibly compare these two very different relationships! It isn't even apples and oranges, it's potatoes and race cars. One is completely not beholden to you. If they want to fly off to another state, country, another planet, they do not owe you any kind of conversation. And that's just for starters. Your partner is who you are to build a life with, for Pete's sake. You chose to be with them in a very specific, separate way from all of the other people you know. They deserve a specific kind of consideration. And, of course, in having this original thought ("Would I be this upset...") I became a bit of a doormat in my romantic relationships and, looking back, put up with much more than I should have. Clearly this theory was no good. You live and you learn.

You should, I feel, try to keep toxic people away from you, no matter what relationship they have with you. Toxic is toxic, no excuses. Give 'em the boot. And of course there are general behaviors that you just shouldn't put up with from your friends OR spouse(s). But for the most part? I try to take situations case-by-case.

Not Drinking / Veganism

I have found that most of my friends who have adopted the vegan lifestyle have also decided not to drink. They can still be around others who drink, others who like to drink, and they can still speak on the subject without going too loony (as opposed to most who are against drinking/have quit for addiction purposes). I wonder if there is a correlation, or if it is simply coincidence.

It could be argued that a person who has actively researched an alternative to their current diet and/or lifestyle is a person who is interested in health. Perhaps more "health-driven" than others who put exactly zero amount of effort and thought into their daily life. Which leads me to my next thought about how vegans will typically end up living their lives with more intent than the next person (it all starts with eating intentionally, drinking intentionally, and before you know it, you're a low-waste minimalist with a home-made compost bin).

There is a social side to this as well: It just so happens that there are not typically as many vegan-friendly restaurants as there are omnivore-friendly ones and, as such, vegans must do their research and be limited to what restaurants they can set foot in. And if they are to be so diligent about where they can go for lunch, vegans will learn to not be so caviler about spending a night out on the town. Because when you drink, you get hungry, and after the recent scandal at Burger King (selling meat patties, masquerading as Beyond Burgers), we are not likely to take to fast food. Of course it is not only food, but drink as well; craft beer culture was a sensation that hit New England like a sack of bricks. So naturally I would love to go out and participate in this. But! I must be careful! As there are such things as Milk Stouts with actual milk ingredients in them. And Sours that store lactose, as well. (And don't get me started on fish bladder!)

I suppose there are many possible correlations here, but really I'm just happy for the people who are working on bettering themselves.

Gender / Identity

I never really remember wanting to be certainly female or male. I didn't even really want to be both. If anything, neither was just fine by me. I guess I never really gave consideration to what identity I should have. Is it because I was so comfortable being a female, and so that was that? Was it because it was not a topic up for discussion in my childhood? I guess I won't ever really know, because I cannot get my consciousness into another person's. Another person who, for example, was born with the physical body of a male and identifies as she/her. (If that was just the end of this blog entry: "Welp, that's that, I suppose. Guess I'll never know!")

Normally with a topic like this - I don't appear to be affected by it, don't think about it on a daily basis, etc... - I would keep my nose out of it. But there are enough people in my immediate life who discuss this topic as many times as was necessary to start my own gears clicking. I try to put myself in their position in order to (hopefully) better understand it/them. What's that thing... oh, yeah: Empathy.

I've never really felt like I was specifically a woman, although I am comfortable being in the body I was born in. That is, if I were uncomfortable with it / in it, I feel as though that would be one of those things you just know. And I don't think I am uncomfortable in this body, therefore I must not be. I could possibly just be comfortable with it because I am used to it. I have a tendency to adapt very well / thoroughly. Also, since I can remember, my mind has been otherwise occupied (OCD shit). (I only say "otherwise" because I have spoken with people who are not affected as I, specifically, am, and they have told me that what used to occupy my mind was unusual.) And, yes, I have really reeled it all in quite an astounding amount, which is why I can even sit still long enough to write this blog entry AND enjoy doing so - thank God. Even so, however, perhaps my mind (young or old) is simply not wired to consider things such as "who am I?". I have already decided that I have no purpose. I never really questioned the "meaning of life", as apparently everyone else has (??). Perhaps it simply doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Perhaps the reason why it doesn't matter to me one way or the other is because I have never battled with the thoughts / feelings that people who battle with identity have battled with. Goodness. It is so very hard to say.

I will say, however, that since I was young, I remember wanting to be an animal. Is this usual? I decided I wanted to be a horse. And when I was told by my mother that I could not grow up to be one (because that's "not how that works"), I was torn to bits about it. Even playing "house" - which, by the way, what an excruciatingly dull bloody game that was - I cannot express the amount of disinterest I had in being the wife, husband or baby. I wanted to be the family dog. I wanted to bark. To run around on all fours like the wild beast I was surely born to be (allergies and all). It could be argued that this sprang from a deep-seeded desire to never have to communicate with anyone outside of my immediate family ever again. Because let me tell you: that was ever-present. To be clear: this was not shyness. This was something more like a decision.

I have always related more to animals, I suppose. Even these days, I either enjoy seeing or can't help but see beast-like similarities in my movements, my reasoning, my habits, decisions. Maybe I just think it's way cooler to be an animal and wish that that was I thing I could do. Maybe it's as simple as that. I do really enjoy being human, though... I wonder what the pull was / is. I wonder where this started.

When I was pretending to be a horse (did I just type that?), it was genderless. Maybe not on purpose, maybe just because that didn't matter to me. It never mattered. I didn't care if you were male or female, if you weren't my mother, father or sister, I wanted precisely nothing to do with you. My sister would even ask me if I had any "crushes". She thought I was lying when I said "no". I eventually became convinced that I should be feeling a certain way toward someone, and when someone asked me out I just kind of shrugged and said "yeah, alright". What I should have said was: "I am mostly robot and am not interested in feelings and certainly no interest in sex, but let me say thank you anyway, because apparently what you just asked me is considered to mostly be a compliment here." But I didn't know that that's what I should have said. I thought everyone was just anxious around everyone (the way I was) and was usually uncomfortable (me), especially in school. Most of the male-type-humanoids who I "went out with"? I didn't even want to be around them in the first place. Why did I do this to myself? I wish I could have just known that it was okay to not be interested in dating.

When my sister and I would pick out our favorite characters / the ones that we related to the most (in movies / shows / books), I almost always chose a male character, while my sister chose a female. There could be a few reasons for this: one being that I subconsciously didn't want my sis stuck with a man-character (because I knew she loved being female and I didn't really care either way, so I might as well just take the one she didn't want). Similarly (but still separately), it could have something to do with the fact that I was the little sister and, as such, naturally assumed the "beta" position in socialization with the big sis. That holds water either way, actually, because even when I would pick the male, I would typically pick the lowly male side-character. Of course, that could have been due to the fact that the "lowly male side-character" was usually the only funny one in the damn thing. And funny... oh, to be funny. What's that over there? The promise of sexual compatibility? Oh, no thank you, I would much rather just be able to make people laugh.

The same thing happens when I write, a lot of the time. If there is a main character narrative, it is typically in a male's voice. How would I know what male people think? I have never been one. I have never desired to be one. I think it may just be that I was brought up in a spot where the males of the entertainment world were funny, while the females were beautiful. The rest of it was likely that I just didn't even think to think about it because I was so overwhelmed about simpler things / thought in patterns / spoke in binary. And now? Just doesn't seem to matter to me.

YouTube: Good Company

When my sister and I were younger, she used to invite me into her room while she cleaned it.

"I don't want to help you clean" I would say. She wasn't going to Huck Finn me.

She would then say that she didn't want me to help her clean, she just wanted me to come in and "hang out with her" while she cleaned. She was not lying. This was genuinely all she wanted. I never understood it back then, being the sardonic little loner that I was at the time. When I had alone time in my room, I felt relaxed. I could write in my diary/journal, listen (and sing) to my music that nobody else wanted to listen to, maybe even get in a nap if I was lucky. Not much has changed. My sister, however, was a much more socially developed creature and had interesting things to say, so she wanted to discuss them with me as she cleaned. This would make cleaning more enjoyable for her. And she would be multitasking. Very smart move.

Now that I am older, I have realized that I do the same thing as she used to, only the people I invite into my "room while I clean it" are the personalities of youtube.

In a world where it is getting increasingly difficult to have face time, quality conversations nearly a thing of the past, sometimes you just want to hear a familiar voice. Or even just a pleasant human voice. Like when you leave the radio on for your pets before you leave for the grocery store. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's comforting. A quick trick to get the job done. And let's be honest, here; people can say "call me any time" as much as they want. The reality of the situation is that nobody is available all the time. 

We all have our crazy schedules, we miss out on our friends because of the work we choose to do (that we fool ourselves into thinking we "need" to be doing) and we go weeks/months/what-have-you without seeing them. And sometimes when we finally get an opening/opportunity to go see one of them, we are so exhausted and we "won't be able to stay long" so it "hardly seems worth it". Perhaps it would be best if we just "reschedule". When you have a long day of not interacting with anyone - or worse; you have interacted with just about everyone you didn't want to interact with - and you are too tired for travel, have no fear; youtube is here. You can just open up your laptop or smartphone and pop on whichever "friend" you feel like seeing. Listen to them for as long as you want and when you're done eating your dinner/ready for bed, just turn them off! You don't have to wait for an opening, you needn't fret about being impolite and if you had a glass or two of vino with dinner, you don't have to worry about dozing off during your commute home.

You no longer have "that friend who knows a lot about cars" or "the one who is great with makeup". You have youtube tutorials. How about that "friend who is so much fun to have dinner/drinks with"? Mukbangs, of course.

I suppose there are better ways to deal with what is essentially a product of a kind of loneliness. And certainly we wouldn't need this crutch if we hadn't allowed ourselves to get so incredibly sucked into the vacuum of youtube / social media in the first place (irony). But we have, and at least we do have this tool to utilize.

Food Pantry

I was pulling into the local discount bread store when I saw a gorgeous GTO parked in the lot. I caught myself thinking 'What is a car like that doing in a lot like this? Surely they do well enough to afford regular people bread'.

There are a few things off with this knee-jerk reaction, one of them being that this was my knee-jerk reaction.

First of all, it's not like there's a discount bread store law that says that you have to be low-income in order to participate in their discounted grainy goodness. Also, maybe this person always cheaps out on bread and that is how they can afford this beaut. It's not like I'm driving Pa's old, busted up station wagon over here, and part of the reason why I have the car that I have is because I cheap out on bread. And other things. (Things that make sense to "cheap out" on, anyway, not everything. I believe sometimes it is more of a sound decision to consider the long-term investment. Take cars, for example.) You have a sizable financial goal? Then you do what you must to achieve it. You tighten your belt, cut corners and so on. Also - and I cannot stress this enough - it is absolutely none of my business where someone else shops; this person is not harming anyone by choosing to buy a decent vehicle and arguably indecent bread.

I realized that this attitude was ingrained (grain, ha) into my thought process from a young age. Parents, teachers, just adults, really, making commentary that I subconsciously picked up on here and there. For example: when my mother and I would suit up to go to the food pantry and she would say something like "Don't wear anything too nice". Obviously it is already a little odd that she was treating this like a sting operation, but mostly it was that underlying guilt that she had from possibly not deserving this assistance. From thinking things like "well maybe if I just worked harder" or "maybe if I didn't spend money on [insert example]". Whatever it sprung from, it sprung forth unto me. It didn't take long for my subconscious to kick in and decide that I ought constantly prove that I am not pulling wool over the food pantry's eyes. Which, of course, is entirely relatable to the aforementioned discount bread store debacle.

Do I even care about that person? Of course not. God knows I am typically the only one in a crowd not asking about the other person's trip to Vancouver. "Oh, yeah! How'd that go??" I couldn't possibly contain my excitement. PLEASE hurry up and tell me EVERYTHING.

So if it's none of my business and I don't care, then I think it's probably time to work on this habit and drop it like it's hot.

Why must we feel so guilty about getting a leg-up? Why must we wait until the problem is so enormous that the only possible solution is to "go to the food pantry"? "Well, I could have just made a quick trip this way earlier on in the year. That would have afforded me the cash amount that I needed to pay that electric bill. Then I would not have had to go back to the pantry again. But instead I bought everything at a grocery store, went a dollar and ten cents overdrawn, was hit with overdraft fees, got denied for a small loan, got depressed, sold my plasma for alcohol and am now homeless and currently residing in the dumpster just outside the Good Shepherd. Now I have to go to the food pantry to survive!"

I mean, sure, there are those people who take advantage of the system (most of which are in my family; my apologies to the good state of Maine on their behalf), but for the most part, the people who rely on consistent "help" are the people who simply should not have waited so long to ask for it in the first place. I really love the ideas of food pantries and subsidized housing, etc... but I just think we could take better advantage of them without abusing them.

...And all from going to the damned bread store.