Category: Words

At the same time, I wanna hug you
I wanna wrap my hands around your neck
You’re an asshole but I love you
–P!nk/True Love

True love is the devil’s crowbar.
–X/True Love

Ever been involved in a love-hate relationship?

I haven’t.

It seems like it’d be a sort of a universal romantic rite of passage, but I’ve never really been there. Once I figure out I don’t like someone, it seems pointless to keep seeing them. One of the main reasons to be romantically involved with someone is because you like them MORE than anyone else. Plus sex. Great sex with someone I dislike has never made me want to keep someone around for long.

For me, liking someone is mandatory. I haven’t ever really understood the lure of the relationship that is full of drama and fighting. To the point that I am still friends with almost every person I’ve ever had any sort of a serious relationship with, much to the chagrin of anyone new I become involved with as I go through life.

Note to self: stop and think about this. Do you have trouble letting go, or are they all really so great that you should keep them forever? Answer to self: mostly, they are all really that great.

Have I ever been in love with someone who’s an asshole? Well. Maybe. A bit. Around the edges. That doesn’t mean I wanted to strangle him. Much. Usually. Sometimes just a teeny bit. Not until he is dead or anything. Plus, when I fell in love with him, he wasn’t an asshole at all. Or maybe I just didn’t notice until later. Maybe he never was.

Oh, he was…at times. Not always.

Kayso…

Some of it is human nature– no matter how much you like someone in general, you never like anyone 100% of the time. It’s not possible. No matter how awesomely perfect a person is, you are going to want to kill them once in a while. Maybe they leave the toilet seat down most of the time, and then always manage to leave it up on the one night you have to get up in the middle of the night all half asleep. Or they just can’t ever state a preference about where they want to go for dinner, except it’s not ANY of the places you want to go. “Wherever you want, babe. No. Not there.” Or they won’t ever tell their Mom to stop calling at 0700. Or they are incapable of going grocery shopping without an itemized list including brand names and eleventeen thousand phone calls so it takes longer than if you had just gone yourself. Whatever. Everyone is going to irritate the crap out of you at some point.

It is inevitable, and it’s OK (as long as you don’t actually strangle them. Strangulation is both morally wrong and illegal.)

And don’t think I have forgotten that I am also sometimes an asshole. I am. I am inpatient. I like to have my own way. I like to be right. I can be judgmental. If I am pushed, I can say things that are really cruel. I am a slob. I would rather not cook. I cry when I would be much better served by discussing my feelings intelligently. I have a tendency to be..uh…intense about things.

A lot of people probably think I am an asshole a lot of the time. Mostly I am not…but I do have my less than stellar moments. Chelle says it’s because I’m human. Chelle is never an asshole, as far as I can tell.

I dunno.

Have someone in my life who I hate? Not likely. Not for long.

What do you all think is awful about me? Should I put up a poll? It would be fun!

Here we go:

[poll id=”3″]

Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.
–Honoré de Balzac

If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.
–Jean-Paul Sartre

I’ll read my books and I’ll drink coffee and I’ll listen to music, and I’ll bolt the door.
–JD Salinger

As someone who tilts pretty strongly to the introverted side of life, there is something I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t understand about introverts. Two things, actually:

1. Being introverted isn’t the same thing as being shy, though many introverts are also shy.
2. Being introverted doesn’t mean someone doesn’t enjoy people, it just means that they prefer to take their people in smaller doses.

An introvert doesn’t feel more energetic after being around groups of people, but gets mentally drained. After I spend time with a large group of people, particularly if I don’t know many of them, I’ll need to spend some time on my own before I’m quite right again. I need to recharge. I think that’s probably the biggest difference between introverts and extroverts, and also the biggest potential source of conflict. An extrovert gains energy from being around people, and an introvert loses energy. If we don’t understand that about each other, it can lead to problems.

Extroverts often don’t understand why the introverts are hiding in their room reading when the party is still going on. Or why they don’t want to go to the party in the first place. Since they feel more energetic after spending time with groups of people, it’s easy for them to assume that there’s something inherently unsocial about someone who doesn’t feel the same way.

Introverts don’t understand why the extroverts always want so many people around all the time. It’s easy for me to assume that there’s a flaw in the character of someone who can’t seem to have a good time on his own, but always needs to be surrounded by tons of people.

An introvert wonders what the extrovert is hiding from himself by avoiding solitude. An extrovert wonders what the introvert has to hide from other people.

If we try to understand how we each operate, we can be a source of support to each other. An extrovert can draw me out, bring me out of my comfort zone. I can help an extrovert get to know himself better, bringing some introspection into his life, bringing him out of his own comfort zone.

Each social type has its own strengths and weaknesses. Neither is inherently superior.

As a shy introvert, I spend a lot of time alone. By choice. I need it. It was only recently that I began to figure out that it wasn’t because I am weird or because I don’t like people. I’ll always need to balance my need for solitude with a need for what other people bring into my life.

How do you deal with an introvert? Easy. If I’m at a big party with you and I seem to be spending too much time watching the proceedings from a distance, check in with me and ask if I am having a good time. If I am smiling and I seem OK, and I tell you I am enjoying myself, then I probably am. Many introverts enjoy watching people interact. We like listening to the extroverts perform. We’re observers. If you’re a life of the party type, I probably also love watching you do your thing. Chances are I’ll even find a few people to talk to one on one.

If there are people at a party who I know and like, I will have a good time. introverts just enjoy large groups in a different way from extroverts. We prefer to see people in smaller quantities, but we can deal with the occasional big bash and have a great time. In our own way.

Unless the party sucks. No one likes a party that sucks.

One of the things that is the most annoying to me is when people assume that I am no fun because I am initially quiet. I hear “have you always been this funny?” a lot. And yes. I have always been this funny. You can be funny and quiet. People who step away from the crowd and talk to me will find that out. Unlike most extroverts, a shy introvert tends not to perform for strangers. A lot of times, the things I say are not heard because it’s hard for people to listen in a crowd. It is very hard for me to chat with people I don’t know. I feel awkward. I can’t think of things to say. It’s not because I am stupid or boring, it’s because I am shy. I do the best I can, but I suck at it. Maybe I should get a button to wear that says “I’m not a boring snob, I am just socially awkward.”

That itself would be socially awkward, I know.

It really helps when my more extroverted friends realize that after a weekend with a big group of people, I will be a little quieter than usual for a few days. I won’t leave the house. I’m not depressed. I am not being withdrawn. I am just getting my mental energy topped up again.

If I go somewhere with a group of friends and leave the group for a few hours to curl up with a book and they understand that it doesn’t mean that I think they are boring? If they leave me alone because they understand?

Heaven.

If you can respect my craving for time alone, I will respect your need to be around people and understand that you find it as energizing as I find it draining. If you can spend time with me talking and reading just the two of us, then I might even learn to love you.

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death
Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.
Willow: You’re not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.

I am not a big TV watcher in general. I read a lot. I scribble a lot. I watch old movies a lot. I have a job. It doesn’t leave me much time for TV. There are shows that I enjoy, but i don’t typically have strong feelings about them.

Back in the 90’s, one of my friends got me hooked on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is one of the few TV shows I am completely nuts about. I have seen every episode. I own the series on DVD. It’s queued on all of the streaming subscriptions I have. It is my go to whenever I am depressed, or sick, or just feel like binging on TV. Like on a rainy post-Christmas day when I don’t feel like doing any of the things I am supposed to be doing.

So, I lit a fire, put a pot of soup on, and had a bit of a marathon.

Other people have already written everything that needs to be said about what makes Buffy so great. The clever writing. The excellent cast. The genius of the show’s creator, Joss Whedon.

One of my favorite things about the show is that it will often take a feeling and “what if” it into a whole episode.

People often feel like they are invisible. What if they really were?

In Season 7, one of the main characters, Willow, has gone through an Evil Witch phase, but gets sent off to England to be rehabilitated. She returns to town from Evil Witch Rehab, and both she and her friends have reservations about if she is really ready. No one, including Willow, is quite sure she can be trusted.

Willow has always tended to feel invisible. She’s the show’s awkward smart girl, the most socially invisible type of teenager. In this episode, she really becomes invisible, at least to her friends. She can’t see her friends and they can’t see her. It leaves her both emotionally and physically vulnerable.

Throughout the episode, Willow is looking for her friends (who are trying to figure out why she never got off her plane from England) and assumes they are still mad at her about the Evil Witch thing.

The show takes the vulnerability you feel when people don’t see you on an emotional level and plays it into the actual physical danger that occurs at least in part because people can’t see her. In this case, Willow is captured by a skin-eating demon. Her friends don’t see her, so they don’t know she’s in danger.

Eventually, they kill the demon and are all able to see each other again. Although they are all still a little unsure if Willow is completely trustworthy, they realize that they still love her and want to be supportive.

So what?

Well. Do I have to have some sort of theory about everything? Can’t I just like the show?

Yeah. There really should be some sort of connection to something, shouldn’t there…I suppose the connection is just how much I have been thinking about trust lately. How much I think about feeling invisible in general.

It’s always good to know that my issues are the same ones that every 15 year old has.

I’m not 15?

Well, fuck.

Does that mean I have to get new and improved adult problems???