2000-11-28 - 1:07

Just your silence is not sexy at all

So, I had a familiar observation given to me recently. Apparently, I'm too quiet . . . well, unusually quiet, at least. Since I've been hearing this idea for a while now, I can amend the statement to be that I'm unusually quiet around people I don't know.

A few years back, I went to a friend's house for the first time; and he told me later that after ten minutes, his mother asked him if I was always this quiet. How do other people act, anyway?

Maybe that was where the "antisocial" tag came from, although I think I've shaken that assessment lately. (And yes, I'll admit that I played that role up a bit; but I always found it funny.)

Thinking back, almost all of my friendships took some time to form. I worked with Greg for at least a month before we started getting along well. We'd always go to lunch together, with the rest of the crew; but I know that we weren't actually friends for a while. I guess that a lot of people would find that strange, considering how well we got along later in the term.

I could argue that I wasn't exactly at my most upbeat when I met Greg; but I know that I would've acted the same regardless.

It's not that I dislike most people. It's that I'm genuinely ambivalent. As far as casual acquaintances go--say, the other people in my class when I was in university--I generally have no opinion about them; and I assume that they are equally unconcerned with me.

I guess that a lot of people aren't like that, though. Just because I saw a face that I recognized in the cafeteria, does that mean that I should have automatically wanted to go talk to them? It always seemed that most people thought yes.

A lot of times, I preferred to sit with my own thoughts. Not if it was Stefan or Liam or an actual friend who I saw; but if it was somebody who just managed to work their way into my pattern recognition routine, does that mean that we actually have anything useful to say to each other?

Actually, I think that I could go through almost every friend that I have and say that it took us a while to become friends. I never knew Colin at all before we were roommates, even though we had been going to school together for almost two years. Ditto for Tayze; and we got along great, too, in the end. I don't remember Maneesh and I being good friends until late into his first stay here.

Maybe it's not one hundred percent true (I can think of at least one notable exception); but that's generally how it has worked. As I like to half-jokingly quote the Chooch, "I have no use for people." I say start with the idea that people just ain't no good; and add exceptions to that rule, as needed.

Okay, that's also an exaggeration; but it's true that I generally have no interest in people and I'm slow to open up and become friends. I think that I've always been like that; it's just how I am.

I found it funny a couple of years ago when someone more or less told me that he had gotten me through my "antisocial stage." Sorry, Trixie . . . I'm the same as ever. You just see me differently now because you actually know me (or think you do; although that notion illustrates that you truly don't).

This idea came up recently in a rather different context; and some of what I said here doesn't apply to that situation. Nonetheless, it was a familiar comment; and it got my mind going in this direction.

So, that's it. No moral to this story, no desire to change, nor resolve to stay the same. Just a little self-analysis and meandering thoughts. Hey, I gotta use the journal for that sometime.

J.