Ain't no food in mah house....

[ZiL]

I think my mom is purposely trying to starve us before Thanksgiving .

In other news, I'm trying to wean myself off that crush I had. I'm really tired of dudes...well, I mean having crushes on dudes who don't reciprocate, and dudes having crushes on me who I don't like. This guy, he's cool and all, but he's so ADD. And he's very similar to me in temperament, and so I feel like when I'm around him, I have a hard time holding onto my personality. He's like a steamroller forcing me to play some quiet feely-girl role or something. Most of this is probably just my own skewed perception, but this feeling is enough to wear me out and make me think twice about showing interest in him.

I tried to explain some of this to my best friend the other night, but she mostly just succeeded in pissing me off more . In middle and high school (she's known me since then), I was very awkward and shy and tended to be quiet, right? But since I've been at college, a lot of that has changed. In previous years, most of my friends were people who had been introduced to me through my best friend, and though they were nice, they were more like her personality-wise, and so I always felt misunderstood - being surrounded by those people only perpetuated my awkwardness. But in college I've had more choice about who I decide to hang out with, and with this increase in options I've become far different from how I used to me - less insecure, and far more social. But my best friend...she is still stuck with that gradeschool image of me in which I'm quiet, and she is sort of protective of me or something.

See, all of this complaining started when the aformentioned dude I was crushing on kept implying that he wanted to hook me up with his friend, thinking that I - being the "quiet artsy type" - would go well with him. In my opinion, describing someone as quiet and artsy brings with it a load of connotations and suppositions about their personality. This might have described me some years ago when this guy first met me, but back then I was unhappy and incredibly insecure. It doesn't describe me well now, and it doesn't describe accurately the direction in which I'm moving.

So I complained to my best friend about this description of me, and she told me "that's pretty much how you are."

YEAH, IN HIGH SCHOOL WHEN I WAS SURROUNDED BY YOUR FRIENDS AND FELT LIKE A TOTAL MISFIT! And then I went into this rant about the fact that she hasn't seen me in college or met any of my friends from college, and so she's missing half the picture too. She's an ESFJ, but I can promise you, if I stuck her with a bunch of my friends, she'd get pretty damn quiet and timid too. Judging someone's entire personality based off how they act when they feel awkward and out-of-place isn't too expedient.

So the main idea I'm getting at here is, my long-time friends still have me in a 5-10 year-old personality box, and they're giving me shitty advice based off their old-time perceptions. And it sucks. And the dude I thought I liked also has the same perceptions of me. Even though I've hung out with him a few times and have acted nothing like that. So. Uh. Lame.

There's nothing wrong with being called quiet. But it's inaccurate. And I know it's connected to these old perceptions of me from a time in which I was unhappy. I'm trying to move on, and I'm tired of being reminded of the past. I'll remember the past on my own time, lol.


This blog is stream-of-consious-like and has no flow, so I hope it makes sense.

 

[Tallulah]

I've been there so many times. I find that I end up distancing myself from those who insist on seeing me in a way that I don't see myself. Staying around people like that, no matter how "great" they are otherwise, just plays with my head and makes me miserable. I do understand that not everyone will get me, but I do expect those that I consider close friends to. If they insist on putting me in a box, I find that I just start to see less and less of them.

 

[ZiL]

Thanks for reading. I worry that's the road I'm headed on with some of my friends - splitsville. I think my best friend likes to think that she is the only one who has access to another element of my personality, and that around all others I'm highly timid. In some ways, I can't blame her, as she has only seen me in that old context. Being an ESFJ - she needs to see it to believe it, I guess. It is exasperating though, when you're trying to establish a new identity apart from that old one that was distorted by social anxiety. I'm hoping to drill the concept in to her head at least. Who knows about the others....

 

[Tallulah]

Yeah, it just becomes important that you feel like you're able to express all the elements of your personality that you feel like expressing, and then it's up to them to accept it. I think most people sort of outgrow the friends they had in high school, and then some reconnect later, after they've all grown up a bit. I think it's great that you're trying to give her a chance to widen her perception of you, though. I wish you luck! (In a sincere, not sarcastic way. Sometimes you have to say that, when you're an INTP. )