July 6, 2003
I Can Feel The Distance Getting Close
In many, if not all, situations where my chief concern is short-term results I find that the easiest thing to do is be a frigid bitch.
I realized this today when I was driving to get some gas in my car and was stopped at a light where two guys appeared to be "checking me out." If I were a more confident person I might have given them a long enough look for me to decide whether it was worth my time to engage in harmless flirtation, but instead I was seized by discomfort and intently stared at the cars coming on the other side of them. I cannot think of a time in my recent history that I have been happier to make a right turn and be gone.
Going beyond polite to strangers or other non-loved ones is taking a risk. I cannot be sure what it is I am putting in jeopardy by going beyond what I need to do, though if I had to guess I would say I am probably risking my pride. Though I cannot point at a time when my pride has done me any great service or made much of any impact on my life, I protect it fiercely.
Today I was wearing my new stiletto heels (my first pair!) around town, which only added to my bitchy attitude. When my feet look fantastic but are nevertheless pinched enough that I can never be quite sure if the next words out of my mouth will come out normally or as a wimper, I can easily glare at people or simply ignore them.
One of my biggest fears is that I will someday be in a relationship with someone and I will be cold, frozen specifically, and even though I may care about the person deeply I will be so disabled emotionally that the closest thing to love I will express is warm indifference. I already see signs that I am weary of people getting to know me too well, especially male people.
I crave and hate the distance.
When my instincts are left to do their worst I keep people several arms lengths away by giving them the impression that I am being sincere and open but only handing to them bits of myself I consider to be insignificant pieces of public property. When people think that they know you well they do not feel the need to press you and find out more. There is little curiousity to be found in the known. So instead they feel comfortable and knowledgable around me and they believe that they can predict my actions with authority.
Maybe they can. Maybe even probably. But my motives are more often than not undiscovered or misinterpreted. I have accepted confusion as an inevitable part of my existence.
Then I hate it because at the same time I want to be close to people and I want to trust them and I want to take risks and be relaxed and not worry about what other people think or feel about me. For once I want to feel absolutely confident that if I cannot do no wrong in the eyes of someone else, I can be forgiven for whatever wrong I should commit. Though the more I think about it the more I realize that I have someone very close to that description. So mostly I want to win over everyone else I love into a circle of love and acceptance of faults without a denial of reality or respect for others.
The more I read about the struggles of being gifted the more upset I get. It goes back to that attitude of acceptance. The world would be a much better place if we could all feel confident enough in ourselves that we would not see the excellence in others as a threat to ourselves but instead view it as a blessing. Then we could all encourage each other to make the most of whatever talents we have and maybe then even more great achievements could come to be.
But first society would have to change in a big way and I have no idea how it can be pushed in the right direction, if it can be. There would have to be some violent change in the way that a lot of us thing and what many people value and how we view each other and ourselves.
Love,
Mandy