After reading Be Different where in the author talked about essentially becoming an expert in electronics at a young age and I wondered why didn't I do that. I was good with computers and that is something useful so why wasn't I all about that? I think it was because I was too busy thinking about how to get people to like me. I seemed to have a good memory for the way people say things and by watching a lot of TV that led to good comic timing. So everyone thought I was funny. The problem was that I was still too inept to have a real social connection with anyone, so while I was funny and liked for that, it was really just superficial because there really just wasn't anything below that. If people did want more from me I wouldn't have known what to do. However, being funny isn't what kept me from continuing school, but the fact that I could get just close enough to people to see what I was missing, that failure was felt more poignantly. Although that all assumes that if I was not funny I would be a robot and feel no loneliness, but if that's all I ever know would I even feel it? If I focused on practical accomplishments then I'd have that which would be deeply valued by some people for it's more obvious applications. Instead I developed a superficial charm which has been valued by many but I don't understand anything beyond it and thus I can't do anything with it.
And it's really still like that, only now it's at my part-time, seasonal, minimum wage job. Everyone thinks I'm great, but it doesn't really go past the job, and I don't think I could let it because they might expect me to be an adult, which I'm not by any definition other than the number of years since my birth. So there isn't anyone I can really interact with in my sub-highschool level of social skills.
14 Nov 2011, 1:13 am
