When in an argument, I try to find the most extreme viewpoint as a means to satirize the situation – rendering it comical and, in so doing, trivial. The levity of constant humor also rescues me from any serious introspection or criticism. When feeling bad about something I dramatize my guilt, making it ridiculously maudlin, and then proceed to laugh it off. Exaggerated self-deprecation is essential in avoiding any serious guilt. Another method of subtle deception of self; yet it is ultimately an unsatisfying one.
Thus when I flippantly typify my personal relationships [of very close, but very brief friendships] by quipping “everyone gets sick of me after a while,” there’s always a slight sting accompanying the following laugh.
Abrupt endings characterize almost all of my phone conversations. There comes a point in the course of the conversation where dialogue slows as people search for things to say. This point is painfully awkward to me, and I do my utmost to avoid it. Consequently, I end phone conversations while both sides are still enjoying themselves and there are other things left to say. No extended “goodbye… see you soon…love you…yeah… yeah… goodbye” bullshit. Just a simple, “alright, I’m leaving, bye” hang up - simple, quick and painless.
It stems from an antipathy I have toward being considered burdensome. I’d rather leave someone and have that person feel dissatisfied than him feel bored. Maybe it goes even deeper to an inherent fear of worthlessness that the tediousness of my conversation would confirm. I constantly judge myself with the estimations of others. For Hobbes, the sense of Pride, or the need for others to estimate your worth to the same degree you estimate it yourself, leads to constant ‘warre’, making life “nasty, brutish… and short” [I forget]. For me, this devaluation of someone thinking my conversation oppressive would result not in war with others; rather it would determine the outcome of an internal war waged over different calculations of self worth. There are undoubtedly many things ‘wrong’ [whatever that means] with basing your sense of self upon what other people think of you; there are also a million reasons that it is irrational to be terrified that the infected will come running through my window in the middle of the night to attack me… but I am guilty of both. Michael says that I should work on my irrational fears… reason myself away from them in the middle of the night, ignore, and suppress them. What about my insecurities with regards to people?
Perhaps it is that friends grow tired of my personality or perhaps my own fear of the possibility of their ennui leads me to have very intimate friendships that last no more than a couple of years. I want to change that with him. I said before that pride is too expensive, and I still feel that it is. So I’ll wait to see, without preemptively fleeing. What this will prove I don’t know: perhaps it will make me more devastated if he does leave me or become tired of me; perhaps I’ll actually decide on my own, independent of the fear of his not loving me, that this relationship won’t work. In any event, I refuse to fall into the old pattern of running away at the first signs of disinterest, at the first slight onslaught against my pride.
I don’t want to flippantly joke about this years to come and silently cry in my bed later on that night. katherine 5:05 PM
Thursday, October 23, 2003
should
the sophomoric selfrighteous
shooting arrows of 'should'
billowing diatribes sans hiatus,
prove only to irritate us
with their lack of comprehension
of the meaning of 'good'
addendum sometimes this entire endeavor seems so superficial... my 'witty' title ceases to be funny when i really do view the blog as a mode of self-glorification.
yet somehow i don’t want to let go. i feel that i’ve lost my sense of self (a blog in itself - i owe you on this one)… though the introspective nature of this blog tends to lead to an unwarranted sense of importance; perhaps an ego boost wouldn’t be too unhealthy for me right now.
I was silly to ever think that i had something importantly unique to say. no one can read anything of value here; gain any knowledge here. I finally have realized that I am ignorant and foolish...
