2012-08-14 - 6:18 p.m.
Hey
Hey�.there�s really no good segue from there, you ever notice that? Hey doesn�t naturally flow into anything as a conversation starter the way something like �Hi, great to see you� does. I mean, that�s a positive greeting, so you can move from there into the usual pleasantries easily- that ball, she be rolling. Conversely, something like, �We need to talk� is straightforward the other way. It lets you know that your life is about to become measurably less happy.
�Hey� though, is just awkward. It smacks of uncertainty, like you don�t know yet if this is going to be a good talk or a bad talk because nobody is sure yet what exactly they are going to say. �Hey� means �I have to say something to you, but even I don�t know what that something will be just yet, so while I try to figure it out, let�s go ahead an commence with the awkward pauses and stammering for awhile.�
Hey�the conversational script hasn�t been written yet.
Hey�we�re going to have to improvise here, and as you can see, we�re off to a pretty lousy start. So let me start over.
Hey�
Oddly enough, this gets right into the heart of the matter. I can�t improvise around you.
Ok, let me explain. People are, by and large, staggeringly easy to read. The hysterical part of this is how few of them actually realize this, outside of professional poker players, sharp lawyers, and other accomplished con artists. Hell, the ability to read people accurately is considered such a superpower that some jackass TV execs decided to make an entire series out of it. Every week you can marvel at one man�s ability to deduce that someone is lying because he happens to be flop-sweating in the wrong quantities.
Anyway, I can read people. Maybe not quite THAT well, but still pretty well. And the interesting thing about that is that when you can tell how someone is really feeling, it colors the overall nature of how you approach dealing with people. It especially makes you hyper-aware of how easy YOU are to read also, so you plan accordingly.
Yes, you�re right. We all do that anyway. Like Eliot said in Prufrock- �Time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet� and all that. But that�s still an intentional front we put up, without realizing that it�s still easy to see past it. We plan out who we want to be, how we want others to see us, like we�re putting on a mask. But we only think the mask makes us look any different. We don�t realize that everyone knows it�s just a mask anyway. And that the mask is transparent if you know how to look at it right.
I�m rambling. The point I�m trying laboriously to get at is that with awareness of the open-book nature of humanity comes self-consciousness, staggering levels of self-consciousness, about how, if other people are so obviously telegraphing themselves so much, then I must be also. And that, my dear, makes me want to bury everything about myself under ten tons of rigid, icy control. Distance and discipline at all times, because, to me, it�s ok if everyone knows that it�s just a mask I�m wearing, but I�ll be damned if I let anyone see what�s underneath unless I expressly choose to allow it.
No, I�m not interested in what Freud would say about that, thank you. And yes, I know I slip up sometimes too. Nobody�s perfect. But I�ve slipped more than I ever would allow lately, and I blame you. So, in retrospect, �We need to talk� was the appropriate way to begin this conversation.
Oh, I could bog all this down with the usual sappy garbage about unrequited love, you�re all I ever think about, pining for you is slowly eating my heart out (and worse, making me begin to identify with emo kids), because you don�t feel quite the same and that it�s become painfully apparent that you and I will never be together in the way that I want us to. And that would all be true, to some extent, but that�s not really the issue here.
Right, because we both know that I�m enough of a masochistic loser to keep throwing myself at a lost cause. Hell, you�ve seen me do it before.
You make me slip too much, is the issue here. Because I can�t read YOU. It�s one of the things that drew me to you and one of the things I can�t deal with at the same time. Reading other people easily makes it easy for me to win them over and be Mr. Awesome. I always know the right things to say, like it�s all been written out before anyway. Maybe it even is.
You, pretty lady, are completely closed to me, though. I never know what you�re thinking, I can never read your mood except when it�s so blatant it�s obvious to even the densest of our friends. And I can never tell what exactly you think of me, and what I am to you.
Don�t get me wrong, I know you don�t hate me or something like that (at least I�m pretty sure), but the uncertainty piles even bigger loads of self-consciousness on top of an already sizable stack. And I get desperate. I hate using that word to describe myself. You have no idea how much I hate it, but it�s true. And in my desperation, I become like some lovesick teenager trying far too hard to win your heart. And I slip. Badly. And I get furious with myself for losing control.
I broke a lot of my rules that night.
No, I�m not blaming you for THAT in particular, at least, not like that. It takes two, as they say, and it�s not really important who kissed who first because the other one kissed back anyway. But I hated myself for being so weak and allowing it to happen.
Yes, I know I wanted it to happen, but under better circumstances, and it sure as hell would have been at a time when I knew definitely what to expect. Instead it just compounded the uncertainty.
Yeah, because it was so unexpected. I mean, I didn�t plan it. And if you did, you hid it very well, which still goes back to my original point.
Oddly, no, I wouldn�t take it back anyway. As high as the price was in self-recrimination, I�d be lying if I said it wasn�t totally worth it all. You felt perfect in my arms. (Ok, I guess I was lying when I said I could do this without having any sappy garbage to say).
But it led me to question myself a lot, after I got done flogging myself (that didn�t come out right but you know what I mean). And I realized then that I slip around you precisely because I can�t figure you out. I desperately (that word again) want to be someone you will want, but I have no idea who that person is. It�s like I�m an actgor in a movie and everyone has a script, and we all know our lines, but when I have a scene with you, the script is blank and I have to improvise. And I suck at improvising. So I flail around like an idiot, trying way too hard, humiliating myself, and it�s just not fair to either of us because it�s not a friendship or a relationship or anything other than a cavalcade of awkward and fail. So�
Hey� I want to apologize.
Hey�I can�t be the person you want me to be, because I can�t figure out who that is, and trying so hard to do so is keeping me from being the person I want me to be.
Hey�.I just can�t love you anymore.
�
