Blog 41: Secret Neurosis

So that this intro makes sense, note that this was written at about 3am this morning. Why am I still awake? And why is trouble so very fond of me? For that matter, why is it never awesome trouble like a motorcycle gang trying to recruit me or an epic fight with a vampire? These are questions I'd love to have answered right now...However, since that isn't going to happen, I think I'll just talk about something that I often forget. No matter how cool, calm, and collected a person acts, we all have something we're secretly neurotic about--it can be anything from There's a speck of dirt in the floor and I must clean! I can't let anyone see this pig sty! to What does this text or lack of text mean? Is he/she sick of me? or even the classic Maybe I should eat a salad. I'm getting chubby...but I don't like salad! Oh, fat. So fat. Sometimes, it's a combination of all three: Did he/she not call because I'm a fat slob?! haha.

I have a lot of self-confidence. I find it easy to be honest about where I am, but I think people take it as me putting myself down or fishing for compliments. I don't really care if you compliment me. I love who I am. I do see so much room for improvement, though, and occasional doubts do rise, but generally; I'm happy with my looks, my intellect, and my personality. That being said, I still obsess over all the aforementioned subjects from time to time. I have been learning, however, to "play it cool," practicing quite a bit of restraint with my weaker thoughts and emotions. Something I've been considering fairly often lately is that maybe all of us play it a little too cool. We miss opportunities to show people who we really are because we have these weird and unrealistic expectations for ourselves--how we'll look more badass, mysterious, or beautiful if we just rein it in. Everyone's got to stay calm. Everyone's got to pretend they don't care as much as they do. I do it, you do it, and the only ones who don't are the ones who come off as desperate or crazy.

I am all for propriety and self-control. You shouldn't just fly off the handle when you're angry or stalk someone you think you're "in love" with or break out into sobs every time something remotely disappointing happens. It's rude and unfair to literally everyone around you to make them deal with that awkwardness. And yet, there's something really messed up about holding everything back all of the time. It's like in the movies when the dorky meets a girl he really digs and all of his friends say he needs to wait three days to call her--he never follows their advice. Should we always follow our own compulsion to be weird Stepford people?

In this, as in all things, there has to be balance. Don't go divulging all your secrets or wildly portraying your emotions like a bipolar method actor. Also, don't become a non-person who can't be honest with anyone about how you feel. One, it's creepy when people are robots. Two, it's important that you realize there are times to be (for lack of a less cliche word) vulnerable with people. Three, it sort of makes you a little bit sociopathic if you can't ever be honest. I think refusing to acknowledge are human weirdness ends up dehumanizing us in the end.

So, next time you're being a complete freak, overthinking everything, daydreaming in excess, or inwardly geeking out--remember that we all do it sometimes--and feel much, much better.