Okay, here's the deal. I have a hard time feeling righteous.
No, no, obviously I can feel perfectly righteous and selfish seeing as I totally ranted about not wanting to help my mother with her unintentionally non-profit store. I meant I can't feel righteous about other things, like say, world peace. Or starvation. Or politics. Or school. Or recycling. And this can continue forever.
Basically, I cannot feel wronged for the sake of others no matter how justified it may or may not be. Let's give you an example. Some guy says "You're retarded." Now I am torn between two reactions: a) feeling offended that he is misusing the term and totally lumping all people with mental illness or developmental conditions in a derogatory mass, or b) laughing and playing along to social norms.
Of course, nine times out of ten, I will go with b). Which could mean that I either i) care more about people-pleasing and befriending someone (anyone) with whom I don't necessarily agree than how language can hurt others or ii) understand social norms and can act perfectly in sync with them. Obviously, the reason it i), but it doesn't matter because it is clear that in both cases, my priority is not offending others myself. I mean, yeah, sometimes the person doesn't mean to offend, they just use the terms in question because they heard it used in a similar context and don't think about how offensive they are or can be. My reason though is I don't want to start shit that might alienate me. I don't want to be mentally blacklisted by the people around me, or have them think I'm overly sensitive and annoyingly self-righteous.
But this isn't just a one-facet problem, it applies to pretty much everything. I was in the Gay Straight Alliance in my high school. I had no idea what was okay and what wasn't, always getting the cue from others. In fact, I still don't. I have not joined my post-secondary educational institute's version of the GSA because I am not gay. I don't know if they welcome allies, though if you think about it logically, there's no way they can deny people joining their club without a legitimate reason. There is still fear in me that I'll get rejected or even worse, break what I understand to be norms.
Another example: when people talk bad about a professor of mine. People have spirited opinions. I do not. I'll just go along with what they think. A classmate of mine often talks about how the professor drags his lectures meaninglessly and how we never actually get to the second half of his slideshow. She hates this professor. I just nod and list more examples, encouraging her to rant, though I don't feel as strongly and am more or less indifferent to how he conducts his lectures.
I'm always hesitant to make any arguable declarations about myself, because in developing a persona, people can reject me or dislike me. That is why I take other people's opinions and their righteousness and use them to build an armour of persona. I like to half-joke with my closest friends that I'm a cut and paste of everyone I've ever known or to whom I've spoken. It's true.
I am such a weak person and I hate myself for it. I really do. But it's still not enough to overpower my desperate longing for friends. (About half of me realizes one does not exclude the other, but the other half is stronger.) I also know that living in limbo does not get me friends either. The people I know and spend time with don't actually know me and my issues. They think I'm sane and perhaps a little blunt and socially inept, but not neurotic. It's hard to form deep, lasting friendships when you can't be yourself because you don't know who you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment