Nerds, Part 2: Nerds as difficult writing prompt

Well, the second half of my post on nerds is still looming over me like a playground bully, and guess how much progress I have made on it. None! This is what I get for making promises about a project I hadn't even started!

My initial idea was that I'd dig deep into the nebulous topic of what defines a nerd and how that definition has changed over time. My early experience with the term indicated that it was exclusively pejorative, but in my later years, I've come to sense a warmer tone to people's attitudes about nerds. Is that just because our world has become more friendly to those who are intellectual and socially awkward...or is it just something that happens naturally as you grow up?

Dictionaries can tell you the definition of "nerd," (generally speaking, a person with overly intellectual interests and little social ability), but they can't tell you the prevailing connotations of "nerd." That's something you can only learn from direct communication with other people. 

 

As I've been doing a lot of dating lately, I thought I'd poll my matches who identify as nerds (there are a surprisingly large number of them) about their feelings on the subject, and round up a consensus opinion.

Unfortunately, whenever I'd matched with a temptingly promising nerd, the conversation always dried up before I could manage to work it around to the topic of why he considered himself to be one. I'm now almost 2 months into this project, and I have yet to interrogate even one nerd! In retrospect, it was silly to expect myself, a self-proclaimed nerd, to accomplish much in an endeavor that requires successful social interaction with another self-proclaimed nerd! I suppose I could set up an anonymous poll someplace geeky like Reddit, but that sounds a lot like investigative journalism, and I'm not getting paid for this job!

So I stop here. I abdicate my responsibility for dissecting this topic, and I leave it to you, my beloved readers! What do you think makes a person a nerd? Is it cool to be a nerd, or is it still the worst insult a 7-year-old can come up with? Discuss. I believe you're up to the challenge...but only if you're nerdy enough!

 

Introversion reversion

I've been having a tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle lately. While my kind of planet isn't quite getting blown up, it is definitely going through some changes. I daresay I'm living through the weirdest experience of my 36 years of existence. I speak of none but the coronavirus.

But we'll come back to that (and dispense with the gratuitous use of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references). Surprisingly, the actual difficulty I've been having with my lifestyle is not the global disaster unfolding around me, but rather something much more mundane. It's that I've been having an identity crisis, about one very specific personality trait of mine: Am I really an introvert after all?

For most of my adult life, I was fairly confident in my extreme introversion. From the Myers-Briggs test I took in 10th grade, on which I scored 99% introverted; to the "Party Like an Introvert" kit I designed in grad school; to the book (The Introvert Advantage) I purchased in 2012—you don't know what a statement that is, from a person who never ever pays for reading material!—I solidly identified as an introvert.

But around the same time I purchased that book, something happened. I started drinking alcohol. What a miracle drug that substance is! All of a sudden, parties went from anxiety-inducing horror shows to something I could actually describe as fun! I was fortunate enough to start dating a certified extrovert shortly thereafter, which made meeting new people a regular, and totally tolerable, occurrence in my life.

After a few years of nonstop fun, my boyfriend lost interest in the social circuit, and the friends that I'd developed in that time started to disappear into their own private lives. Everyone I knew was getting tired out and ready to quit, while I felt like I was just getting warmed up! When my relationship ended last March, I threw myself wholeheartedly into building a new social network, seeking out activities and gatherings with abandon and partying like it was my job.

It was around this time that I began to question whether I really qualified as an introvert any more. While being extroverted seems like it would be an asset, the thought of it actually made me very uncomfortable. My whole identity was built on being introverted. If I was acting more like an extrovert than everyone I knew who actually claimed to be an extrovert, what did that make me? Well, I can now say with the wisdom that comes from a year of ruminating, it was "desperate."

After an early adulthood living like a shut-in old woman, I had finally discovered the joys of being young. After a lifetime of being mostly isolated, I had found a sense of belonging. All humans want to belong—even introverts—and so, I embraced every opportunity to have a social life, and when my tenuous connections began to unravel, I doubled down! On the surface, my actions seemed to be textbook extroversion (even to myself!), but I now believe it was actually me compensating for the handicaps of being a true introvert – and, oddly enough, the thing that made me realize it was the coronavirus.

I hesitate to make light of such a serious situation, but apparently every pandemic has a silver lining...and for me, it was once again feeling secure about my antisocial side. I spent much of the last year desperately seeking human contact. I started trying to organize get-togethers among my friends; I joined Bumble BFF; I considered each person I met a potential pal; I said yes to every invitation. To be honest, though, it was all getting exhausting.

All the anxiety about reaching out, the inevitable rejections, the struggle to keep connections current, the frequent hangovers (yes, what a miracle drug and a mistake that alcohol is!)—my efforts to maintain a social life were more cost than benefit. But I had to keep doing it—I had to! Or else I'd find myself depressed and lonely, just like I was all those years ago.

Then COVID-19 arrived. When I started reading about how our best bet to keep the spread of the virus under control was to practice "extreme social distancing," I was all in. If I could finally give up the frantic cultivation of a network and just coast along for a while, how wonderful would that be? If my being alone could be, not something forced upon me by my failure to form connections, but a personal choice that actually serves a public good, why should I not embrace solitude? On Wednesday, I vowed to do my part and cut all my in-person interactions to a bare minimum, until such a time as I feel the crisis is over. And I felt relieved by my decision.

That was when I knew I was still a member of the introvert club. While I wasn't exactly looking forward to weeks of self-imposed isolation, neither did I feel particularly bad about all the activities I knew I was about to miss. I have lots of things to keep me busy alone, and I knew I could handle it. For some reason, being alone by choice is not nearly as depressing as being alone by accident of fate.

Ironically, no sooner had I made that decision, than I was contacted out of the blue by 2 separate friends I hadn't heard from in an age, wanting to know if we could meet up sometime. What is it about a virulent illness that makes people want to come together? I don't know, but I declined one invitation and had the other one conveniently negated by the cancellation of all public gatherings. I got into a somewhat contentious exchange with the organizer of one of the Meetup groups I belong to, who insisted that I should come out to small group Meetups because they were not gatherings of 500 or more people, but I held my ground (or rather, I just stopped responding to her texts, as any true blue recluse would!).

I'm so glad I got back in touch with my introverted side, because it's not only making me feel like I have a better handle on my identity, but it's also making me feel like I have some control in a scary world that's getting crazier by the minute.

We, the citizens of the earth, are in an unprecedented situation right now, yet we have the power to do something about it. Introverts, unite! (Or rather, disband immediately!) Solitude will make us stronger.

Texting for the brave and true

Today, I'm supposed to be writing about text messaging, a topic that provokes much anxiety for me because it's a form of social interaction, which is never my strong suit. So before I get into that subject, let's digress a little bit about the title of this post!

"Texting for the brave and true." Where did it come from? Well, at first, it just seemed to pop into my head, but it wasn't long before I realized that I had lifted it from a session at a conference I attended a few years ago. The session in question was "Testing for the brave and true," and please allow me give it a shout-out. While I completely missed it at the conference, I was so fond of the title that I found the video after the fact and watched it, comprehended almost nothing, but still remembered it well enough to title a blog post after it.

But where did that title come from? Well, I  fed "for the brave and true" into Google and was overcome with results, every single one of which was about some book called Clojure for the Brave and True—Clojure apparently being some sort of programming language. I find it extremely fitting that the title for my blog post on one the traits most commonly associated with dorks, geeks, and nerds (an ineptitude with common forms of communication), was quite accidentally modeled on two separate titles also on topics commonly associated with dorks, geeks, and nerds (software development and testing).

And let's not forget the semantics of the whole thing.  If "brave" were a synonym for "completely terrified," and "true" could be substituted for "socially awkward," then "Texting for the Brave and True" would be the perfect title for this blog post. But since neither of those are the case, it becomes a hilariously ironic title that no one will laugh at except for myself.

And thus concludes my digression. I suppose I should get on with the actual subject, which is still (although I'd forgive you if you'd forgotten by now) text messaging. Over the past few months, I've made a concerted effort to be more social, which has mostly played out on the field of textual communication. Consequently, I've learned a lot of things about texting, including some techniques to make it all bearable, even when just looking at your phone is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies.

Pre-texting rituals

When the mere thought of reaching out to another human makes you weak in the knees, you can minimize texting's stressful impacts through the time-tested (and more and more time-tested!) technique of  procrastination. The entire first four paragraphs of this post are a prime example of this classic strategy—I avoided having to think about texting by instead droning on about entirely unrelated topics.

Other ways to indefinitely postpone the actual sending of a text include:

• Embracing your inner perfectionist, composing and recomposing the message in your head until it conveys every nuance of meaning that could possibly be wrung out of it.
• Planning a schedule for sending the text (such as "when the recipient is likely to be off work," or "when the recipient is likely to be sleeping"—you know, depending on whether you prefer them to be able to read the text immediately or further extend the procrastination period through their own inactivity), preferably at a point far, far in the future.
• Typing out the text and then suddenly getting caught up in a very important task that just occurred to you.

Post-texting rituals

Let's suppose you've run out of procrastination techniques and have somehow roped yourself into actually shooting off a text message. In the immediate moment, you'll probably notice an immense feeling of relief. After all, that wasn't nearly as hard as you thought it was going to be. Why, it was nothing more than the push of a "send" button (plus hours and hours of preparatory anxiety, no biggie!)! But that rush of good feelings will soon fade (probably in just a few seconds), so what is your next step? Why, it's nothing other than Self-recrimination! Misdirection!

At this point, you might be tempted to immediately regret the text that you sent. You might worry that you came across sounding stupid, or you might wonder why the recipient would ever want to hear from you. You might now start to worry why you haven't received a response, or if the response you are about to receive will be a rejection. You might be coming to the conclusion that sending this text was a bad, bad idea.

The key to derailing those thoughts is to immediately lose all interest in the text that you sent. Forget you ever sent it! It's out of your hands now! The past is past, what's done is done, and you have a very important task that needs to take up every iota of your concentration (I hope you held at least one of these in reserve during the procrastination phase!). Whatever you choose to do to distract yourself from the horrible tactical error that was your text message, do it with gusto! As long as you keep busy, then you won't have any time to regret your actions.

With these pre- and post-texting rituals firmly in hand, you — yes, even you, you quivering bundle of perennial anxiety — can overcome your fears and dash off text messages with the lighthearted nonchalance of an honest-to-gosh extravert. You might even begin to feel a small, glimmering smidgen of self-confidence!

Texting for the brave and true—maybe it wasn't such an ironic title after all!

The Face Game

Among my many social ineptitudes, one of them is my terrible memory for faces.

It's a nightmare when I go to my boyfriend's family functions. I'm surrounded by his cousins, most of whom I've met multiple times, and yet I could still swear they're all perfect strangers to me. I survive these kinds of events by putting on my friendliest smile, greeting everyone with enthusiastic hellos and hugs, and basically treating each person like I know exactly who they are and am extremely happy to see them. Mostly I get away with this artifice by dodging meaningful conversation and never calling anyone by their name.

When not at social gatherings, I try to make up for my awkwardness by getting better at facial recognition. I didn't start it on purpose, but somehow I've fallen into the habit of practicing my skills through the diligent study of gossip rags.

The lifestyles of the rich and famous aren't really my thing, but somehow I have gotten on the email lists of many, many women's publications, which seem to love nothing more than that very subject. So I read them. Even a media-clueless nerd like myself can't always resist a headline like "Wow, Meghan Markle Has Gorgeous Handwriting," or "Miley Cyrus Wore a Super Revealing Outfit on 'SNL' Last Night and Twitter Is Losing It," or "Kate Middleton's lessons on being photogenic!" At worst, I can always use the intel for my highly lucrative fashion blog!

So nowadays, when I'm reading a roundup of the best awards-night dresses, I'm not just taking in all the glitter and lace and fashionable eye candy, I'm also scrutinizing every celebrity's face to see if I can match it with a name. I've made it into a game, and I'm not very good at it.

The hardest faces to recognize are the ones that belong to famous families. Try telling apart all the many Kardashians, or remembering which Hadid is Gigi and which one is Bella. The trickiest challenge yet? Figuring out which of the Olsen twins you're looking at! I've been doing this for years, and I still can't remember (though I think it's Ashley who has the rounder eyes).

But still, I persist! I like to think all this intense staring at faces (in the relative safety of the Internet, where there's no risk of accidentally making eye contact!) will make me better at identifying people in real life. But until then, I still have my default awkward greeting to fall back on: "Hi! I have a terrible memory for faces. Have we met before? I'm Valerie."

Help, I'm dating a dog person

Although in my entire adult life I've never owned a cat of my own, I've always considered myself more of a cat person than a dog person...or rather, more of a cat.

However, as they say, opposites attract, so somehow I found myself sharing my home and life with an undeniable dog person. Not only is he a dog person, but he is bound and determined to make me into one, too. He regularly foments chaos in my calm and peaceful existence by bringing home new, increasingly disruptive dogs every couple of years.

The newest one is, fortunately, not a lazy, grumpy, foot-piddling cat-dog, nor a yapping, anxiety-ridden bundle of health problems. It's something much worse: a puppy.

Cuteness not withstanding, there are many irritating things about having a puppy, but anyone who's had a puppy probably already knows what they are. What you might not know is that the most irritating thing about having a puppy has nothing to do with dogs at all—it's dog people!

People in general love dogs (even I, a certifiable antisocialite, love dogs, in a commitment-phobic kind of way), but dog people not only love dogs; they act like dogs! And when you're out and about with a cute puppy, you're bound to attract at least a few dog people—that is to say, people with no sense of boundaries.

Here's a typical exchange:

Cat person: [Walking dog, enjoying the weather, generally minding her own business]

Squealing girl: Can I pet your puppy!!!1!!???

Cat person: [only hissing mentally] Of course!

Girl pets puppy. Puppy loves it. Other dog people descend like wolves, eager to get in on the action. Puppy is ecstatic. Cat person is hovering awkwardly nearby, trying to suppress the instinct to flee.

This is a best-case scenario. In a worst-case scenario, the dog person will want to do the unthinkable: engage in conversation.

The conversation is always the same: What's your dog's name? How old is he? What's his breed? After running out of standard questions, the dog person will then begin to rhapsodize on how cute the puppy is, how he is making her day, and/or all the ways the puppy reminds her of her own dog.

This may sound like one-way nattering, but when two dog people get together, just like dogs, they both feel the need to get in each other's faces and yap. A simple encounter can easily turn into an endless exchange about the characteristics of the dog in question, the characteristics of every participant's every pet since the time of their infancy, and the defining characteristics of every breed known to man.

It can really get annoying. And I know, because my boyfriend is a dog person. I've watched him get mired in conversations with other dog people that lasted so long, I had to walk away. There's only so much smiling and nodding a cat person can force out before she has to return to solitary pastimes. Being a cat person in a dog person's family is not unlike being a cat in a bathtub: sometimes you just want to run away screaming.

Yet, as a responsible pet owner, you know you have a duty to to treat your dog with loving kindness, and meet its needs. Even when those needs involve...(dum dum dummm)...going out in public!

Every day, the puppy must be taken on a seemingly infinite number of walks. Of course, I could just hustle him out for a quick potty break and dart back inside like a ghost, as would be my preference...but the less you exercise the puppy outdoors, the more he wants to run around the house or office, barking, digging at the carpet, and chewing up the couch.

So instead, it's long tedious walks around campus—walks which inevitably lead to hordes of dog people wanting to meet the puppy. 

I thought this ordeal was inevitable, and as a cat person, I was uncertain if I could survive it on my own. But in only one short solo excursion with the puppy, I learned a trick for tolerating walks when feeling antisocial (which, if you're a cat person, is all the time). It even comes in the form of a game, which should make even the most hardcore dog people happy. I call it "Dodge the Humans!"

The rules are simple:

1. When out and about with your dog, try to only walk where other people are not walking. This may mean eschewing paved pathways, and suddenly changing directions when you see a crowd.
2. Be especially wary of children and groups of female humans. These are the ones most likely to attempt to approach you.
3. When forced to cross paths with a human of any sort, don't make eye contact! I find it helps to stare intently at the dog while continuously uttering a stream of commands and praise. That way you can at least pass for a fellow dog person, and not some humanoid robot that hates all living things.

By following these rules assiduously, I was able to survive an entire walk around the mall (and then around a couple of extra buildings to avoid a school group) without once having to tell anyone my dog's age! We even made it almost all the way back inside when I started to feel sorry for the puppy, who seemed sad about not getting all the pats and attention he is used to whenever he goes out....So I let him run up to someone entering the building, slip through the door, and nearly escape out the other side. This resulted in a flurry of apologies, an even more awkward interaction than any silly dog-talk chat could be.

From now on, I think I'll stick with what a cat person does best. I'll continue Dodging the Humans and only participate in puppy play when it suits my mood. I'll leave the socializing, the endless activity, and all the yapping to my boyfriend. After all, if there's one good thing about being a cat person stuck in a dog person's family, it's that you have a dog person to do all that.

Social Skills--who needs 'em!?

When asked, "What is one thing you would change about yourself?" I usually say, "I would like to be better at making friends." Despite being sweet and agreeable and likeable, I am very bad at this.

At work, I marvel at how easily my coworkers interact with each other, while I usually cower in my office pretending not to hear them chatter. I made a vow to myself that I would try harder to be more outgoing. I would start simply, by merely taking a more proactive approach to greeting people. When I saw people I knew, I would say hello, rather than ducking into whatever nearby haven of solitude, wondering if my presence  had gone undetected. Yet, after a day, I realized that even this little baby step was beyond my capabilities, as I just have no idea of the protocol to follow in varying situations.

When you run into someone and you both see each other, you say hi. That's easy. But what happens when this simple scenario becomes more complex?

• When two people you know are standing next to your building talking, do you interrupt their conversation to say hi to them?
  
• When you first arrive at the office for the day, do you say hello to every person whose door you pass? What if two doors are on opposite sides of the hallway? Do you stop, turn to each side and say hi to both?
  
• When someone you know is shouting distance away when you arrive, but they aren't looking at you, do you shout hello or just slip in like a thief? What does your shout signify to the other people who are within shouting distance but hidden by walls?

Is it even worth worrying about this any more?

My boyfriend, master of perception, observed that I don't talk much at parties. This is because I don't know who to talk to. The person on my left? The person on my right? The room at large? The aforementioned boyfriend typically chooses the third option, and often his off-the-wall comments go completely ignored, because the room at large is busy talking to the person on its left or right.

My unheeded yet unperturbed boyfriend says it's fine if I just show up, do the meet and greet, and read a book, leaving other people the option to approach me if they want. I would love it if I could do that, but I think it's just too rude. But being unable to do pretty much anything else, I mainly just don't go to parties.


After nearly 29 years of experience, you'd think I would have learned a little about interaction, but nope. That awkward girl who spent hours at day care leaning against the wall, watching the other kids play, is now the one, slightly taller now, leaning against the wall and watching the other people converse.

Maybe this year is the turning point.

No, not the one where I suddenly learn to be Miss Popular—I think that's a lost cause. I'm talking about the point at which I can I can finally stop worrying, throw up my hands and say, "All right! I'm socially inept! Deal with it!" Maybe I will just walk into a gathering carrying a book, read in a corner, and consider myself a success. I may never be the life of the party, but Librarian of the Party is a role I can handle.

Taking back the night!

Something I've been thinking about a lot is circadian rhythms. Well, not really. After all, I quit being a biology major 6 years ago. But I have been thinking about my own personal sleep schedule. I've been thinking about how I hit my peak of energy at about 8 in the a.m. and slowly degenerate from there, and how it's unfortunate that society doesn't seem entirely friendly to people with my habits. I can't help being a morning person, and I've been thinking about how the world might be improved if schedules were tailored to Valerie Time. I also have been thinking that I've blogged about this topic before, but I can't help being forgetful either! I can't find any previous posts on the subject, so I might as well cover it again.

I've noticed, of late, and of earlier, how frequently I avoid activities that take place in the evenings. I commit myself to them with the best of intentions: choir rehearsals at 7pm, volunteer events at 6, social gatherings starting anywhere from 4 in the afternoon to 9 at night. I RSVP with abandon, and then as the evening arises, I suddenly fall victim to an array of psychiatric maladies and lose all my resolve.

I have a reputation among my social circle for bowing out of pre-planned activities. I have headed out for a game night and made it as far as somewhere on the subway before being overwhelmed with hypochondria and heading back for home. I have gone to parties and left as soon as I arrived in the parking lot, suddenly hysterical from social anxiety. I have canceled countless dates simply because I didn't feel up to it when date night rolled around. I skip choir, volunteer events, and outings with friends, because I'm feeling "icky." That's Valerie-speak for a combination of "nauseated" and "out-of-sorts."

Sure, part of this is cowardice. And part of it is conditioning, and part of it is an adventitious mélange of choice genetic tendencies. But part of it is timing!

I don't think this would happen so often if these events occurred in the mornings. In the mornings, I'm raring to go! I can take on the whole world! I could even, perchance, participate in something as terrifying as small talk! In fact, I think I could even stomach these events if they happened in the early afternoons. Directly after work, I have no problem with going out into the world. Heck, I'm out in it already—might as well stay there. But once I've had a chance to retreat to my home, I attach myself there with soft fuzzy emotional Velcro and lose all fortitude. Once I've had a chance to relax for the day, I cannot unrelax and steel myself to face the horror commonly known as "other people."

So, from now on, let's start arranging real-world events to occur in the mornings, and leave the nights open for the socially-challenged bloggers of the world to retreat to the safety of home, the Internet, and their beds.

My Hero!

Numerous times as a youngster (and a high-school student, and a college applicant, and a job candidate...), I was asked to name "my hero." I always found this task highly distasteful, because I never had a good answer.

In elementary school, my classmates seemed to usually pick their favorite athletes, musicians, or family members. I, too, eventually chose the family member route, not because I strongly idolized my relatives, but because I knew them well enough to give plausible reasons why any of them could be my hero—if I were to have one. I didn't, of course, since, as an extreme introvert from birth, I never spent much time thinking about other people.

As we got older, my peers grew more high-minded, selecting their heroes from a pool of upstanding charitable, intellectual, and courageous figures from the present and the past. Following their lead, I dabbled a bit in citing Gandhi as my hero. He was supposed to be all about peace, right? I like peace. But really, I didn't know anything about him. I'm not sure if I spelled his name right. I'm not even sure if I'm talking about Mahatma or Mohandas Gandhi. And what he actually did to promote peace? Well, that's a little hazy. All this uncertainty was making me feel like a downright fraud, so I reverted back to familial heroes.

I've realized since then, that while some people seem to easily become infatuated with public figures (Teens with their movie posters, anyone? Adults with their Obama shirts?), I rarely develop even a passing interest in people I haven't met. And thus my hero-deficiency may be neatly explained. However, it was only after I stopped being forced to write essays on this awkward subject that I realize what I would write – with confidence – should the need arise.

My heroes are not the great instigators of social change that I always felt should be my heroes. They're not scientific geniuses or founders of great religions. They're not even my favorite athletes. They are, like me, simple people with a love for words. It seems obvious now, that as a bookworm with limited social graces, I would choose literary figures as my role models. I don't have to relate to the people—I just have to relate to what they do!

Of course, now that I've realized where my true loyalties lie, I can't be content to select just one hero—and surely I'm entitled to a couple, after a lifetime of having none at all! Finally, after years of being obliged to half-heartedly endorse people who never really struck a gong in my heart, I can name my heroes with enthusiasm! So, over the next few days, I'll introduce you to a couple of the people I consider role models and kindred spirits.

Sitting in my room, analyzing social phenomena with professional disinterest

Only 2 days after writing my last little thesis on loneliness, I ran across this highly relevant article about renting friends by the hour. While that idea's pretty creepy and ultimately stupid (No matter how desperate you are, why pay for companionship when you can find it for free on Craigslist?) the article had all sorts of interesting things to say about being lonely, most of which were things that I was going to say the next time I decided to write about the subject, which I guess is now.

They say that loneliness is a feedback loop. Yes, just when I'm feeling the most unhappy with my own company, that's when it's hardest to seek out the company of others.

They say that looking for comfort in online interaction is like "eating celery: 'It’s better than nothing, but there’s no long-term sustenance.'" And yes, I was going to say that I I think having so many online friends actually contributes to my loneliness. Hardly a day goes by that I don't spend a good portion of my time chatting through the internet. I'm hardly isolated from the world, but having all these people to chat with sometimes prevents me from actually trying to be around them. Conversation is great, but sometimes you just need a warm body in your general vicinity--and by "warm body," I mean something other than a nicely heated CPU.

What I wasn't going to say, however – which the article does – is that loneliness is contagious. Oops. Just by blogging about it, it looks like I have infected my entire readership. Sorry, guys, I'll pause while you weep silently in a corner.

...

Pity party over? OK, we'll move on.

The article also didn't quote Britney Spears, which I was most definitely going to do. But oh, no! It's time to go to work! We'll have to continue this discussion another time!

Give me a knight with a white horse, shining armor, and the ability to arrive before he's called.

I really look forward to my days off. Today was one. This past week I worked three full days in a row at the store (whoa, I know...), so I was feeling burned out on groceries and eager to get back to my cozy room where I can edit websites in my pajamas. Strangely enough, though, while leading people to the honey all the time and making endless amounts of coffee burns me out quickly, it seems that working all by myself in a chair burns me out quicker.

Usually, after just a single day of e-freelancing, I begin to feel this creeping sense of sadness. It's a little bit lack of motivation (which I admit is pretty easy to feel when you are surrounded by all the paraphernalia of your life that have nothing to do with work), and a little bit restlessness (but you'd think that wouldn't be such an issue when I take exercise breaks every time I get too cold or antsy), but mostly, I think it's just loneliness.

I have that much-touted ability to see eternity in every moment. Unfortunately, for me, this means that when I'm happy, I think it's going to last forever and am devastated when it doesn't...and when I'm lonely, I can't help but think that's going to last forever, too, hence the creeping sadness, despite all the logical self-admonition I can muster.

I often wonder why, when I've been around people for a while, I start to crave solitude so much, knowing that only a few hours of it will turn me into a tragic figure that sits silently in shadows, leans wistfully out the window, and dreams incessantly of her white knight. However, putting it in those terms, I realize exactly why I feel lonely.

It's not that I don't need lots of alone time. I do. I'm a certified introvert. But even the most die-hard hermit needs other people occasionally. And I see that moment coming from miles away. Long before I've reached the point where I feel desperate for companionship, I'm worrying about the time in the future when I will reach that point. I worry because I know I am powerless to prevent it. The difference between a person who is lonely and one who is not, is that the un-lonely person knows how to not be alone when they no longer want to be.

That esoteric knowledge is inaccessible to me. I truly am at the mercy of whatever white knight may appear to rescue me from my solitude. For I know not how to summon one. Or, if I were not so inclined to speak in terms of fairy tales, I might say that social phobia keeps me in my lonely tower – no, no! Must dispense with the fairy tale imagery! – that the effort of reaching out to people stresses me out so much that it pretty much negates any benefit that I might gain from having company, in the event that my attempt is a success. I might also say that I don't know how to connect with people, and when I try, I end up looking like a total fake.

So I just don't try. I think it would be easier to stab myself repeatedly with a pushpin than start a conversation that might embarrass me.

Believe it or not, this hasn't been a sloppy wallow in self pity. It's just an insight. I don't think it has the power to turn me into Miss Congeniality, but knowledge is power. Maybe there's enough power in it to drive me to call up an acquaintance and see if they'd like to get ice cream with me! Then again...oh, look! Pushpins!

I think I must be misinformed about common courtesy.

If you worked in an office, and you saw a new person eating alone at lunch, you would invite them over to your table, right? You would at least introduce yourself, right?

I give up.

A Valerie RetrospectivePart 4: The People

I promise, the last installment of the Valerie Retrospective!

So, have you noticed the common theme running through this epic analysis of boredom, sadness, and angst? It's people. It's my relationships and mostly the lack thereof.

I make my job decisions based on how they'll affect my social life. I choose my household by considering how it'll help me make friends. I define my home by where I feel most loved. You know, for someone who is extremely introverted and pretty darn reclusive, I place a lot of value on people and how I relate to them. These traits are not compatible. They cause me a great deal of agony. They inspire me to sing lyrics like, "It's no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy!"

Sometimes, they inspire me to download copy after copy of "Eleanor Rigby." I have the original version by the Beatles for when I'm feeling alone and straightforward. I have an instrumental version for when I'm feeling alone and metaphorical. I have a metal version by Pain for when I'm feeling alone and angry. I've heard there's a version by a band called Zoot, which I must acquire for when I'm feeling alone and wanting to enjoy silly band names that are also my car's name.

That song is depressing as all get-out, but somehow it comforts me. Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie are undoubtedly made-up characters, but their life stories are inspired by the stories of countless other people, who are alone just like me! When I hear that song, I think about those people, and I feel close to them and slightly less miserable.

But only slightly. I think it would be much better if I were actually close to people and not just psychically manufacturing a connection based on mutual unhappiness.

So, how do I accomplish this? Obviously, it's not by endearing myself to my co-workers. Clearly, it's not by relying on the good nature of my housemates. Certainly, it's not by rashly moving to a warmer climate where I know no one. I guess I'm going to have to rely on another strategy altogether.

Conclusion: My problem has always (at least since the time when making friends became so all-fire important to me) been that I have difficulty making the jump between being casual acquaintances who only see each other when fate brings them together and friends who make an effort to hang out together. It always seems so fake to me. So if making friends requires fakery anyway, why not skip the whole casual acquaintances part and jump right to the hanging out? I refuse to give out any more details about my thoughts on this topic, because my plan is not fully formulated, and actually there are serious flaws in it, but if it pans out, you'll surely hear about it. Oh, and if you want to help, make plans to socialize with me during the month of July! You can do it!

That's all for now. Thanks for listening to me as I commandeer a public venue to work out my personal problems. I'll try to make whatever I post next something of more universal interest.