Something

Something I wrote three years ago. Something I need to constantly remind myself of. Something that I know is true, but still have trouble accepting.

I've realized something recently. When tragedies happen... well, it's sort of complicated.

When you lose a loved one, or even a house or a job, you grieve and it's a horrible feeling that's gnawing inside of you. Being subjected to abuse or pain or terror can cut you inside and out like a ceramic knife and scar you for the rest of your life. 

But these tragedies, as horrible as they are, are a gateway to an absolute knowledge. With these tragedies, your knowledge and understanding of the world increases hundred-fold into a world that is terrifying, but also incredibly awesome. When the bible says "Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," those who have lost their loved ones realize that it is they, themselves, that are the ones walking in the valley. The dead have made their way to heaven and now it is those who are left behind that dwell under the shadow of death.

Tragic events may leave an open wound, but open wounds heal; if you let them. But if you keep messing with them, never letting them progress to what they truly are, then you will forever have that open wound and be buried in only that single event.

"Let tragedies progress to what they truly are? And what is that exactly?" you might ask that. My response is simple.

Tragedies are a truth. A truth of this universe that we live in.

Tragedies don't just happen to the wicked. They do not exist to strike the evil down and leave those who are good and just alone. Tragedies happen to everyone. Don't ask yourself what you did wrong when you are beaten down or when your loved one dies. Tragedy doesn't strike you because of who your are or what you have done. It is as random as lightning strikes and the simple roll of the die.

But as I implied before, tragedies may be horrible, but they are also what breaks the levee and allows you to see the world as it truly is. 

People die. Some bastards are abusive and take advantage with their strength and twisted words. Some people are not able to allow you to keep that job that is keeping your family afloat. These are just facts. These are just what our world is.

If you let these tragedies, these open wounds, heal in their own good time, they will leave a scar; but they will also give you an incredible knowledge that is unobtainable by any other means. Let these tragedies heal. Let them give you a knowledge that is entirely unique, and only and absolutely yours.

A Changed Perspective

The previous Student President of my University is a transgendered woman. While I have never met this person formally, I have watched her life transform through her statuses on Facebook. Just today, she posted this very eye-opening status in regards to her view on sexism that I wanted to share.

Before I came out publicly, I had people tell me that the sexism that women encounter would be a surprise and shock to my system. But as someone who at least tried to think critically about discrimination and the "isms" and "phobias," I thought I more or less understood what I would face. I didn't realize how much my own male privilege was blinding me to the extremity and the pervasiveness of sexism and harassment in society.

It is everywhere, from the subtle to the blatant. You are treated like both a delicate infant and a sexualized idol in the same instant. Your thoughts dismissed and emotions minimized. Your insecurities emphasized and your body objectified. The trivial and mundane decisions that I never had to think about when i would wake up before, now become central to avoiding a thousand judgments. 

And what's worse is that we are either told we are acting like victims or that we should like it. That we should be flattered. 

I suppose those are the defense mechanisms within our prejudices that allow us to never confront the racism and sexism in our world. You call out race and you're simply playing the race card. You call out sexism and you're weak or can't take a "compliment."

For many of you, nothing I'm saying is new. But for others, all I have to say is "it's real, it's everywhere, and, surprise, you are probably doing it."

Two Years

Last night, I was going through some facebook notes that I had written in the past. Man, I hadn't realized that I had done so many freaking surveys -_-

However, hiding amongst all these pointless questionnaires, there were a couple notes that were very serious. One was about my frustration toward not being able to go to the college I wanted. (This was during the financial battle I was having with the University I'm currently attending.) The other note... was much more serious. I wrote it about two years ago, in the beginning of my senior year in high school. It was my first time publicly acknowledging the issues and problems I had to deal with.

I haven't really realized how much progress I've made (and, at the same time, haven't made) until I read this. I remember writing this, and I remember how I felt. I was a mess at the time. My hold on reality was very weak. I remember being terrified to be writing this all out, yet also knowing that it all needed to be said...

Over the past couple weeks, I've been examining my life, my choices, and myself in general. I've come to the conclusion that a LOT needs to change. And I've already started. I'm trying to dress better, try to make myself more aesthetically pleasing. Not so much to attract attention from the opposite sex as to make me feel better about myself. You see, I act arrogant and bitchy in public but I actually have a very low self-confidence. However, appearing to have no self-esteem gets you nowhere, which is why I act arrogant and bitchy. That's another thing I want to change. Be less arrogant and bitchy, and have more self-confidence.

And another major thing I need to change: I talk WAY too much about sex and sexual violence. I really need to tone it down. I think I'm mostly doing it as a self-defense mechanism, but that just means I need to change mechanisms. I make people uncomfortable and it makes me look kinda twisted and weird (WeirdER, anyway). I need to train my mind not to automatically think about sexual-related stuffs whenever I hear... well, anything. It's become a default and it's NOT a good one.

I also need to tone down cussing. Not so much "never cuss" as "cuss less". Someday it's going to come out at the wrong time and I'm going to regret it.

And what will probably be the hardest thing to change, is for me to get rid of my paranoia and stop freaking out whenever someone touches me unexpectedly. The reason this will be the hardest change is because accomplishing this requires a lot more than just not freaking out and being more trusting. I'll need to start dealing with my past in a healthy and productive manner. I can't just keep locking it away in a box and ignoring it. Someday that box will explode and I won't have any control over it. As horrible as it was, as much as it screwed me up, it's a part of me. If I deny that, then I'm just denying a part of myself. I need to accept it, and meld it with the rest of me and make me a complete person. I will no longer hide in the dark from the monster that's haunted me for three years now.

Of course, I say this now. I bet you anything that in a week's time, I'll be back to where I was. Scared, paranoid, and unable to deal. But that's okay. This ain't going to be a quick fix. This will take months, years for me to sort out. But I'm going to start this now. The right way. By admitting to myself that, yes, it IS a part of me. But more importantly, that what he did was wrong. I am not in the fault here in any way. He took advantage of the fact I was concussed, shorter, and weaker than he was. He is a fucking bastard and I hate him. I hate him for ruining my life, turning me into the scared girl who's resorted to insulting every man's dick she can because she doesn't know how to deal. Who's resorted to trying to make herself appear scary and intimidating so people don't mess with her.

There is one thing he did for me that I'm glad of. If it wasn't for him, I would have never switch schools. And you know what? [Second High School] is infinitely better than [First High School]. I am in a school environment where I feel safe. I've made the best of friends and I wouldn't trade that for anything. Anything.

I am someone worthwhile. I am pretty and I shouldn't feel ashamed to show it.

I am not a whore, Joe. No matter you say, or have said, I am better than you.... you shit-faced bastard.

As I read this last night, I realized many things. First, I realized that I'm not as emotionally turbulent as I was back then. I remember constantly being on edge; I'd scream at the slightest touch and was so paranoid that I spent half my class time in the restrooms.

Second... I have learned to dress better, to make myself look nice. I don't have the bitchy, arrogant attitude anymore. I actually come across as a half-way decent person now.

Third: I don't relate everything to sexual violence anymore. I actually forgot that I used to do that. Because my perception of reality was off, I never stopped thinking about sick, sexual things. Of course, my main problem back then was that I always vocalized my thoughts, not realizing they were inappropriate or that they made other people feel uncomfortable.

Fourth: While this is probably the least significant of my accomplishments since then, I really don't cuss as much as I used to. My cussing nowadays is very mild compared to the language I used back then.

There is one thing in this note that was a lie, and I knew it was a lie as I wrote it. I didn't hate Joe or mean all those negative things I said about him. It was completely forced. I pretended to hate him. I said those things because I knew it was what my friends wanted me to say. I even thought that if I wrote it down, that I'd start to believe it. I believe it intellectually (as intellectual as fucking bastard gets), but even now, I don't emotionally believe the words.

I actually laughed when I read about how I made the "best of friends" at my new school. Less than six months after I wrote this note, they all abandoned me. They said I talked about Joe too much, that I needed to get over myself, that they didn't really care. One of my best friends at the time (who was my emotional rock) said he was tired of have to take care of me, tired of me calling or texting him every day just because I was 'feeling off'. Thank you, Aus. You're the reason I'm still terrified to ask my friends for emotional help.

"This ain't going to be a quick fix. This will take months, years for me to sort out." I found this statement to be particularly interesting. I'm not sure why. What I wrote was completely truthful. It has taken years for me to get this far and I still have a long ways to go. But considering the progress I've made in just a couple of years... I'm suddenly more hopeful that I'm going to be okay in the long run.

Mathematical Mind

Every week for one of my classes, we are required to write a letter in response to a letter my teacher had previously written to us. We are not graded on the quality or profoundness of our letters. As long as it's about a page long and we are incorporating our personal views into concepts covered in class, we get a 100% on the weekly assignment.

The main topic of this week's letters is the fluidity of concepts like valor and courage. For example, an action that might be 'right' in one situation might be considered 'wrong' or 'immoral' in another. In describing my view on this topic, I found myself using math to explain myself.

In the vernacular, I agree that concepts like rightness, courage, and valor change according to the context. However, that’s not how I think of it. Rather, I think of these concepts as being unchangeable. When applied to different situations, it may appear as though their meaning has changed because of the different actions taken in the names of these concepts. However, it is because the actions have changed with the circumstances that they are constant. Think of it like a formula: y=Ax, for instance. The ‘y’ represents the actions taken in the name of rightness, courage, valor, etc. The ‘x’ represents the circumstances or the particular situation. ‘A’ represents these concepts. With different ‘x’s, we are going to get different ‘y’s, however, the A is constant and unchanging no matter what ‘x’ is. It always affects the resulting ‘y’, but never, in of itself, changes. Now, a more complicated situations, a more complicated formula would be needed to represent it, but there will always be constants, even if those constants are simply ‘1’.

After writing this, I realized that this might be really confusing to the non-mathematically inclined. Which is really unfortunate, because I was actually proud of my ability to describe my view on the subject through mathematics. Though, I also thought that this would be a perfect example on how it's sometimes hard for me to communicate with some people. 

As demonstrated in this excerpt, I think of almost everything in terms of mathematics. It is the most clear language to me and the easiest way for me to communicate all my ideas. Even my non-mathematical/scientific ones. My understanding of social interactions, homework, studying, politics, exercise and so on... are all various formulas in my head. However, I believe the vast majority of people do NOT think like this at all. I think a lot of good ideas or concepts I have are lost because I have trouble translating the very precise language of math to the very imprecise language of the world.

Which is sad, really. I like a lot of my ideas and would like to share them. But in the end, a lot of them are going to end up trapped.

Issue of reality?

I haven't had a panic attack in three weeks. This is extraordinary considering I was having at least a few a week just about a month ago. That was the norm for me. I didn't really notice any transitions, but sometime before I went to Poland, I had stopped having panic attacks. I stopped having nightmares. I stopped having anxiety problems.

I don't know what the cause of this sudden transformation was. About sixty-seven percent of me is like, Who cares!? You're functioning. Why does it matter? The other thirty-three percent of me is worried. Why? Because every time my brain gets anywhere near a subject that might cause anxiety or panic, my immediate response is to shove it away. I have even found myself saying that it never happened: that I made the whole thing up. Every time I try to think about it, my brain goes 'nope' and shuts down. I can't even write or tell you what it is my brain is denying. So, I guess sometime before Poland, my brain decided that shutting down and denying facts was an appropriate response to anxiety-causing stimuli.

I know for a fact that this is not a good thing to do. My therapist confirmed it. However, she also said that if it's allowing me to function, there shouldn't be much harm in allowing myself to deny the past for at least a little bit. I'm wary of this. Sure, doing it for just a small span of time might not hurt. But when do I draw the line? How do I know that it won't all just blow up in my face later in the semester (which would be disastrous for my grades)?

For the last couple years, I've managed to have a good balancing point between acceptance and ignorance. I was dealing it relatively healthily and I was still able to function. That balance was tipped last semester, probably because of the foreign stressors that I encountered last year. It's possible that this most recent shift is an overcompensation from not being able to deal in the spring.

I'm hoping it'll work out on it's own: naturally and healthily. In the meantime, I'm going to follow my therapist's advice and allow myself to ignore and deny my problems and the past.

Emotions

I, like everyone else in this world, have my own set of issues. My issues mostly manifest themselves as anxiety and disassociation. I've recently been to seen a few different professionals to help me deal with these problems. And they have all told me, almost word for word, that my hyper-intellectualism is keeping me from dealing with my issues probably. They have all also said that I need to approach my issues from an emotional point of view.

My hyper-rationality has been both an asset and a curse in terms of my problems. Because I am rational, I easily accept (usually) the problems I have and what their causes are. As such, I am able to remove my conscious from these problems, set my problems aside, and get things done. I'm sure this has saved me on numerous occasions. In fact, I doubt I would have been able to make it through high school without this ability.

That, of course, is the asset portion of my rationality. The curse is that I am completely inept to view, feel, or analyze anything from an emotional point of view. I'm not saying that I don't feel or have emotions. I'm just so used to ignoring them and shoving them into a titanium box in the back of my mind that I have no idea how to bring my emotions back up to the surface.

I do occasionally have outbursts of emotions that I can't hide. Usually frustration or anger and usually directed at myself. My therapist calls these 'secondary emotions' because they are emotions in response to other emotions. Apparently, they don't really count. The only 'primary' emotion I can think of that I experience freely is excitement. This could be excitement for an event, excitement to see my friends, etc. Though, when I think about it, I do also feel content. Not necessarily happy, but I do feel content from time to time.

Of course, I might not even be aware of what 'happy' feels like. I may actually feel happy 'primarily' sometimes and am just not aware of it. Same for my other emotions. My therapist is having me do these exercises in order to train me to be able to identify my own emotions. There's no real solid guidelines for it, though, so I'm still having trouble. She's trying to discourage me identifying emotions by physical symptoms...

On a sort of side note, there's been something else that's been bugging me lately. And that is the concept of 'love'. (Still an emotion, still on topic.)

I'm assuming this is still just me having difficulty identifying emotions, but I don't think I believe in the concept of 'love'. Of course, that's a hard statement to make, considering the word has so many different meanings and connotations that how can I deny it altogether? I also hesitate to deny the concept because I don't want to sound like those overly angst-y teens who think they know the world, but don't.

There are many things in life that I have yet to experience, and I may find a lot of my preconceived notions changing as I life on. However, at this moment, I can't get my head around the concept of 'love'. If there was one person in the world that people would I assume I 'love', it would be my mother. However, I don't feel 'love' for her. Whenever I hear anyone... anyone... say 'I love you' in any context, I always feel like it's forced, wooden, fake. No matter how it's said or who says it. When my mom says 'I love you' to me, I force myself to say the same back, even though I don't feel like I'm telling the truth. I care for her, and if something were to happen to her, I would be very upset. But is that all that is required to qualify the classification of 'love' in a relationship? If that's so, then I 'love' a great number of people.

If that's the case, what separates the love of a parent or friend from the love of a partner? There's obviously a difference between the two, as people qualify that aspect of 'love' all the time. "I love you, man! But not in that way." Is there another emotions that can be synonymous the the type of love that two lovers can share? Some strange mixture of care and lust?

In my opinion, we should just scrape the word 'love' altogether. It has so many meanings and is used so much that it has essentially become meaningless. When a guy comes up to me and professes 'love' to me, I'm not going to know how to respond. I'm not going to know what that means. He's going to have to qualify it with a lot of other words to make sure I fully understand how the hell he feels about me.

"Think Before Speaking"

"I don't think people ever really think before they speak, or realize that other people have feelings as well. whatever happened to compassion in this world?"


A girl posted this as her Facebook status. I really wanted to respond honestly, but considering the type of girl she is,I'm sure what I would have said would have been taken as coldhearted.


I believe that speaking with without thought for feelings is a good thing. If we monitored everything we said based on emotion, it would be harder for us to speak and face the truth. If what is being said is truthful, even if it hurts, it probably needs to be heard. If it's unnecessarily hurtful, than the speaker is not speaking the truth and probably thought about it before speaking it.

Summer

Summers have always been my least favorite time of year. I hate the weather. As any of my friends will tell you, I love cold, dark spaces. Considering the summer is generally the brightest and hottest time of year, I am not a happy girl. I'm either hanging out in the basement or in my room with my fan on high.

Another reason is boredom. I recently got a job, so I'm hoping that helps. However, pre-job acceptance, I was just hanging around the house, watching videos, writing, sleeping. There's nothing wrong with any of this, but I get a little bitchy when I'm not really productive.

This summer, I've discovered a new reason to hate summers. I get lonely. This is actually a new problem. Before college, I never really hung out that much with people outside of school. So being mostly on my own for the entirety of summer never really bothered me. I hung out with friends more in my senior year of high school, but most of them kinda decided they didn't want to be friends anymore. While I was upset at the sudden rejection, I wasn't really lonely that summer. I had college to anticipate for and my mind was getting ready for a clean slate.

And... what a slate it was. College has truly been a life changing experience for me. But that's an entirely separate topic. Well, not entirely separate. My experience at college is what has brought this new factor of loneliness into the game. Never have I had a social life as active as my social life at college; constantly surrounded by great friends who seem to genuinely care about me.

And so summer has been marked by the sudden lack of that social life. It was a hard adjustment. Unexpected crying and even more difficulty sleeping than usual. While I seem to have emotionally stabilized, I'm still much more lonely than I expected I would be. Now, more then ever, I want summer to end so I can go back to college.

Face

No one can know. You have a beautiful face. I wish I could mess with it. But we'd both get in trouble. Neither of use want to caught. Besides, your body is just as beautiful. I want... I want to make sure it's mine. God, I wish I could have your face and arms... I want all of it. But then others would know. I don't want them to know.

I do.

The End

I just want this semester to be over. Nothing good is coming out of me staying. At this point, I don't really have any more learning left, just assessments of one sort or another. My anxiety/panic seems to be jumping up and down. Fast. There will be an hour where I'm so anxious I can't eat, then I have an hour and a half of calmness. Soon though, I get a random panic attack, followed by two more hours of anxiety.

For god's sake, will my brain just pick one? If it picks calm normality, then great. But even if it picks anxiety, at least I can deal with it in stride. These random spikes are seriously taking it out of me.

All I can think is that as soon as the semester is over, I can go home and cuddle with my animals and everything will be stable again. Though, by the same token, I'm seriously going to miss all my friends. I might see a couple of them over the summer, but we'll see.

It's been kind of unreal, the friends that I've made here at college. All completely by chance. I just happened to get the right roommate, and happened to follow her since I have no social skills. I am eternally grateful to the Housing Lottery.

Risks

Are risks worth it? Is it worth it to put yourself in an compromising position for the possibility for good things? I've been to people for help before. It ended badly. But these new friends are promising that won't happen. While experience tells me otherwise, there is a chance that things will be better than last time. Should I take the risk and bear the brunt if it does end badly? If I steel myself enough, should I tread the unknown waters?

Society and Peace

Social conventions are a pain in the ass. I understand why society needs them... sort of. I guess it's to prevent conversations from becoming chaos. Preventing interactions in general from becoming chaotic. Though, I think social conventions were create to protect the mentally weak. Now, when I say mentally weak, I don't mean the mentally impaired. I mean people who are unwilling to hear the truth and act violently against what they don't want to hear. Maybe the subconscious belief is that societal guidelines will protect these people. Well, it doesn't. Societal guidelines just make it so people have to be manipulative. If it is not acceptable to go straight ahead and speak, than you must find a "sneaky" way to do it.

The idea of social norms is, I'm sure, a vast and very complicated subject. One of the main reasons I just don't really understand societal norms. Growing up, I have been taught by my mother to recognize most of these norms and to conform to them for the sake of being a functioning member of society. This frustrates me to no end. Partially because even when I do conform, people still look at me like I'm 'off'. Hell, now I can tell when someone looks at me like a freak. It used to be that people would have to say "You're a freak" in order for me to get that that's how they thought of me.

I miss being completely socially clueless. I'm sure I'm much more successful now that I'm not, but I miss the simplicity of thinking everyone being happy unless they said otherwise. The simplicity of someone needing to insult you directly in order for you to get it. But as I learned the signs, the facial expressions, the 'normal' sets of behavior, I became more and more aware of people looking at me like an annoying, unwanted brat. These 'looks' and 'signs' became such a integral part of my life that I see them everywhere now. Even if people around me don't think of me like that, I question my ability to read their faces, misinterpret their tone/expressions, and believe that they do. I'm paranoid. I'm scared. I'm frustrated.

I wish I could have peace of mind. Surety that my friends mean what they say. I hate that I've been taught to doubt phrases like "I'll always be here" or "You can always call me". I want to believe that there are people out there selfless enough to be willing to help fix a mess like me. But it's hard. I don't even know if I have the capacity to be that selfless. I've never had someone come to me for help for me to really know.

I can't read people. Well, I can, just not very well. I only get sarcasm about 30% of the time and I misinterpret facial expressions on a regular basis. This is the main reason I'm paranoid and doubt myself constantly. Because I'm only right a certain percentage of the time, I figure it's best to assume the worst. Even though, in the last week or two, I've been told multiple times that I should feel free to approach my friends with any problems I may have, I can't ascertain how truthful these statements are. There are lots of people who say things like that just because they feel they should. And then when someone takes what they say seriously, they regret saying it because they didn't mean it.

My friends know that this is my problem, and they basically repeat what they've said before. But it still doesn't assuage my fears of abandonment or betrayal. At this point, I think the only thing that will is time. Time is the only thing that will prove to me, without much doubt, that I have my friends' full support and that they're here to stay. In the meantime... I don't know. I managed to be brave enough to go talk to a friend. It was good at first. I felt safe. At least, safer than I usually do. But just a week later, my paranoia is back. I already feel like I'm treading into too deep water. I need to back up, try not to take up too much of their time.

I just want to let myself go. But of course, society won't let me. If I let myself go, people will be like "What's wrong with you?" and I will feel no better. I just want to scream, cry, rage about my life in the arms of someone I trust. Someone who won't judge me or want to pull away after I do so. Of course, letting myself go would also probably mean letting myself do things that would scare others. I'm not even really sure. I just have all this pent up energy inside of me in some form of anxiety that I can't let go of. Not completely. But the longer I keep it, the longer it festers and gets stronger. It doesn't simply make it hard to fall asleep. Now it's waking me up in the middle of the night. With a cold sweat and fear thick enough to freeze blood.

I just want some peace of mind. Too bad it's the scumbag mind itself that's preventing the peace. There doesn't seem to be any way to gain this peace that I can proactively pursue. I don't know what I need. I don't know what to do. I'm lost and I'm sick of it. I'm drowning and I can't find my way out.

I just want out of this mess.

Topics

There are a lot of things I could talk about on my blog. A lot that I've considered posting about. Mathematical concepts, politics, psychology... I start to write a post, only to erase it all because I feel repetitive. There have got to be hundreds of blogs talking about politics. My view or opinion would only be what hundreds, if not thousands, of other people have already said. And as I have no real expertise, I really have nothing valuable to add.

Mathematical concepts... while they are relatively simple and straightforward to me, I doubt most people would feel the same. I imagine most people (namely my friends) would glance at my post and be like "Nope, not even going to try." So why try when I know most people wouldn't even try, let alone understand? It'd probably be a waste of a blog.

The only thing I could talk about on my blog that might be worth adding to the infinite seas of the internet would be my own experiences. No one else has talked about them or understands them the way I do, so I know that what I'm saying is actually adding something unique.

Now, I don't want this blog to turn into an autobiography. People don't want to read about the story of my life. As interesting and eventful as it's been, I'm sure most people don't care. They have their own life adventures to worry about. But maybe if I write about a life event's effect on my perspective... hopefully that would be something readers would gain from this. While my perspective is generally very skewed compared to 'normal' perspectives, maybe readers will find it interesting and/or insightful. Maybe.

I don't know. But, hey, I think that was subconsciously my purpose for this blog when I thought of the title. "On the Edge of Understanding." From my perspective, I often feel just slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. If the understanding the world were to be represented by a solid object, I would feel it as a liquid. I am semi-odd in that I feel this way. Not only feel, but have it confirmed by those around me that I just don't function the same as 'normal' people. This is due to many factors. My parents were/are very odd people and have seemed to passed that oddness on to me. Many aspects of my childhood also shaped the way I process things. For better or for worse.

So... I suppose my posts will mostly be about personal events and perspective. I'll try not to make them too personal because, again, no one wants to read about the details of my life. They're going to want to read things that can pertain to them.

The Beginning

So this is the beginning of a blog. I never really thought I would have need for one. Blogs always seemed to be a place to share information or personal stories. I'm not really one for laying my life before all to see. And as this is the internet, I would be doing precisely that.

However, I do have a couple friends who blog. They are writers, which I think most bloggers of the non-images-sharing variety are. One of them is very verbose in her writing. "Fluffy" as my friends and I like to call it. Stating a relatively simple concept in the form of several pages. She does it because it's her style, but I always kind of found it to be a waste of time and energy. Though, I am a very blunt person. Blunt and concise.

Well, I try to be concise. I'm not so concise when I'm speaking, because I often have trouble finding words or stringing them together correctly. So I'll usually babble on, using vocabulary that doesn't quite fit what I'm trying to say, until I get a point across. Depending on the listener, this could take a long time. I'm better than I used to be. As with everything, practice has helped. And, really, how can I not get practice talking? I'm shy, but I'm not shy with my words. If I want to say something, I will say it. If someone asks for an opinion, I will give them my honest opinion. Unfortunately, I have discovered that most people don't actually want my honest opinion.

That's something that's always baffled me. Why do people ask things such as "Well, what do you think?" and then get angry when I tell them what I think? This is a social phenomenon that is beyond my understanding. I'm also beginning to realize that this isn't a phenomenon that only happens among girls. Oh, no. There is definitely the fair share of men who do the exact same thing. Ask for advise and get angry when I give it.

I do sometimes give advise when it's not asked for. Usually when someone comes to me with a problem they're having, whether it be family, dating, school, or just general stresses in life. Since these are obviously problems they would like to solve, I always assumed that they were trying to find a solution.

Nope. Not really. At least, not most of them. I have been yelled at several times for not just shutting up or not listening to them. I mean... okay, you don't want advise, fine. But what about giving advise makes you think I'm not listening?

Other times, when I give a solution, they yell at me for being "too logical". This also baffles me, as I can't imagine anyone being too logical. Logical being a thought process that takes all factors into account, including the unpredictable nature of humans and emotions.

Anyway, so.... these people just want me to sit there and listen? They just want me as a shouting board? No advise? If they want emotional comfort, they shouldn't have come to me anyway. As I have neither empathy nor sympathy, I wouldn't know what to do what would assuage their emotional distress.

This hasn't happened as often since I've come to college. Surprisingly, the friends I've made here have taken my odd communication habits and my strange thought processes in stride. None of them have ever really gotten frustrated with me when it comes to my reactions to things. None of them have asked me to change things I do naturally. In fact, the only thing that I think really bugs my friends is my stubbornness in debate. I know I'm stubborn and I try not to be. It is, however, an ongoing process.

Well, this post was longer than I anticipated. I'm interested to see where this blog takes me. If the outlet will be good for me, or if I'll just find it to be an interesting endeavor. Either way, I look forward to it.