Self-Reflection

Well, it's almost my birthday, which means it's once again time for me to take stock of who I am, what I want, where I'm going, and how well I'm doing. This may or may not lead to some sort of mental breakdown. We'll just have to see.

Last year around this time, the topic of distress was my life path. I was turning 19. I was a junior in college. I had my major picked out, I was working within my chosen career field, and I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with myself. Well, that's not completely accurate: I knew what I wanted to do (get the heck out of this state and country and travel the world), but I had no way of doing it.

In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I lost both my dog Kiko (unexpectedly) and my grandpa (more expectedly) to cancer. I also lost my job very suddenly and found myself scrambling for income; I found one at the local YMCA, a job which I would come to loathe. My first day of work was my birthday. I didn't have a party. Honestly, no one would have come.

Which leads me to la crise de l'annee: my social self.

I know I'm an introvert. I've known that for years, since I knew what "introvert" meant -- and before that, I just called myself shy. I've always accepted my introverted nature as just that: natural. It's who I am. I know where I feel comfortable, and I know where I don't.

But I've never asked myself WHY.

Why am I an introvert? More specifically, why do I avoid busy social situations? Why do I prefer smaller gatherings of people I know to larger groups of strangers and acquaintances? Why is it that when I'm at a party, I sit in a corner instead of actively seeking others out or participating in festivities?

Am I self-conscious, or just selfish? Are my standards for other people too high? Am I afraid -- of rejection, of acceptance, of reputation, of pressure? Am I simply content just to observe rather than to participate? Am I antisocial?

Self-conscious: a little. I generally appear to be operating at a healthy level of confidence, but deep down, I'm my own worst critic. I compare myself to everyone else, to the "normal" people, and notice my inescapable lack of charisma and personal magnetism, my awkwardness in certain social situations, my ignorance of etiquette, my uninteresting conversation-starters.
While everyone around me is having a riotously good time playing beer pong or flip cup, blowing fireballs off the back porch, dancing wildly to music, and jumping the fence into the neighborhood pool without hesitation, there I sit: in a chair, usually with another chair next to it in case anyone wants to sit down for a chat, quietly sipping my girly-drinks and avoiding eye contact. Occasionally I'll join in on a game, if I feel like it, but I often feel like the odd one out. Luckily for me, I can usually fall back on my rather-high tolerance for alcohol. Or my  one and only party trick: place a bottled drink between my breasts and lean back to drink from it. Oh yeah. Very proud of that one. -.-

Selfish with high standards: probably. I tend to think of myself a little bit more highly than my peers, especially the ones who frequent these parties. I'm intellectual; they're drunk. I'm sophisticated; they're drunk. I'm capable of self-control; they're drunk. Even when they're not drunk, I know that they're *intending* to get drunk, and that they were probably drunk the night before. Because I don't drink nearly as often as many of my peers, and because I rarely get drunk in front of a large crowd of people, I put myself above these partygoers. Frankly, I can be a bit snobby. It's only when one of the "drunks" sits down and starts having a decent conversation with me that I start affording them respect.

This is very, very bad of me. I should be much less judgmental and more laid-back, and accept people for who they are. Even if they're drunk, they have the same inherent worth and dignity as anyone. And because I do occasionally get drunk too, I'm not really one to judge.

This is unfortunately the same situation when I'm around *some of, not all* my well-known friends. Maybe I surround myself with people whom I deem inferior just so I can feel superior.

Afraid: definitely. In school I hung near the bottom of the social ladder, the butt of many jokes, the object of many rumors (and I have my wonderful last name to thank for that). I felt like a lot of people were out to get me, or at least to make my life just a little more miserable. I definitely felt like an outcast. By the time I got to high school, I had pretty much accepted my niche in the social scene. I was never going to be popular, admired (for anything other than my smarts), well-liked by my general age group.

So I think I stoppped trying. And it wasn't one of those "Who cares what they think, if they don't like me for me then that's their loss" sort of decisions. I just realized where I stood, the futility of trying to advance, and decided to sit down and at least try to enjoy it. It's a hard thing to enjoy, knowing that everyone who matters (at the time) sees you as Less Than and there's no way to change their opinions.

Sadly, this followed me to college. Although I made an attempt at being more outgoing during my first quarter, old habits die hard. Despite being in an entirely new social environment with people who had no preconceived notions of who I was, I didn't try to impress anyone. I assumed the same role I'd been playing for years. The friendships I've gleaned out of college so far have been more the results of chance, circumstance, and coincidence than of my active pursuit of relationships with others.

In the end, I'm still afraid of being the outcast, of being rejected, of losing the friends that I have when they realize I'm not cool, and of eventually becoming that sore thumb whom people feel obligated to invite to parties but really don't want there. So I kind of ... skip the whole thing by not giving them a chance to judge me.

Content to observe: maybe sometimes, but this isn't the driving force behind my introversion.

Antisocial: not quite. My parents are rather antisocial, which was probably a major contributing factor to my social preferences. The only people they hung out with were people from my dad's office. They never got involved with my school activities, only showing up when they were obligated to (this could be, perhaps, why I didn't do more school activities). Add this to the fact that we lived on the rural end of town, the opposite end from nearly every one of my school friends, and my only playmate was my little brother... yeah. You get the picture. Isolation was simply part of my upbringing.

I need to go to bed now, but there will likely be more to come on my Social Self. I think I've only scratched the surface.