For my next trick, I will break my golden rule of blogging.
I did not want this blog to turn into an online journal, but if it doesn't, doesn't that defeat the purpose? Blog is short for web-log. Started (or made popular) by Will Wheaton, the kid that played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG. He wrote a good book about it, Just A Geek, check it out if you're so inclined. Anyway, that's what a blog is, an online journal. If I just preach or editorialize things, I just look like a superficial jerk.
Also, writing is about communication, in order for that to happen, some one needs to be on the other end of what I'm typing. If I continue to hold myself aloof from my topics, eventually, you dear reader(s), will get bored, then leave.
This is difficult for me, because I'm not a good communicator. I can speak, write, and listen well enough. I can relate to subjects very well. I can relay information if need be. But, a continuous dialogue... not my cup o' joe. I use words to guard myself away from the world. I hide, and shield, myself with words.
Until recently, all of my friendships were short, terminal. I didn't know it at the time, but all my former relationships had an expiration date. They ended because they were situation based, never going any deeper than whatever it was we had in common, be it a job, classes, on the same sports team, etc.
I have never asked questions. Really, I would fail a test before I would admit self-appointed ineptness. I have always felt I would be seen as weak, or stupid if I didn't understand something straightaway, so I never learned how to properly form questions in my mind. In order to get to know someone, there are questions that need to be asked: What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do? Wife/kids/pets? Girlfriend/boyfriend?
Yeah, those stupid, telling, important questions... I don't ask them. I wait, eavesdrop, watch, infer, assume, and do everything a person can to make himself look like an insufferable jack ass to new people. And people remain in the "new" category for a lllllooooonnnnngggg time with me, since I am incapable of asking questions. On the off chance that I do ask a question, I don't know what to follow up with, imagine this conversation, with your bartender:
Me: What do you do for a living?
Ted: Oh, I'm glad you asked, I teach art history at (local college).
Me: That's must be demanding, and rewarding. Hold on a sec... [to another guest] Whatcha drinking today? [walks away to get drink]
Would you tip that guy? I wouldn't. [See, I get it. I just don't do it, for some reason.]
That's a real conversation I've had many times in my bar. I never go back to the question, never follow up. I know the basics, and am able to participate in small talk if I'm forced to, but never anything meaningful, for me or my guest. I'm very very good at my job, functionally. Talk to anyone in restaurants, and they'll tell you, getting drinks for people accounts for under half of what bartenders do. Working with someone who possesses those talents is a dream for me. They can schmooze, I can work. It's not perfect, but it's comfortable for me. Bartenders are there to do all the things I bitched about in a previous entry first, got drinks second. People go to bars to socialize, to interact, and your barkeep is the host, or M.C., if you will. Does that make me a bad beerslinger? Not necessarily, but it does explain why I don't have (m)any regulars, that stop in to see me, not to be at the establishment in general, or have many long term friendships.
[This also explains why I avoid people from my past, but that's a beast for a different day. Not really, real quick: "Catching up" is all about asking and answering questions, neither of which I'm good at. Therefore, I don't want 10 years worth of Q & A to prove how inhuman I can be.]
If I'm getting paid, I can turn on a smile and fake it well enough to get by, barely. But if I'm not at work? Oh, gods, I feel bad for my friends sometimes. I use wit and quick thinking to shield myself from ever giving real answers to questions directed at me. I'm so stuck in this platonic method of thinking that it's automatic, the words escape my head before I can form a real, coherent answer. There's a time and place for being a smart ass... if only I could figured out when and where that is.
I rush so hard and so fast into things, that I don't really comprehend what I'm doing until I'm halfway done. It's frustrating to me to go so far, only to realize that I don't understand the basics. Do I stop to ask? Nope. I plunge head long to finish whatever it is I'm doing, and continue as nothing was ever wrong. I used to think, next time, I'll think before I speak, or, next time, I'll ask, but did I ever? No.
People say they enjoy my wit and humor. While that may be true, [I can be funny, if I'm not trying to be, like Gilbert Gottfried] it's the exception, not the rule. I can be very cruel and punishing if I put my mind to it (or if I don't put my mind anywhere near it, in this case) and I don't know where to draw the line, and give up the ghost of comedy. Things that I have said have caused me much remorse over the years, and for a long time, I went through a phase where I wouldn't talk at all (still happens on occasion) just so I wouldn't offend of hurt anyone. It totally backfired on me, and still does. Instead of being mean, I was arrogant, or uncaring in the view of others, and rightfully so. It all came from the same place, not understanding the basic relations of communications and empathy. I tend toward extremes, these being two. I'm either on or off, it's nothing to do with you, and not meant in an offensive manner, but that's how it's taken.
I can't apologize for past remarks, because I can't take them back. And it seems like an escape to apologize in this most impersonal way, so I won't. But what I will do is pledge to find the balance between the two. Not to compromise what and who I am, but to find the commonality between us and flow with that. To not try so hard to impress with jokes and barbs, betraying my insecurity. To find the reality in situations and ordeals, and face that with humility and brevity.
Basically, I'll try not to be a dick.
