I've started this post a couple times already and given up because it makes me sound like an uppity jerk, but I suppose I have to get it out of the way at some point.
Barrier #2 to me finding a relationship: Liking people.
I'm a friendly person. I smile a lot, and I'm rather skilled at making small talk. If nothing else, I can keep quiet and listen to other people with some degree of attention. And I get along with most people I meet, so I don't exactly go out and start fights.
However, I don't usually find people that I feel I would enjoy spending large amounts of time with. Most of the time, I feel I can tolerate people for about 30 minutes before I'm going to become bored. People just seem to run out of personality or amusing anecdotes, or they're too afraid people will think they're weird, or something. I don't know. The bottom line is that I'm indifferent to most of the people I meet. Part of the problem is probably that the place that I come from is a small town. They think so small; they use small words.
To be fair, I don't really invite people to open up to me very well. I'm pretty sarcastic and critical, as most of the readers of this space will already know from years of hanging out with me. Usually I'm sarcastic and critical in a fun and non-offensive sort of way, but if people don't really know me that well, I can imagine them being confused and upset by my usual conversation.
This, by the way, is the main reason I do not drink. People lose their conversation filters when they've had a little to drink. For most people, this just involves the filters that stop them from saying stupid stuff that doesn't make any sense. For me, it takes a few filters to turn the mean and abusive things I think on a regular basis into a harmless little witticism, so intoxication generally ends up with me making a few new enemies and no one having fun.
But back to the subject at hand: liking people. Christy, the LPN on my unit, is the opposite of me: she either loves or hates everyone she has ever met. As such, she has gone through her life with no shortage of friends, but plenty of enemies as well and no shortage of avoidable unpleasant drama, from the way she tells it. I am going through life with no shortage of friendly well-wishers, in that they don't wish me any particular harms, and very little unpleasant drama. Most of the drama I have had in my life has ended with me in a deep situational depression, so I'm not inclined to change this one any time soon. If I were, this would be more like a hurdle then a barrier.
This is a long rambling post that I'm not particularly proud of, but I'm posting it to get it out of the way. I should probably add that if you're reading this blog, I like you, even you people I don't know who found me through my blog-wide famous sibling, like Sara.
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3 comments:
Don't worry, Andy, I don't think you're an uppity jerk just because you don't like most people: it just shows you've got some sense. People who are scared of weirdness aren't much fun, and smalltalk chitchat is exhausting.
But since you don't know me, I should warn you... I'm a big curmudgeon. So of course I sympathize about not liking people. Present company excepted.
I think you're an uppity jerk. But also a big dork, so it evens out.
Unrelatedly, I have also had trouble making post-college friends. It really sucks.
Casey: Guilty as charged..
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