Here's something I don't understand: Why people feel the need to figure me out.

Over the past few years I've been told in various ways that I am a very strange child, and that the speaker, or the speaker's friend, would like to get to know me better to find out how I think, why I think like I do, and perhaps even how they can make me stop.

I have an allegory for this sort of thing. Scientific observations, where one goes out into the field to stare at an organism and monitor its behaviour. One might form a hypothesis, and then set about trying to reject it (or fail to reject it) as ethically as possible.

When I'm told that I'm in the process of being figured out, I do get upset. For one, no one has an accurate dataset. I have compartmentalised my life so strictly that I'm afraid of what will happen to me mentally if I ever tried to meld the parts together. Without full evidence - and three encounters, or an online journal, or brief exchanges over the internet do not constitute full evidence - you cannot have an accurate picture. I cannot abide the thought that there is someone walking around thinking that he or she has me completely mapped out when he or she doesn't have the full story. For the record, no one has the full story, not even my parents, not even my best friends. It is not a 'oh I am so misunderstood' sort of thing, it is a 'there are some things I can't even bring myself to speak about' sort of thing.

Secondly, I am a unique snowflake, undefinable, and an enigmatic mystery the likes of which no man will ever comprehend. The nerve of some of them to try! bitchbitchmoanmoan.

Finally, I haven't figured myself out. I'm not even close. Every day I discover something about myself that I must take time to consider and allocate a feeling toward. The fact that someone else is deciding something about me that I possibly haven't made up my mind about doesn't do anything to endear that person to me.

I am not an interesting specimen to be observed, nor am I an exciting adventure to be had. You may take me for who I am, but the how and the why I reserve the right to keep to myself.

< bass | treble >

- - 2007-03-08
filler! - 2007-02-16
- - 2006-10-24
on faithhopetrust - 2006-10-04
on hot chocolate - 2006-08-24