the game, or: self-improvement, also or: dreams of a recovering not.myself.ist

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

____Oscar Wilde








book2_20, Jordi Gual Goodbye My Friends..!!


this is going to be a straight-up chat. it's been a while, so i thought i'd cut out the middle-man creative-writing mumbo-jumbo spectacularathon and just... say hey. hey.

some resolution with regards to personality:

____1. i've been listening to 'happy' music in the morning when i wake, and drive to school. (yesterday i discovered that if you drive through a parking lot listening to Bob Marley on full blast sucking on a rasberry slushie at 9am in a SMART car, women will find you unimaginably attractive and in one case, stop you to chat, and in a second, kinda chase you down a little). this little burst of happiness seems to kick me into my next point:

____2. i no longer look at the ground and frown when i walk (unless i'm deep in thought, which i try not to be). i look around. hold eye-contact, and though i can't actually smile at people, i am channeling all of my happy-vibes into a sort of Mona List half-smile that is neither flirtatious nor such an overt social symbol that people have clear interpretation rights. they kinda just get a sense of friendliness, which is the idea.

____3. i pathologically start conversations. 4, maybe 5 a day. if i'm in a line, i start it with whoever is behind me, or in front. in classes i sit next to people. yesterday i was walking and noticed a girl walking besides me at the same pace as me and in the same direction. either one of us has to slow down or we have to start talking. (she laughed) Generally my strong suite is older-women. i'm great with older-women. my weakness is guys my age. the conversation is almost always innane. cars. sports. attractive women. classes. [ukh]. i find as long as i'm forcing myself to speak start hello may i who how just say the first i'm not really able to relapse into a 'vastness of perpetual aloneness'. because, short-lived and virtual as they are, they are 1. contact, and 2. incredibly stimulating experiences. it forces a level of bravery, amiability, and caring that i usually have trouble mustering. that said, i am a fairly wonderful conversationalist and rounded enough to find something amusing to talk about with almost anyone.

____4. i sell myself instead of dread myself. i'm not homeless, i'm well travelled. i'm not a melancholic pessemist, i'm a facetious english-speaking french-existentialist (who believes in God). i don't miss hate decipher my past, i tell stories.

when in the morning (or by midafternoon, when) i notice everyone else sitting huddled in small groups, and me still rolling solo, i tell myself, you are selling lifestyle. you are not a you. you are a lifestyle. and your lifestyle is you. and i find that easier to fathom (believe it or not). because i don't need to ponder what a who.what.where.how? i am, i can just imagine a lifestyle i like, and embody it. i don't dress funny, i attract attention. and best of all, since i decide the lifestyle i'm selling, it can be the world i want it to be. a world of smart witty conversations, a world of loving frankness and honesty with a smile. a direct and simple world. a well-dressed, well-travelled, adventurous world. a world of being yourself (or at least having enough space to experiment with what a yourself is (or you want it to be)). in my world, it's cool to be you. drinker or not. Faithful or not. conventional or not. this makes it easier for me. i think of me as a representative of a space (a world) that exists, and which i am an ambassador of. and my demeanour recruits them into my space (world) (that exists) (only that i, more or less, am the only one from that planet) (at least within the present geographical locale).

____5. at the wedding: i danced. like an idiot. that's fine. let's do it again. let's do anything. i tried a new haircut today. didn't like it. went back to the old. i smiled, told the hairdresser sorry for wasting your time a bit, charge me a little more. i feel good about that in a huge way.

[what i'm saying is: i don't need to be happy, i need to act happy, and the being will eventually follow]

finally,
____6. when i was 13, i analysed. interactions. conversations. i looked for signs. i treated the social contract as a game. i used it to devise ways of mainting the interest level in myself (and in other people). i had routines for picking up lecturers (i'm using the language of the game, but what i really mean is: manufacturing, or assisting others in participating in, really interesting conversations)- set lines and questions and actions and feigned curiosity in order to stimulate comfort, discussion, and maintained interest. i stopped that when i decided i wanted to be a brazen, brash, jerk, rebel- i wanted to smash through social convention and just 'be myself'. now that i've resigned that idea entirely, i can go back to being... intelligent about social contact.

all in all, i've decided to use these last few (difficult) days, to investigate why i haven't been doing soo well socially, and to find a fix-it solutions.

my new general principle is: if you can't join them, make them join you.
(and i feel really comfortable with that idea)

________(mostly, thanks Mar for the chat)