I have decided that Saturday night is the weekly equivalent of New Year’s Eve. Going out can seem like a good idea, especially when everyone else is doing it and I don’t have to get up for work the next day, but it’s almost always disappointing. I have never been a fan of going out on a Saturday, and I avoid it as much as I possible. I would rather go out any other night of the week, when it’s quieter and there aren’t quite so many people milling about. As I may have mentioned before, I’m not the most sociable person at the best of times, so choosing to leave the house when there are so many other people out and about seems like a huge mistake to me. Of course it can’t always be helped, and as long as the location and company are carefully chosen it can actually be a very pleasant experience. I think it’s these times that lead me to forget how bad a Saturday night out can be, and I let myself believe that going somewhere that I know is going to be overcrowded and unpleasant is a good idea. But I am usually reminded very quickly of how wrong I am. Maybe it’s when I’m driving around the same streets for the fourth time hoping a parking space is suddenly going to appear out of nowhere. Or when I’m standing in line for movie tickets. Or in line to get into the movie. Or in line for the ladies after the movie. Having to wait in line at all is generally not my idea of good time. I expect to do it at the supermarket or the ATM, I don’t really want to do it repeatedly on what’s supposed to be a fun night out. And it doesn’t help when the movie turns out to be so dull that I struggle to stay awake, although I can admit that’s probably not Saturday night’s fault. Then there are the smokers. I don’t actually have much of a problem with smoking. I don’t particularly like it but, as with most things, I respect people’s right do it. I do like that they can’t smoke in restaurants though. At least I like it when I’m in the restaurant, not so much when I’m attempting to walk down a restaurant-heavy street that’s littered with groups of people blowing their smoke in my face and waving their cigarettes in the general vicinity of my eyes. Does everyone suffer from this? I do wonder if it’s a height thing, perhaps being short puts me right in the line of fire. Literally, in this case. So by the time I’ve dealt with parking, crowds, multiple lines and dodging smokers I’m really not in much of a socialising mood. It reminds me that even though I may feel guilty turning down a social invitation from people I really do enjoy spending time with, sometimes I should do it just to save them having to put up with me and my unsociable ways. I suspect they might secretly appreciate that too.
I’m a little envious of people who don’t feel an emotional attachment to inanimate objects, I wish I could be more like that. While I like fancy new gadgets, and covet so much more than I could ever dream of buying, there are some things that I just can’t bare to part with no matter how old and tattered they become. My iPod is very much old school, but unless it decides to stop working I can’t imagine wanting to replace it with a newer, sleeker model. It holds everything I could ever want to listen to, which is all I need it to do, and I feel a bit lost if I don‘t have it with me. I don’t care that it’s outdated and probably makes me very uncool, it’s mine and I love it. I’ve driven the same car for almost 16 years, and I’m dreading the day that I have to replace it. I can admire other cars. I may even wonder what it would be like to drive something newer, with air conditioning and a CD player, but when I think about actually get rid of it I become quite emotional. I will even be a little offended on its behalf if people ask me when I’m getting a new car, as if it could be so easily discarded just because it‘s not shiny and new anymore.
Unfortunately my love of stuff means I’m also a bit of a hoarder. It’s not something I do consciously, I just have a hard time throwing some things out. Not all things, mind you. In fact most things I will happily get rid of. But there are some things that I just keep much longer than I really need to. At least a couple of times a week I look at my neatly stacked piles of videos and think I really should do something about getting rid of them, especially considering I haven’t had a working VCR for a couple of years now. Many I hadn’t watched for years even when I did have a VCR, and the ones I did watch I’ve mostly replaced on DVD anyway, but I still find it hard to take the final step of throwing them out. I know they’re not worth saving – they’re certainly not in the same league as the vinyl records that I haven’t listened to for 20 years but would never dream of parting with. And I don’t expect that video will ever make a comeback, so there’s no reason to keep them. But still they sit there, in their nice, neat piles, mocking me and my inability to part with them. I can’t imagine just binning them, although I guess I could always put them out on big rubbish day in the hope that someone will find them interesting enough to take. I love big rubbish day. I love that people will trawl the streets looking for treasures amongst other people’s cast offs. And I’m always a little chuffed when someone deems my rubbish worthy of taking, and kind of offended when they don’t. I’ve never had the patience for that kind of thing myself, and I really don’t need any more stuff than I’ve got anyway, but I like that others are willing to put in the effort to rescue something wonderful that would just become landfill otherwise. It makes me feel a bit better about throwing things out if I know there’s the possibility that someone else will take them home, and maybe even appreciate them as much as I have.
Compliments are nice. In fact I would say they’re one of my all time favourite things. What’s not to like about a compliment? I like to give them at every opportunity, but I do have the very strict rule that they must always be sincere. Always. Otherwise what’s the point? Sure, sometimes it’s tempting to say something nice just to be kind (kindness is also one of my favourite things), but it’s really not the same if it’s not genuine. I do worry about coming across as insincere though, so I will sometimes stop myself from being overly complimentary if I think it’s going to sound over the top, which I think is a bit of a shame, but necessary to avoid sounding like a zealous freak. Although conversely, being the ridiculous over thinker that I am, I have occasionally missed the opportunity to compliment because I’ve spent far too long considering whether I should or not. These days I will most often go with when in doubt, say it anyway. I also try to gauge the compliment taking ability of the recipient before jumping in if I can. I might try to ease it into the conversation rather than just saying it outright if I know they don’t necessarily feel comfortable with compliments. I understand that, I’m not particularly good at accepting them myself, so I find a gentle approach works best in these cases. Whereas other people just love to be told they’re awesome, which is fine and makes complimenting them much easier, although admittedly not as satisfying in the long run.
Of course not all compliments are created equal. I’m sure we’ve all been on the receiving end of the backhanded compliment at one time or another. Being a life-long fat girl, I have often heard the clichéd backhanded compliment of “you have such a pretty face”. Most people would preface this with “I just have to tell you” and an air of exasperation, like they know I’m not going to like it, but they just have to say it anyway. “I just have to tell you, you have such a pretty face…”, with the unspoken “…if only” part pointedly left out. Er, thanks, I guess. Then there are the not quite compliments. I don’t understand the point of those, either. It’s when someone says something like “you’ve had your hair cut” and leave it at that. Or “is that a new shirt?”, then nothing. To me this always seems like a thinly veiled insult. Oh sure, they don’t actually say something insulting, but the lack of a compliment implies something less than positive. If you go to the trouble of mentioning it, then surely the obvious thing to do is to say something nice about it. If you don’t intend to say something nice, then I assume the obvious thing would be to not say anything at all. But maybe that’s just me. There’s also the third party compliment, which I’ve come across a lot. This is where someone won’t compliment you personally, but will speak highly of you to someone else, presumably knowing that it will get back to you. I’ve had this happen to me with people who have been downright cold to my face, but glowingly complimentary about me to someone else. It’s still a compliment, I guess, but it does seem like a slightly odd way to go about it. The thing is, I’m not saying we should all go around profusely complimenting each other, or even looking for things to compliment each other on, but if I notice something that I like about someone then I‘m just going to say it. By the way, I’m very impressed that you’ve read this far. No, seriously, most people wouldn’t bother. I think that shows an admirable level of kindness and decency that clearly makes you a wonderful person. Cheers!
I’m sorry to admit that I am a serial apologiser. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, if I feel that there’s even the slightest chance that I am wrong or somehow responsible for something, I will be apologising and feeling guilty for it. Sometimes I don’t even have to be at all responsible for something to feel the need to apologise. I have never possessed the confidence to ever really be completely sure about things, so if something goes wrong I automatically feel that I must be somehow responsible. Or if I’m not responsible this time, I almost certainly must have made the same mistake in the past and therefore deserve to feel guilty by proxy. I do this a lot at work. No matter how sure I am about something, there’s always that little niggle of doubt in the back of my mind. How can I be really sure that it is the way I think it is? What if I’m remembering something incorrectly? It’s the reason I can never take part in trivia nights. I am virtually incapable of remembering important or valuable or worthwhile information, but useless crap is constantly wedging itself into my brain and refusing to budge. It helps to read low-brow magazines and wander around the internet a lot, there’s just so much useless crap to take in wherever I turn. I reckon I’d probably be fantastic at trivia, but I will never, ever go to an organised group event. Because the first time I’m sure of an answer, and someone else in the group challenges me, I will give in to them because their challenge will automatically make me doubt myself. And they’ll be wrong. And we will lose and it will be all my fault! I just don’t need another way to feel like a failure, particularly if my failure means others will also fail. And I really don’t need any more guilt, I’m overburdened with that already.
I would say it’s residual Catholic guilt, but I was only ever a half-hearted Catholic at best. And I didn’t do the whole Catholic school thing. My religious education really only consisted of school scripture classes, and they never did concentrate much on the more guilt-inducing aspects of the Catholic faith in those. Although I am quite proud that the only time I was ever sent out of the classroom in all my years at school was during Scripture. And by a priest, no less. Oh yeah, that’s as badass as it gets! Still, I never paid enough attention to religion to really develop some hard and fast religious-related guilt, so I can only assume the ridiculous guilt-ridden feeling I’ve lived with all my life is just somehow naturally ingrained. Although over the years I have learned to appreciate the difference between genuine guilt and doubt-induced guilt, which is much less painful, although no less real. Knowing that I’ve done something that is deserving of guilt and/or shame is almost unbearably awful. Feeling guilty because that’s just my default position is much easier to deal with. I also have a real fear of insisting I’m right about something and being proven wrong, which would be terribly embarrassing. Much better to assume I’m wrong and occasionally turn out to be right after all. At least that way if I am wrong I’m not embarrassed or even particularly disappointed, and in a strange way I‘m actually right anyway. So either way, I win.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself. It’s something I’ve thought and read a lot about lately, and clearly the best thing for a timid introvert to do is write a blog about it. I always assumed it was something I would grow out of. I would learn to be more outgoing, make small talk with strangers at bus stops, maybe even enjoy social events with people I barely know, but apparently it doesn’t work that way. Once an introvert, always an introvert. I can fake it as long as I’m not too far out of my comfort zone; at work for example, or around people I know very well I probably come across as almost confident. But in almost any other situation I am the wallflower, the shy one who doesn’t know what to say and will almost always say the wrong thing anyway. I once travelled to the US for three weeks on my own and didn’t have a real conversation the enitre time I was there. Sure I made awkward small talk with hotel staff or salespeople, but I have never had the ability to strike up a conversation with a fellow traveller. And other people seem to do it so easily, that’s what amazes me the most! How do two complete strangers start talking, apparently even enjoying their interaction? I don’t think I’ve ever managed it, not on my own anyway. I’m great at standing next to a confident, extraverted friend while they have an in-depth chat with someone they’ve known for five minutes, but even then I won’t have anything to add except an occasional nod or smile. The whole business is a complete mystery to me. It’s not all bad though, most of the time I’m very happy being an introvert. I don’t need constant company or attention, I’m quite happy in my safe little cocoon doing my own thing, and it helps that I have friends and family that understand that about me. And I quite like my work in a library, probably the most cliched job for an introvert, even if it’s not all shhh-ing and glaring disapprovingly at particularly loud people, although I do actually enjoy that part.
I’ve been listening to The Smiths even more than usual lately. Even after all these years, it still surprises that Morrissey seems to know exactly how I’m feeling, and he certainly articulates it so much more beautifully than I ever could. So many of the songs perfectly complement my melancholic tendencies. I Know It’s Over has seen me through some dark times. Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me and Asleep can still move me to tears in the right (or wrong) frame of mind. ”Sixteen, clumsy and shy. That’s the story of my life” from Half a Person feels like it’s written about me. The beautiful sadness in Morrissey’s lyrics still blow me away, no matter how familiar they’ve become. I do feel like they’re the songs that saved my life in many ways, but mostly it’s just comforting to know I’m not the only one who’s felt that way.
I’ve never been comfortable with being called Sandy. I’ve always thought of her as a cute, perky blonde girl, and I am none of those things. Although I have no problem with other people called Sandy. I don’t hate the name itself, I just hate it for me. And no one calls me Sandy. No one except for the occasional complete stranger, who’s just been introduced to me as Sandra, but assumes they can call me Sandy instead. This leaves me in the uncomfortable position of either putting up with something I hate or having to correct them, which then leaves everyone feeling a little awkward and me sounding boring and formal. I don’t know if it’s that some people just shorten everyone’s name, or if they think that’s what my friends must call me so they automatically jump from having just met me to being BFFs. I wouldn’t even mind if they asked if they could call me Sandy, but they rarely do. And if I do attempt to politely correct them, which I only really do if I know I’m going to see them again, they often seem vaguely offended by it. I don’t understand that, either. Surely I’m the one who gets to choose what I want to be called? Of course when this comes up in conversation and I mention that I don’t like it, there’s always that one person who thinks it’s funny to say ‘Oh, don’t you like to be called Sandy, Sandy? Why not Sandy? What’s wrong Sandy? Don’t you like that Sandy?’ Hilarious.
I’m not even sure why it bothers me so much. Maybe if I was Sandy as a child it would have stuck, but my cousins had a dog called Sandy so growing up I always thought of it as a dogs name. They actually had the dog before I was born, but my parents are Italian and I don’t think it ever occurred to them that the two names were in any way connected, or at least I’d like to think they didn’t intentionally name me after a dog! Then there is the Grease factor. A lifetime of people singing ‘Oh Sandy baaay-beeeeeee’ at me is enough to make me never, ever want to hear the song or the name again. So really, I blame John Travolta.
You know that person at a party or event of some sort who’s standing in the corner, not making eye contact and looking scared and like they would rather be anywhere else but there? The one you might take pity on and try to strike up a conversation with, only to find that they give you one word answers and seem painfully awkward and possibly a little simple? The one that makes you regret ever attempting to engage them in conversation at all and will make you think twice before ever doing it again? Yeah, that’s me. Sorry. It’s not that I don’t want someone to talk to me, I would love it, and I really do appreciate the effort, it’s just that I am incapable of making small talk. I can converse quite easily on a subject that interests me and that I feel confident about, I just can’t do awkward chit chat. And it’s always awkward with me. It’s the talk about nothing much that trips me up, if only we could skip the getting to know you chat and just get down to the important stuff I’d be fine. Music? Of course! Reality television? No problem! Politics? Yes indeed, although I can get a little ranty so I wouldn’t inflict that on just anyone.
I feel like there are unspoken rules when it comes to making conversation with strangers, and I’m so fearful of breaking them that I’d rather not take the risk. Oh, I’m sure it’s easy when you’re a confident conversationalist, but if you’re someone like me who has no natural getting-to-know-you skills it’s a minefield! I never feel comfortable asking personal questions, how can I know I’m not stepping over some invisible boundary? And I hate being asked questions about myself because I don’t feel like I have anything much to say. Occasionally I attempt to pass myself off as enigmatic in the hope that will make me seem more interesting than I am, but the truth is I’m just not particularly interesting at all. So if I can’t ask them about themselves and I can’t talk to them about myself, what else is there? The weather can be covered pretty quickly, and once the stilted conversation about the actual event is out of the way I’m just lost. I also have a tendency to imagine an entire conversation in my head before the poor person even opens their mouth, so by the time they do actually speak I’m already terrified. I don’t even want to mention the blushing, stammering and excessive perspiration. Really, who would want to talk to me in that state anyway?
It was my dream to be a witty conversationalist, someone who could charm a room with my fabulously entertaining anecdotes and sparkling personality, but I accept that I’m never going to be that person. That’s okay, I’m actually pretty good at the conversation part with people I already know, even if it does take me a ridiculously long time to actually get to know them. And there are advantages to being the wallflower, mainly that after experiencing my non-party personality people rarely invite me to them anymore, which is just the way I like it!
When did mobile phones become the main source of communication? I pretty much only communicate with my friends via text message these days, and I hate it. I never got the knack of texting, I’m forever pushing buttons one too many times and having to go through all the options again to find the letter I want. I can’t even do ‘text speak’ because I spend more time thinking of what the shortened version should be than I would just typing the out the whole word. And I have a tendency to be overly wordy anyway, so fitting what I really want to say into the tiny number of characters I have for a text is a long and painful process. Others seem to do it so easily, and I always feel pressured to answer quickly, not that I usually see messages right away anyway. I tend to only take the phone out of my bag to use it, otherwise I check it maybe once a day if I remember. I don’t carry it around with me at work or at home, so if I’m not in the room when the message comes through it could easily be a day or two before I read it. And it annoys me that text messages apparently give us permission to ignore the normal rules of politeness. I have an almost pathological need to be polite, and having to condense everything I want to say into short, sharp sentences seems so abrupt and impersonal. Last week I sent a long message that ended with a question, and the only reply I got was ‘Y’. That was it, one letter. I assume it stood for ‘yes’ but it could also have meant ‘why’. It’s hard not to feel a little put out that someone won’t even take the time to tap out an entire three letter word, whichever one it is. And even though I’ve told people that reception at my house is terrible, and I know they have my home and work numbers, most people will still only call on the mobile. Then I have to either run out to the backyard to find that small spot where I get decent reception, or stand on the footpath to take the call. I still feel faintly embarrassed talking on the phone in public anyway, so I’m really not keen to subject the entire street to my inane one-way conversation.
What was wrong with email? Hardly anyone emails me anymore. I can be as wordy as I like in an email, and I can spell check. (I’m obsessed with spell checking! I love that I can automatically spell check everything I write online. It just annoys me that it doesn’t correct grammar as well, I’m horrified when I discover I’ve used an apostrophe where there shouldn’t be one or the wrong there/their/they’re. And I know ‘communicationally’ is not a real word, my spell checker told me.) I can use whole words and proper punctuation, and I can be polite and make chit chat in an email. There’s no room for polite conversation in a text, no ‘how are you’, no talk of family or work or what you’ve been doing. I miss that. Texts are all business and very little friendliness. Email is much more civilised, in my opinion. I know you can send texts as emails and emails as texts these days, but that just seems even more complicated to me. It’s hard not to think communication was easier when the only options were mail and telephone. Now it’s great to have choices, but it’s really just another way to make me feel incompatible with just about everyone else.
