Trust in me, I'll give you a reason

[sovay]

Tonight in shower conversations, I talked to spatch about how ambivalently I feel about the fact that I had to learn to signal my emotions beyond my natural facial reactions because otherwise people wouldn't believe that I felt what I felt (another inescapable form of social lying) and he assured me that by now it looks very natural and microexpressive and then I felt even more ambivalently about that. Does everyone just learn the right faces to make and then never mention it in polite company so that it just looks natural from the outside and each person secretly assumes they're the one acting? Concern, distaste, appreciation, perplexity. All the little noises you make to people to tell them that you're really interested in what they're saying. Did you really think that those gogglers knew you for yourself without any help from me? No, I had to give you an aspect they could understand, and a horn they could see. These days, it takes a cheap carnival witch to make folk recognize a real unicorn. I still have to tell people sometimes that I really am happy about something even if I am not demonstrating the socially normative level of shrieking and flailing. It is just so often exhausting.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

I can recall disliking my facial expressions as a child, as they felt too extreme – like losing control. At the same time it annoyed me that my mouth did not actually form a U shape when I smiled. I think I wanted to be a cartoon character; they have nice simplified readable faces.

Also I’m pretty sure my gestures and body language are derived from a mix of cartoons, old movies, fashion illustrations, and the occasional medieval manuscript marginal illumination.