Don't think you're immune—it could be happening to you

[sovay]

Nothing has happened recently to highlight it, but I am going through another round of furiously resenting that I had to develop social skills. I did, of course, and people I trust tell me they're good, and I am actively not interested in being a jerk. Other people were a more alien language to me than Akkadian and I learned them. That's an accomplishment. But all I really wanted, even into grad school, was to be good at things and left alone. I thought for years that if the first part were true enough, the second would follow automatically.

Comments

[selkie]

You should be much more forward with how intensely people bore you and how often you'd like to murder them outright. By tossing them off things. Or out of things. Or with a stabby thing. Or a poisonous thing. Or a chokey thing. Or...

Crap, that's ME. Isn't it. Crap.

[sovay]

Crap, that's ME. Isn't it. Crap.

It's a possibility.

I really believed that if I were good enough at what I did, people wouldn't care whether I smiled enough, whether I socialized, whether I could make small talk, whether I dressed well, whether I was good at anything other than the things I needed to be. I got this idea from somewhere. And I look at it now and think: yes, and then the war ends and all of a sudden it matters very much that you're not the marrying kind.

[selkie]

It would be some easier, though not perfect, if you had been born in a male body; male bodies get a lot of passes we don't and they get labelled 'eccentric' over 'antisocial.'

It Makes Me Want to Unironically Die to self-promote; like the work or don't! I made it exist and now it is up to you! ...but it isn't like that. It's been a real thing to learn.

You should save that last sentence for something; it came to you from somewhere good and it stands out like a real gift, even if it hurt.

[sovay]

You should save that last sentence for something; it came to you from somewhere good and it stands out like a real gift, even if it hurt.

Thank you. I will keep it.

*hugs*