when i tell people i was almost painfully shy as a child, they choose not to believe it. some of my actions now as an adult seem to speak this need to gain attention to myself, because i always felt like it was never quite there. people would believe anything i told them but the shy bit never caught on, even though it WAS painfully true.
when i was a child, i was already the tallest person in my class. my assertiveness was already showing as i was the one chasing the boys since kindergarten and not the other way around. once at a dinner party, we were to tell something about ourselves and i said when i was five i led some little boys out of kindergarten to the school playground across the street. I was bored with the damn playdoh. the host laughed and said i was too confident for my own good.
But as i got older, i fell farther and farther behind in female development, and not as in physical development but as in that I had no real female friends. the farther i fell, the more wigged out i became. Most of my friends were boys and it was further segregated more so when we were tested academically and I was the only girl who was “chosen” for the gifted program. when there is a dozen students in the class and 1/3 are being considered special, it makes it difficult for everyone else to get along, especially when you are 8. the program was abruptly curtailed.
as i got older, it got worse. i have very few female friends and those I do have, while i cherish them as much as possible, i don’t quite fit in with them. the whole issue of the males seems as daunting then as it does now as it was then because then i just wanted to push them in the mud, and now i want to push them into my bed. The irony is that one of the first things men say when the dating ritual start is how my assertiveness is refreshing but later on it turns into be the problem as we are breaking up. Especially my attitude about sex, apparently I think too much like a man.
But this is not where I wanted to go tonight because I’m terribly sad. I’m not sad because I’m leaving VA (though I’ll miss the friends I’ve made here very much), and I’m not sad because I’m not dating, but what I’m most sad about is that I’m nearly 30 and i still do not fit in.
Everyone has their little niche in life, whether it is as a mother, or a husband or wife. If they knit, read or sew or put babies heads on spikes, they have some sort of common denominator that makes them come together. I don’t have that. I don’t have my niche. I’m a 30 year old single white female who is going back to school, who stands 6′ tall, pierced, tattooed and collects legos. While I’ve been joining mailing lists and looking for local GR groups specifically to expand my interests, I don’t seem to fit in ANYWHERE. I feel like I’m 8 again and in Mrs. Buntrock’s (her real name) 3rd grade class waiting desperately for someone to notice me even though I had been going to school with these kids for years.
most people mistook me for being quiet as being a snob, and in some warped way i was. but this feeling of never quite fitting in has always bothered me and hence how i got nicknamed chameleon by a few high school friends because i floated in and out of all the social groups with ease. i belonged everywhere and nowhere and that’s reflected for most of my adult life.
Paul used to say that, in the beginning, it was great dating me because it was like getting a new girlfriend every six months. Hair, style, clothing: everything changes. But he says he can’t keep up because he never knows who he’s talking to and now all he wants is to date a stupid girl who will just want to be his haus frau.
but i digress.
i am scared and as frightened NOW as i was on that day when i started school for the very first time. as worried as the day i walked home from class with my math book wondering HOW in the world it was going to be possible to learn everything to get into high school. i am afraid of failing, I’m afraid of not doing my best. I’m afraid that I’ll be laughed at or mocked at for being the oldest sophomore in existence. I’m afraid they will talk behind my back.
when i had gone back to college when I was 22, i took the bull by the horns and got involved with the paper and other things. i leapt and i want to do that now, i see me at 22 and I want to do the same thing. I want to grab that moment again. I want to fight those thoughts of being a loser back down to the pit of despair so that they will never bother me again.
I just want to fit in.
—
before i took off tonight for dinner, ben came online and showed me pics from his outing to LOTR. Now the thing that struck me was not that he was obviously having a great time but that he had this fucking awesome scarf wrapped around his neck. the irony is that i love scarves. i have like five i trade off in the winter, from a bright orange boa- like one to a stripey wool one from the gap. what furthered the irony is that Paul has been bitching about his neck being cold since we had that cold snap and i offered him one of my ‘jaunty scarves’ and he kept whining. But this is Paul and i should have already known he would have whined, what the hell was i thinking? a few nights back when we were picking up Xmas presents to finish our shopping, we trolled one of the department stores and Paul couldn’t find the perfect BLACK (yet boring and not-stylish) scarf to wrap around his thick neck. As we walked past the Nautica display, next to it they had these really GREAT JANUTY SCARVES on sale. I mean, these fuckers were awesome. I was like OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I wanted one for myself and had to smack my hand down because i did not need another scarf. I called my brother to see if he had a scarf and lost cell phone reception in the department store, so i walked out sans scarf. It was great seeing ben wearing a jaunty scarf. it made me smile.
Now this is jaunty scarf!
i am, as always,
the gay man trapped in a woman’s body.
x0x0x
PS: I’ll take the male models in the above website, naked and tied with a red ribbon. thanks Santa!