First Impressions and Too Much Information

I was just thinking about first impressions, and how so many of us strive to put our best face forward. Of course, it's human nature, isn't it?

I mean, we all want to present ourselves as having our shit together, being grounded, being desirable and clever and evolved and just all around perfect, don't we? Yes! I do! I want to be perfect, or at least, I want you to think that I am! Or I want to somehow prove to myself that I am, or could be. But damnit, it takes so much work to keep up that kind of charade. Let's hear if for laziness and apathy!

Sometimes, I want to meet a person and say "HI! I'M FUCKING NEUROTIC AND YEARS OF THERAPY HAVEN'T CHANGED THAT! I'VE GOT BAGGAGE! I'M A MESS! WELCOME TO MY MELTDOWN!".

I want to say this and so much more. I want to talk about the qualities you and I may find charming in one another at first but that we eventually will find grating upon our nerves like sandpaper across a chalk board. I want to meet you and disect you and find out what makes you tick and I want to love you and drive you away simultaneously so that I can sit around feeling sorry for myself and blaming you for my problems. And I want it to happen all in my mind so that I never have to risk anything and so that I never have to feel the coolness of your rejection.

I want to rail in that land of Too Much Information with more than just my own issues as entertainment... I want to hear all about yours neurotic ways, and then I want to sit around and psycho-analyze us all to death, so that I can firmly prove to myself that you are just as screwed up as me and then sit around feeling smug.

Yes, that's uh... what the voices in my head instructed me to write about tonight. Those voices are such cranky, buzzkilling little buggers, eh? But at least, they make us laugh. Or, they make me laugh. And in the end, laughter is what gets me through. So let's hear it for the voices! Woo hoo!

p.s. All the names have been changed to protect the guilty, and any resemblance in this story to any persons living or dead is just really tough shit.