Who

[italiceyeball]

I don't like this person I become sometimes: At work, in official situations, in transactions. I detest the facade, but have come to love the game. Honesty always barbed. First thing is to find out what someone wants from you. Not in a material sense! Most people I meet want their expectations broken in small ways, providing novelty without threat. They are the simpler set, as almost any mild eccentricity will do. Rouse interest, then provide positive reinforcement and project confidence. The more rigid people don't want their expectations broken. With these, identifying what those expectations are and exceeding them according to their own internal standards works best. Overall, a genial and conscientious demeanor, hints of friendly subversiveness.

The best complaint I've had is rather ambiguous. "We... have no idea what to think about you." Of course, quite happy with that.

Why can't you just be yourself, be natural?

I am. Always. But what you're really asking of me is to be unaware of the processes driving behavior. Every interaction is calculated in some way, whether you're party to it or not. This truth makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. The facade is mandatory, freedom is forgetting.

I'm not that grim, not really. I enjoy... all this. Love it. Relish. Sometimes.

Because people can align, they can fit so perfectly with each other that their masks dissolve. Sublimity. For a moment, forever, through any sense, even the smoke signals of writing. Is that what I clumsily attempt to reach? Using all the wrong tools, chasing the unquantifiable with a calculator? It's ok. One good conversation is worth it.

Comments

[fredherman]

In my experience, they tell you what they say they want from you, but later express either sorrow or anger that you didn't provide what you should have understood was really wanted from you. For many values of "they."

[italiceyeball]

Many relationships are formalized! Both parties know their roles from previous experience. Buying a movie ticket for instance.

[fredherman]

Doing the job advertised, for another.

[italiceyeball]

Yes! Learning languages.

[fredherman]

My preference is honest work for honest pay. Increasingly suspect that this makes me a Marxian, depending on definition.

[italiceyeball]

A Marxian! Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-IUyHZaSks

[fredherman]

Am on a crappy tablet that doesn't play videos just now, but if that's a Marx Bros. clip, sure, I could relate.