Doing the blog thing early today because some stuff came up in therapy that I want to thump into print while it’s still wet. This goes to the very heart of my social anxiety issues (atypical as they are), so it’d pretty deep stuff.

There is this moment I dread and fear more than anything else when it comes to social interaction. It’s when, despite my fervent desire to connect with people and get along with them and see things from the inside for a change, I say something so strange, so awkward, and/or so mentally indigestible that the people with whom I am trying to connect look at me like I am an alien being who just attempted to communicate via flatulence.

In that instant, a vast chasm opens up between me and other people, ripping away whatever closeness and understanding was starting to build, and making me feel like I am a horrible piece of shit weirdo who can only make people feel uncomfortable or creeped out, and I should just crawl off and die, or at least never bother anyone with my presence again.

This is what lies at the heart of my crippling social anxiety. Like I have said before, social anxiety is basically a phobia of awkward moments, and attached to that feeling of awkwardness is the feeling that it is all your fault because you are awful.

I realize that my reaction to those situations is not the only one possible. I could just shrug them off or even take the road of arrogance and say “It’s their fault for not being able to handle my awesome and clearly superior uniqueness!”.

I’ve never been comfortable with that line of thinking. It is against my basic nature to put a lot of walls between me and other people. Walls preclude the sort of connection I want, or so I have always thought. Inmy own futile way, I have been keeping true to that ideal of openness for most of my life. I never really wanted to close those doors.

But it occurs to me now that those walls don’t only keep people out. They keep you in and provide much needed structure and boundaries to keep my self, and my self-worth, from spreading out in a thin puddle of nothing that never amounts to anything.

Instead of that, inner walls can protect you from outside trauma and help you keep yourself together when the outside world tries to bring you down. Arrogance has a bad rep but I am starting to think it is vastly preferable to suicidal self-loathing.

There has to be some sort of force to push your self esteem up against gravity. Certainly a weak self that lets everything fall apart because it only knows how to retreat within itself, and to hell with the consequences, doesn’t work.

And what could push that self-esteem back up but some form of arrogance? At the very least, you need to be arrogant enough to say “Fuck you, world, I am fine as I am!”. The sheer weight of the feelings of worthlessness require more than that, though.

I look back on my days of torment in elementary school, and I wonder if I would have been better off embracing elitism after all. If I had just said “Fuck all these people, I’m awesome, and if these people can’t see it, they are WRONG. ”

That’s exactly the sort of thing that society says you are not to encourage in people at all. And society has a point. It is definitely not a pro-social, community oriented, cooperative attitude. Instead, it’s a highly individualistic attitude that puts one’s own needs before everything else.

And that is definitely not pro-social. But for some people at least, it might just be psychologically healthier. My therapist agrees with me that if I had embraced arrogance when I was young, my life would have been far different and likely a lot better.

I would have had something to use to fight back against my oppressors and the damage they wanted to do it me. Even if I still got bullied, I would have been able to say “Stupid troglodytes. They only do it because they are jealous. I am headed for the top the minute I get out of this crummy little town. So fuck them. This too shall pass. ”

Again, totally not the sort of attitude society says people should have. And I am not entirely comfortable with it myself. It smacks strongly of the kind of Objectivist asshole-ism that I loathe.

But maybe I understand how people get there. They are fighting back against a society that, at least at one point, told them they were a worthless piece of shit who should just crawl into a hole and die. So they embrace arrogance and elitism, and flip the script to say, basically, “Fuck you, I’m great, and it’s society that has a problem!”

The shortest route is always to turn a negative into its positive opposite. Gay oppression turned into gay pride, not gay “we are okay too.” Discrimination against blacks turned into black power, not black okayness. The pendulum swings to the opposite extreme and back again many times before it can settle in the moderate middle.

But I don’t know. I want people to like me. People might not like the arrogant me nearly as much. Wanting people to like me could be seen as part of the problem, or at least, needing them to like me.

All of modern society teaches that the route to happiness is to stop worrying about what others think of you and just be yourself. I have never really thought that was the wrong idea, I just assumed it worked for other people but not me.

But I have to admit, I have a large vein of people-pleasing in my personality. Comes with the empathy, I suppose. You want to make others happy because when they are sad, you are sad.

Who knows/ Maybe if I believed in myself more, I would actually be more likable because I wouldn’t be giving off “leave me alone” vibes out of fear any more, and I would have full access to my charisma and force of personality.

And being arrogant doesn’t necessarily have to mean becoming a prick. You can have a very high self-worth and have being awesome to others be part of it. I have too much pride to be a prick!

I dunno. It’s all very confusing. But I feel like I am the edge of something wonderful.

And working up the nerve to dive in.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.