One week from today, I will be home from my first day at VFS.

I try not to think about VFS too much, not because I am scared about going, but because of the exact opposite : If I think about it too much, I get overexcited and end up making myself ill.

That sounds like something that shouldn’t be possible, doesn’t it? That a person can get so excited about something that it makes them ill? When I really look at it, it seems like some kind of curse laid upon me by someone who thought I was too goddamned perky.

If not for this weakness of mine, I think I would be a far more effusive and enthusiastic person. It’s the sort of person I would like to me, more or less. Someone who feels free to express what they are feeling as hard as he can at any moment. Someone who inspires others with his unfettered expression of enthusiasm and sheer belief in others. Someone who dares to be emotionally loud.

But I can’t. I have to restrain myself. If I don’t, I get sick. And even if that wasn’t true, people just can’t handle me at full intensity. They become frightened, confused, even hostile. I can be very powerfully real, and by that, I don’t mean I am passionately authentic or any of that shit.

It’s more a matter of presence. I have come to the conclusion that I have a very strong presence, and that the only reason I didn’t realize it sooner is that I have spent my life “toning it down”. Partly that was the message I got through my upbringing, and I don’t really blame anyone for that. I definitely needed to know how to turn down the volume on my personality at least some of the time. It is not their fault that I took that way, way too seriously and want overboard in the other direction.

No, that was the fault of my confusing combination of being extremely shy and a total ham. That sends a weird mixed message to the world. Pay attention to me! No, ignore me! No, do both at the same time!

And then there is the primary trauma (being sexually assaulted when I was like 3) and all the secondary trauma that I endured because of how weak and fragile the primary trauma had made me. That, and skipping kindergarten, pretty much set me up for social failure.

Life is very cruel to wimpy men. We are severely punished for our weak gender performance. In fact, I think men are punished far more harshly than women. Both genders are made to feel worthless if they fail to perform their gender to society’s standards, but it’s mostly us men who get beat up for it. And the rage directed at wimpy, soft men is far more intense and violent than that directly at ugly or unfeminine women. People treat wimpy men as offensive failures who shouldn’t even live.

Women get that too, sometimes, but trust me…. it’s mot the same.

I am guessing that this is especially harsh for wimpy heterosexual men, as they have to brave the near certainty of merciless vicious rejection if they even dare to suggest that them and women even belong in the same sentence. Being gay, I have never had to cross that burning bridge, and to be honest, while there are cruel and bitchy lookist gay men a-plenty, the gay scene in general is too small for it to be all that picky, and well, obviously wimpy men are more welcome in a community full of them.

I can honestly imagine genuinely (as opposed to performitorily) butch men having some trouble in the gay scene for being so… intense.

I have scene the massive casualties taken by straight male nerds by a world that makes it very, very clear that they are the worst possible kind of man for a woman to date, that even the slightest association with a man like that causes a woman to lose all status and would cause her friends to question her tastes and her sanity, and in general all repulsive to the point of toxicity.

A man dating an unattractive (by society’s standards) can at least tell his friends he’s doing it for the sex. What’s a woman dating a low-status man supposed to say?

Anyhow, I have wandered off topic in my inevitable but charming away. Back to my presence of personality.

I have wondered if there are situations where turning it all the way up would be appropriate. Like in the entertainment industry, for instance. If I am trying to convince someone at a studio of whatever sort to hire me as a writer, it might be safe (and effective) to turn up the personality power and convince them I am the smartest, most awesome writer ever.

And certainly, were I to dabble in acting between writing gigs, I suppose shining as hard as I can for the camera can’t hurt. It could be that I have screen presence when I go full on like that. And what the hell, the world will always need fat guys to play bikers, vikings, nerds, sweaty chefs, middle aged husbands, and so on.

I wouldn’t want a career as an actor. It’s not my primary interest. I create, I don’t interpret the creations of others! But in the highly unlikely event that one happened to me, I guess I wouldn’t say no.

I like and admire the craft of acting. I have had fun the times I have been an actor. I don’t like having to learn my lines because I don’t like memorizing, but I can deal with that.

But no matter what, I would prefer to be the person writing the lines, not the one saying them. Some day, I hope to be like my hero Jim Henson – the head of a whole media world made of things my friends and I have put together with love and care and which bring magic into the lives of millions.

If I could do that, I would feel like I had finally done right by the universe, and I could be at peace.

Until then, though, I want to work hard and have fun!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.