Or perhaps, just not as friendly as I thought I was.

I have realized recently that part of my psychological herniation complex is that I think of myself as a very open and friendly person, but in many ways, I am not.

I am, in fact, a shy and quiet person (sorta?), definitely an introvert, not keen on chaotic social situations, the sort of person who doesn’t like noise or crowding^[1] or large raucous groups of people or any kind of situation where I can’t think straight or hear properly or move freely.

I have definite and particular tastes in the company I keep, and the objective truth is, most people don’t fit the bill. I don’t know if this is a result of simply being an involuntary loner for so long that you become a voluntary one, making a virtue of necessity, but I am extremely independent by nature and am not much of a team player. I never learned to work well with others in a team sense because I never had to growing up. I was always off all alone, doing my own thing. I had no friends for much of the time, and my siblings were much older and therefore did not have much in common with me, and had their own friends and social circles and lives, and so I grew up a lone and lonely kid.

And my parents had lives and careers that did not really include me either. My parents were always either tired or busy. I was subtly but deeply encouraged to just fade into the woodwork.

I grew up feeling like I was an unwanted guest who had overstayed his welcome but couldn’t leave.

I was not a planned child.

I am also an intellectual. I spend all day feeding my mind or stimulating it. I have an overdeveloped brain and an underdeveloped everything else.

So really, I am a quiet, bookish, reserved, introverted person. My idea of a fabulous evening is dinner with friends and stimulating conversation. That’s truly all I need. Some of the times in my life that I have felt the happiest and the most alive have been really great conversations with truly interesting people.

And the truth is, I can’t really talk to people who are not at least somewhat the same. I grew up in a household of bookish intellectuals, all very independent and self-reliant, and because I had such a socially stunted childhood in the school system, I never learned to get along with other kinds of people.

To be honest, in many ways, they frighten and/or depress me. I know it’s my problem, not theirs. I have lived a cloistered life, with my books and my thoughts and my video games and my Internet. I have avoided actual contact with life, the way most people live it, and have substituted thoughts for emotions, ideas for interactions, and stimulation for experience.

All of this is ineluctably true. Objective evidence from my own personal history, intuitive introspection, gut feeling of truth…. all point to my being more of a closed off, private person.

So why is it so hard to admit that to myself, let alone accept it? Why do I think I am supposed to be different? Why do I cling to this idea of myself as a kind of person I am clearly not, and look at the person I have described thus far and think “Geez, what a boring and antisocial prick”?

I don’t know why. Perhaps because that is preferable to the truth. Perhaps because I have not, until now, really thought about how I think about others versus how I think about myself. Perhaps because when you have thought of yourself a certain way for long enough, it is really hard to think of yourself any other way.

Perhaps deep down, I just don’t think I have any right to be anything but incredibly eager to please and friendly and open and funny and charming because I am fundamentally disgusting and horrible and unlovable and not worth anyone’s time or attention, so I had better do everything I can to maximize my chances of getting people to like me before they see the real me and go away.

Monsters can’t afford to be fussy, or difficult, or high-maintenance.

Even when they are.