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On Tuesday afternoon, I had a 7 minute conversation with the cleaning
lady about my weekend away. Considering that her job is to come in,
empty my bin, and leave, keeping her here for 7 minutes isn't bad going.
That got me in a rather reflective mood.
My life currently is an unmitigated failure. I have a job I hate that
pays me peanuts, I spend almost my entire life completely alone, and I
am constantly bored, lonely and depressed. Despite a large amount of
effort, I have utterly failed to fix this miserable situation.
On the other hand... if you squint hard enough, you can almost see a few
minor signs of improvement.
When I left school, the idea of walking down the street by myself with
nobody to protect me was utterly terrifying. People tend to exaggerate
things like this; "oh I'm *terrified* of the exam next month". So let me
explain exactly what I mean.
I would go to absurd lengths to avoid having to go anywhere on foot
alone. Even travelling by bicycle isn't much better; somebody could
still chase after you and conceivably catch you. Or just throw things at
you. So it's only slightly better than walking.
When I actually had to walk somewhere, I was in a state of utter panic.
I would be physically shaking like a leaf. I'd become dizzy from my
shallow breathing. Forget sweaty palms, I would have liquid water
actually *dripping* off of my body, even though I wasn't actually hot.
In fact, I'd often end up shivering with cold as well as fear. (Oddly
enough, sweating tends to make you cold...)
I would walk to wherever I was going as fast as possible without
actually running. I would do my best to avoid looking directly at any
people so I wouldn't make them angry. So basically, I would look only at
the ground - almost to the point of bumping into obsticles I hadn't seen
in front of me. I was so sure that any second now, somebody was going to
jump out of the bushes or appear from some side street to beat the ****
out of me.
Buying things was out of the question. Just being around other people
was very stressful - so many people, and no way to know which one was
going to attack me. Buying things often involves queueing up - and I
always seemed to get that thing where you can't figure out where the
hell the line actually starts, or you queue up for the wrong thing, or
people constantly push in front of you and you never actually get to the
front of the line.
And then there's the part where you get to the front and have to pay for
stuff. I was always terrified of handing over the wrong amount of money
or something. (Or worse, not having enough - though usually that wasn't
a possibility.) I don't know how other people do it, but it always seems
to take me hours to put away small change. And it just looks clumsy and
unskilful. Nobody else seems to have a problem.
Whenever we went out for a meal, my mum used to like to make me go to
the desk to order the food - just because she knew how much it upset me.
Remembering 3 orders doesn't sound challenging, but when you're plagued
with self-doubt, you end up constantly second-guessing yourself. "She
said she wanted X, didn't she? Oh, but she also said Y? But she decided
to have X instead. Or did she? Damnit, I can't remember now!"
And then, on top of the whole queueing thing and having the right money
and so forth, you have to actually *tell* the person which table you're
at and what food you want. Catastrophy lurks at every corner. What if
they don't understand what I'm saying? What if I can't understand what
they're telling me? Then they'd think I'm stupid. What if something
isn't available and I have to get something else? What if they ask me
questions? *I* have no idea whether my sister wants her pie with
potatoes or fries!
Making or receiving phone calls was similarly terrifying. Even if the
person at the other end was somebody I knew. What if now is a bad time?
What if they just happen to be in a bad mood today? What if I can't hear
them properly? What if they get angry at me for being so stupid? You'd
tihnk, rationally, that calling, say, a car insurance renewal line would
be a simple matter - it's their *job* to be nice to customers. But even
that frightened me. What if they asked me questions I didn't understand?
What if I said something wrong? It was all so scary.
All of these things terrified me, but I occasionally did them. Talking
to girls was something I never did. Ever. I simply didn't ever meet any.
Quite simply, my bedroom doesn't have any girls in it. Nor did my class
at school. Nor did my class at college. And even at uni there was a tiny
number of girls. (Unless you count "married with children, 20 years
older than me" as "girls". Even if you do, the count doesn't go up by
very much.)
Ever since I was about 12 years old, I was *fascinated* by girls. I
wanted to find out about them. I wanted to be around them. And I wanted
to have a girlfriend. (As far as I can tell, this is normal.)
I presume what normally happens next is that you start interacting with
girls, figure out they're just normal people, and continue with the rest
of your life. I haven't really reached this stage yet. Certainly when I
left school I hadn't. People in general terrified my, but cute girls
most especially. I wanted them, but I was terrified of them. It was very
confusing...
Where am I today? Well, all of these things still make me nervous, but
none of them *terrify* me the way they used to.
I still dislike walking anywhere by myself without somebody to protect
me. I just find it very difficult to walk along and look nonchalant and
stuff when I'm worrying about what everybody must be thinging of me -
the way I walk, the way I dress, the way my face looks, etc. I still try
to avoid looking at other people too much because I don't want to
provoke an aggressive response. But it's mild shyness, nothing more.
Actually, being in a crowd is a little easier. In a crowd you can be
pretty sure nobody is looking at you. When I walk down a quiet street it
feels like the whole world is standing and watching me walk past. But in
a crowd, there's far too much going on, and most people just ignore you.
Internet shopping is a wonderful thing, but I do go to real shops from
time to time. (*cough* Tesco *cough* Maplin *cough* Pizza Hut) When I'm
in Maplin, I even sometimes chat to the staff in there. Restraunts don't
really worry me much, but I do still feel a little nervous going to
Pizza Hut. (I find their Asian voices difficult to understand.)
I *still* hate making phone calls! Or at least, I hate making calls to
people I know aren't going to be pleased to hear my voice. I actually
*enjoy* calling my friends - not that I have many yet.
And oh my God - I almost can't believe that I have an actual friend who
is also a *girl*. ;-) Actually, I'm hoping to meet up with her this
weekend. I haven't seen her in ages, but I've phoned her quite a bit.
It'll be good to see her flesh - uh, I mean, "it'll be good to see her
in the flesh". o_O
Ah, who am I kidding? :-P
When you look back on it all though... being too scared to walk down the
street in broad daylight is *not normal*. Surely something like that
indicates that serious Professional Help is required? So why am I not
getting any? Hmm...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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