music, books, love and kindness

Sometimes, the way people see us is not the person we are inside. We may appear idiotic, unattractive (I refuse to use the word "ugly" because it is such a mean, nasty word), even pointless. 

We may seem that way because we are just so bad at human interaction. We'd be better off never having to be around other people and yet we actually do like them. What we end up doing is not always what we set out to do. We try to fake it until we make it and often come up short.

I used to think having good intentions was enough but now I realize that's just not true. People aren't mind readers, they only have our actions to go by. 

They don't know the reason we might not be able to talk coherently with them is because we like them, not because we don't. It's always been hard for me to grasp (and frustrating) that the more I care about someone or something, the more I tend to flub what I most want to go well.

Terrified of saying something stupid, we can avoid them completely and be rude without meaning to be. There are occasions when it feels like I have lost the will to try with certain people because I realize (hopefully, not too late) that they just don't care for me and we are never going to be friends. I learned in high school the horrible consequences of trying too hard to win someone over.

Ever since I was a little girl I've been most comfortable away from others. Teachers tried to help and my parents were always telling me to stop reading and go out and play. I didn't like the real world, only the one in between the pages of a book.

When I was about ten years old, my grandfather put a copy of Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends & Influence People in my hands. Whether breaking out into Elvis songs or grabbing an unsuspecting dance partner out on the floor, he had a way about him that suggested there was no one he was not comfortable being around, at home or parties. He could have written the book himself.

I didn't want to disappoint him so I did end up reading it, though I honestly don't think it helped much. I don't want to "win" friends or influence anyone. I just want to feel comfortable around people and not have to fake a way past my shyness, which I still have to this day.
  
(p.s. By "we," I really mean me. Most people I know have their acts together and if they don't they're doing a great of job of pretending they do.)