Choices

6 min read

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Annthesquirrel's avatar
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     Several years ago, I made a choice.
     It might not have been the best choice, but I find that in my life (despite my physiological, chronological youth) this response has been the best for me out of so many options. But there isn't always a perfect choice, and so I had to pick what worked the most.
     Now, I don't really like people. That might sound harsh, but it's just not that much of a concern for me. Animals let you know where they stand, and in all honesty, animals like me an inordinate amount already. Humans, on the other hand, make absolutely no logical sense to me. Psychologically I can understand certain motivations and the like, but I can't reconcile the irrationality of others. I decided that I let people affect me too much. My family being the prime example.
     It wasn't very hard for me to stop "caring".
     That sounds bad, let me start over.
     It wasn't very hard for me to realize that while I may not dislike you, I don't care about anything you're saying. This "you" is, of course, the collective whole and not aimed at any particular person. I do have friends, people I do care to listen to, but as far as 99.9% of the human population is concerned, it means nothing.
     Today, someone surprised me, and not in a good way. We've known each other for a couple weeks, and I admit I had an interest in something more than friendship with him, but I got over it quickly. We were talking in a normal, good kind of way, and in a strange, convoluted way, he attacked me out of nowhere. He told me I had never had anything bad happen to me.
     Well, that bothered me. I don't want to air my dirty laundry here, but I will say that I've had extremely bad things happen to me, but I don't let those experiences completely destroy my own happiness. Apparently that seemed unreasonable to him. Other specific words let me know that he believed me to be a naive little girl, who had never experienced real pain or strife. I've never told him my full history, he knows the bare minimum of my past and filial relationships. Yet he felt he had enough to judge me and make foolish assumptions.
     When it began to bother me, I thought back to my choice, so long ago.
     Now, I still get hurt when my family does or says something completely shitty, because who wouldn't? But I don't cry about it anymore, and I don't let it ruin my own happiness and peace. However, when people who I haven't really let in are rude, or hateful, or whatever negative thing, it means nothing to me. I am a duck and their words are water. In fact, their entire existence is water. I could not care less what they have to say about me. Their words mean nothing because I know who I am, and happy with who I am.
     I will admit that if a person I don't know were to direct that rudeness towards one of my true friends, I get scary rather quickly. I've been told by multiple people that I have a look that "makes you feel like you're an insignificant speck". I've never done this on purpose, but apparently my eyes get cold and icy and dead, and there's this stillness that gets creepy. I can say some very harsh things, and the worst part is that they're always sarcastic while hitting as close to home as possible. That's not exactly a good thing, you know? I don't want to hurt others, even if I don't really care about them. I try to be as "good" as I can. To know that I unconsciously have this reaction when my friends' or family's emotions are threatened is...disturbing.
     But I guess it makes sense, right? I don't care about how others treat me, because I like who I am. But for my friends, for my family, I know their insecurities and discomforts and fears. They have a vulnerability to other people, and I guess that makes me protective.
     I suppose the moral of this story was merely expression. It needed to get out of me, but it also gives people some vague, faint idea of who I am. I'm not a mean person, not intentionally or otherwise, but I have little to no patience with a specific kind of individual. I've been playing mmorpgs since I was 9, and I've perfected the art of trolling a troll. Sounds silly, right? Well, it is. At the same time, it's fantastic, because sometimes people need to be told how other people feel in regards to their attentions. Forcing them to face the emotions they purposefully cause in others can be a relative wake-up call.
     In essence, I told him I wasn't going to waste my time with someone who made automatic assumptions of me and told me I had no idea of the real world. He actually tried to blow it off. He made a bad joke and said we should go back to before. I let him know exactly how much that didn't fly. He called me dramatic, and after my final response, he said "What. Ever" -- I have never heard such a petulant teenage girl response from a grown man.
     My choice is fairly obvious at this point. I chose to pick those I cared about wisely, and chose to embrace who I am, while discarding those individuals who do random, rude things. Sometimes, I worry that my choice is a problem. That it might make me a bad person. Then I realize that I'm actually doing a favor to myself. This short time I have on this planet shouldn't be wasted on people who bring me down. Life is limited, and I refuse to waste any time dwelling on the pains others seek to cause.
     So yes, maybe I can be sarcastic and cold, maybe I can occasionally seem mean and harsh, but in the end, I am actually pretty much like who I am as a person and I do the best I can to be "good" as it were. That's enough for me.
© 2015 - 2024 Annthesquirrel
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stvwoe's avatar
...sounds like you know yourself pretty well.   good for you.  the key is liking yourself first, being yourself around others, and then expressing yourself accordingly.   and a little humor in your life will go a long way... trust me.    life is just too darn short...  and death comes too quick.