Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Could it be that I am not as attractive as I think I am?
Anything is possible, as Jerry Seinfeld replied.
Lately I have been facing a rather hard realization. I am not a popular guy. Not in the aspect of “popular” at parties, or getting a lot of phone calls. Rather, I mean, I am not well liked (at least by an increasing sect of my acquaintances). And I am not going to lie; it is starting to hurt a little.
The reason I get so touchy about it is because I have so few friends. My best friends are scattered across the USA, and my next tier of friends are equally inaccessible. The most recent friends I have made are from Japan and Singapore, so you get the idea of how hard up I am for local friendship. Even my Creighton classmates are sort of out of the picture for the summer.
It is a sort of snowball thing. First I have not so many friends to start with. Then I lose ties to all of the people I met in Norfolk, then the ones from Colorado (many of whom not only quit talking to me but are also angry with me). Then I move back here and bounce around to several temp jobs and I don’t meet anyone new.
I finally get established at the hospital, and as luck would have it, the timing could not have been worse. I’m sorting out a lot of personal problems from the “other man” incident, and I tend not to be myself (or too much myself as it were). So a lot of the pharmacy folks may have a less than favorable view of Carl, even if he has straightened up a bunch. They watched first hand as I went through a complete self tear down and rebuilding. The ones that are my friends are dear friends, as they were there for me in the worst of it. The others, I think, remember my bad days and don’t care to hear excuses.
As I was just getting to where I could deal with that, and had even come to terms with about everyone that I work with, and fortune frowns on me again. A new tech that we recently hired revealed to my friend Pat that he heard “Carl was hard to work with.” This really hurt my feelings. I couldn’t help but wonder who had told him that and what they meant and so on.
Then, as I was just getting over this, I find out that a girl at my other job said some disparaging words about me. The killer part of this is that I go out of my way to treat her decent, even though so often she rubs me the wrong way. Same as with my friend Scott’s girlfriend. We may have clashed in the past, but I go out of my way to be friendly, even sticking up for her when others are on the warpath, even doing what I can to right her mistakes and oversights without pointing them out to others. Then I find out she is bitching about me as soon as I leave and saying stuff to others about my laziness and my oversights. So these two girls, who I with great intent try to treat better than it is my nature to, aren’t on the Carl train.
How do you handle this? I mean, everyone has feelings. I often joke around about myself being a bit of an A-hole, and I am, but I think it has more to do with the fact that it takes me a while to warm up to people. To know me is to love me, or at least that is how the cliché goes. Maybe I judge others to harshly and too quickly, and my decisions are transparent. But I am the first to admit when I was wrong about someone. Another girl that I work with at the drug store is the perfect example.
Jessica is a high school graduate that at first I honestly just wrote off as dingy and white trash. I didn’t treat her as such, but that was my opinion. Then as I worked with her more, I really feel for her. I think she is a sweet girl who I wish good things for. If I was to find out she was hating on me, I would be a bit upset. But no worse than say someone who I think the world of who has decided to not correspond with me at all, for no reason I can discern whatsoever.
There is no joy in Mudville for this blogger. Now I am in a real crisis. Do I act against every fiber of my personality and walk on eggshells to overcompensate so that I am liked? Or do I do as Carl is wont to do, and just recede into myself and continue the superficial A-hole persona? It isn’t that I love people and need constant companionship, I just don’t like being hated, and I especially dislike being ignored by people I love. It is a true dilemma.
SIGH.
Horns up.
Lately I have been facing a rather hard realization. I am not a popular guy. Not in the aspect of “popular” at parties, or getting a lot of phone calls. Rather, I mean, I am not well liked (at least by an increasing sect of my acquaintances). And I am not going to lie; it is starting to hurt a little.
The reason I get so touchy about it is because I have so few friends. My best friends are scattered across the USA, and my next tier of friends are equally inaccessible. The most recent friends I have made are from Japan and Singapore, so you get the idea of how hard up I am for local friendship. Even my Creighton classmates are sort of out of the picture for the summer.
It is a sort of snowball thing. First I have not so many friends to start with. Then I lose ties to all of the people I met in Norfolk, then the ones from Colorado (many of whom not only quit talking to me but are also angry with me). Then I move back here and bounce around to several temp jobs and I don’t meet anyone new.
I finally get established at the hospital, and as luck would have it, the timing could not have been worse. I’m sorting out a lot of personal problems from the “other man” incident, and I tend not to be myself (or too much myself as it were). So a lot of the pharmacy folks may have a less than favorable view of Carl, even if he has straightened up a bunch. They watched first hand as I went through a complete self tear down and rebuilding. The ones that are my friends are dear friends, as they were there for me in the worst of it. The others, I think, remember my bad days and don’t care to hear excuses.
As I was just getting to where I could deal with that, and had even come to terms with about everyone that I work with, and fortune frowns on me again. A new tech that we recently hired revealed to my friend Pat that he heard “Carl was hard to work with.” This really hurt my feelings. I couldn’t help but wonder who had told him that and what they meant and so on.
Then, as I was just getting over this, I find out that a girl at my other job said some disparaging words about me. The killer part of this is that I go out of my way to treat her decent, even though so often she rubs me the wrong way. Same as with my friend Scott’s girlfriend. We may have clashed in the past, but I go out of my way to be friendly, even sticking up for her when others are on the warpath, even doing what I can to right her mistakes and oversights without pointing them out to others. Then I find out she is bitching about me as soon as I leave and saying stuff to others about my laziness and my oversights. So these two girls, who I with great intent try to treat better than it is my nature to, aren’t on the Carl train.
How do you handle this? I mean, everyone has feelings. I often joke around about myself being a bit of an A-hole, and I am, but I think it has more to do with the fact that it takes me a while to warm up to people. To know me is to love me, or at least that is how the cliché goes. Maybe I judge others to harshly and too quickly, and my decisions are transparent. But I am the first to admit when I was wrong about someone. Another girl that I work with at the drug store is the perfect example.
Jessica is a high school graduate that at first I honestly just wrote off as dingy and white trash. I didn’t treat her as such, but that was my opinion. Then as I worked with her more, I really feel for her. I think she is a sweet girl who I wish good things for. If I was to find out she was hating on me, I would be a bit upset. But no worse than say someone who I think the world of who has decided to not correspond with me at all, for no reason I can discern whatsoever.
There is no joy in Mudville for this blogger. Now I am in a real crisis. Do I act against every fiber of my personality and walk on eggshells to overcompensate so that I am liked? Or do I do as Carl is wont to do, and just recede into myself and continue the superficial A-hole persona? It isn’t that I love people and need constant companionship, I just don’t like being hated, and I especially dislike being ignored by people I love. It is a true dilemma.
SIGH.
Horns up.
Comments:
Oh, dear Lord! I haven't checked your blog in a while, wrapped up in my own little world. I've been going through some weird crap like this too. It's at the hand of one person, but it's very hurtful that the people he's saying these disparaging things to, may believe them. If they truly know me, they know it's not true. Keep your chin up, you are loved and you are MY FRIEND. I'll go so far as to say FF. There ya go!
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