Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-21 07:06 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-06-21 07:06 pm
(no subject)
I wish there were a name for what's odd about me. I mean, everyone's odd in some way, yeah, but not everyone has no friends and throws their entire life into a fandom in lieu of social interaction. Not everyone stays in the house all day and only leaves to buy food or go walk by the river alone. Not everyone is such a horribly picky eater that there are only about five things they ever order in restaurants. Not everyone has "no life" and is happy that way.
That's the thing--I want a name for it, but I'd get annoyed if I suddenly discovered a disorder that described me perfectly. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just not quite normal. Maybe I'm the bastard love-child of Asperger's syndrome and schizoid personality disorder, but I don't see who that harms and I don't see what needs fixing.
There are two reasons, I think. One is just that I have a pathological need to label and categorize. The other is that it would make things easier. "I'm not mad at you, I just don't want to spend time with you because I'm ______." "No, I really don't have friends. _______s tend not to. That doesn't mean I need any." "I'm sorry I'm not good at this intimacy thing, but maybe you should have considered that before you dated a _____." "Yes, I do need that much time alone. No, I can't socialize right now. I'm not allergic to that food, but I still can't eat it. No, I can't make it through a conversation without mentioning Les Mis. Get me out of this club before the noise drives me batshit and I melt down and spend the rest of the night curled up in the corner practically catatonic." How convenient would it be to have one word to describe all my eccentricities?
I have almost no social impulse. Yes, I have a bunch of online friends, but it's incidental. I can't talk about people for the sake of talking about people. I can't talk to people for the sake of talking to people. I would be happier with characters in books, and was through my whole childhood. Books were to me then what the internet is now; the only difference is now I'm talking to real people, even if it's through a computer screen.
I was looking through this journal and realized it might as well be a fandom-only journal for all I talk about my life. I mean, even the dorkiest of my dorky 'net friends knows people IRL, has something to post besides "so, I was researching insurrection in 1830s Paris and...", has a life that doesn't revolve around a single interest. I mean, I have nothing else to post, because there's practically nothing else I do. It's abnormal, isn't it? Left to my own devices, all I ever do is spin circles around my obsessions.
In a way I'm frustrated because I haven't found anyone else as enthusiastic as I am. I post something and... a couple appreciative comments, maybe, which deserves muchos hugs, but where's the discussion? Where's the conversation? The analysis? The meta? Am I the only one who wants these things? Am I the only one who cackles with glee over the deleted first-draft stuff from Allem's annotated LM, or thinks the map of Paris that shows the rue de la Chanvrerie is shinier than Javert's coat buttons, or spends three hours looking up a little historical detail for a fictitious sewer chase that may or may not ever get written? I post these things that make me practically jump for joy, and in response I get silence, and I interpret the silence as a collective groan of "you loser" from my f-list. Correct? Incorrect? I put so much energy into fandom, and even though it's for my own benefit as much as the citizenry at large, I get a bit disappointed when I feel like I'm shouting into an empty room and the only thing that ever comes back to me is my own echo. Lord knows I'm not expecting other people to go out to the Library of Congress to dig up a copy of Les Révolutions du XIXe siècle, but it would be nice to hear at least "oh man, that digression was mentioned in a footnote in my Brick, I wondered if anyone had it," or "wheee, this map will help me make up addresses for my Frenchboys!" or "I wondered what those Amis got up to when they weren't speechifying on street corners." Y'know... discussion? Something? Anything?
Dammit.
That's the thing--I want a name for it, but I'd get annoyed if I suddenly discovered a disorder that described me perfectly. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just not quite normal. Maybe I'm the bastard love-child of Asperger's syndrome and schizoid personality disorder, but I don't see who that harms and I don't see what needs fixing.
There are two reasons, I think. One is just that I have a pathological need to label and categorize. The other is that it would make things easier. "I'm not mad at you, I just don't want to spend time with you because I'm ______." "No, I really don't have friends. _______s tend not to. That doesn't mean I need any." "I'm sorry I'm not good at this intimacy thing, but maybe you should have considered that before you dated a _____." "Yes, I do need that much time alone. No, I can't socialize right now. I'm not allergic to that food, but I still can't eat it. No, I can't make it through a conversation without mentioning Les Mis. Get me out of this club before the noise drives me batshit and I melt down and spend the rest of the night curled up in the corner practically catatonic." How convenient would it be to have one word to describe all my eccentricities?
I have almost no social impulse. Yes, I have a bunch of online friends, but it's incidental. I can't talk about people for the sake of talking about people. I can't talk to people for the sake of talking to people. I would be happier with characters in books, and was through my whole childhood. Books were to me then what the internet is now; the only difference is now I'm talking to real people, even if it's through a computer screen.
I was looking through this journal and realized it might as well be a fandom-only journal for all I talk about my life. I mean, even the dorkiest of my dorky 'net friends knows people IRL, has something to post besides "so, I was researching insurrection in 1830s Paris and...", has a life that doesn't revolve around a single interest. I mean, I have nothing else to post, because there's practically nothing else I do. It's abnormal, isn't it? Left to my own devices, all I ever do is spin circles around my obsessions.
In a way I'm frustrated because I haven't found anyone else as enthusiastic as I am. I post something and... a couple appreciative comments, maybe, which deserves muchos hugs, but where's the discussion? Where's the conversation? The analysis? The meta? Am I the only one who wants these things? Am I the only one who cackles with glee over the deleted first-draft stuff from Allem's annotated LM, or thinks the map of Paris that shows the rue de la Chanvrerie is shinier than Javert's coat buttons, or spends three hours looking up a little historical detail for a fictitious sewer chase that may or may not ever get written? I post these things that make me practically jump for joy, and in response I get silence, and I interpret the silence as a collective groan of "you loser" from my f-list. Correct? Incorrect? I put so much energy into fandom, and even though it's for my own benefit as much as the citizenry at large, I get a bit disappointed when I feel like I'm shouting into an empty room and the only thing that ever comes back to me is my own echo. Lord knows I'm not expecting other people to go out to the Library of Congress to dig up a copy of Les Révolutions du XIXe siècle, but it would be nice to hear at least "oh man, that digression was mentioned in a footnote in my Brick, I wondered if anyone had it," or "wheee, this map will help me make up addresses for my Frenchboys!" or "I wondered what those Amis got up to when they weren't speechifying on street corners." Y'know... discussion? Something? Anything?
Dammit.