Please world, do not eat me. I am not crunchy and I do not taste good with ketchup.

Halloween. All that craziness comes out.

I am weird most anywhere I'm comfortable and don't care what people think.

My friends know this and except it.

I'm not fully myself with anyone. Not the emotional side. I was surprised to see how many people labelled me as 'strong' when I graduated highschool. I managed to open up completely to one person ever, to be proud that I can feel things. Then he left. Yey for sincerity!

I've found the best way to handle such things is through the use of comic relief. For example, if I feel the need to express the way I feel at a certain time, even if it's of a relatively serious nature, I'll frame my message in a funny way, or think of an ironic way of expressing my dilemma. In this way I can open up topics in a non-threatening manner, and the receiving party is free to probe deeper if they are interested or involved, and hopefully we can all have a laugh at my/their expense while at the same time getting to addressing something that I've decided should be on the table and discussed. I've found this a useful tool for dealing with family and friends.

At the same time, I try to always keep what's really going on behind the curtains, well, behind the curtains. If I can keep at least a tiny bit of mystery about me, then people have a hard time formulating opinions about me or my actions or the reasons for the things that I do.

And last but most importantly--and this isn't for everyone, I understand that--I find that consuming large amounts of cannabis througout the day is useful for everyday interactions. Despite what propagandists have made claims on pot destroying memory or making one less functional and unmotivated, I find the opposite to be true. It helps me think. Being a bit of an introvert and socially awkward already, if I get a little loaded, I feel like I can better integrate my experiences. At the end of the day, I can play the tapes back and make better sense of what happened.

Aside from that, I don't know. Always keep 'em guessing. For example (and this is probably due to the fact that I'm high all the time), when someone asks me, what are you thinking or what do you think? I usually say, I'm thinking of some crazy shit. And just smile.

Oh...emotionwise if I let people in it'd be like them looking at the ark of the covenant.

I let my brother and my best friend in. No one else when it comes to that stuff.

I basically settled on the idea that if I'm going to be emotional about something, I better know the ins and outs of that particular thing. That way, my feelings are justified, or at least I'll have a reason for them. I've worked pretty hard to detach myself from certain people, things, and ideals for the sake of being open to many perspectives on purely subjective topics. Emotions have their function. If you feel that your emotions are out of whack, then maybe you should rethink your attachment to certain things. My mom, for example, is quite an extreme case. She'd handle family outings as if they were the most important events in the world. If our family had a gathering at some uncle's house, she'd go crazy about whether we were going to be ready on time, why we (her kids) weren't moving fast enough to get our asses in the car seats, she'd criticize absolutely everything we wore without exception, etc. yelling at us (sometimes to the point of tears) until we finally got there. What the hell is the point of the family outing if not to fuckin' relax with your family? What's the purpose of killing yourself to relax? It never made any sense, until she started telling me stories about the way HER mother was. Ugh. We can be downright psychotic when we lose sight of the function of something. Emotions are there to move you, but everything is bad in excess.

"except it," you're teasing aren't you?
but for real, you must have great friends:)

CANNOT wait for halloween!! kids too old to TnT but we'll go out anyway: haunted hayrides, cornfields, and autobody shops...

but about the questions Freemena, i don't think i can even answer.

hope you feel better soon.

Okay, it's September 8th, halloween is more then a month away, shut up about it.

On the topic at hand, aren't we who other people see us as? If you act, think, behave a cretin way around other people, isn't that who you are? Just because in private you act like a completely different person, doesn't make you a different person. I admit, that who you see me as is who I am, I never change that for anyone, even myself.

You never laugh out of courtesy?

I laugh at everything.

I am not who I am?

All i'm doing is secretly laughing at everyone i see. Also i ignore people.

When I tend to bottle up my emotions I make sure I write and vent my dark side out. I'd have to say for the most part I act like myself with people I have become real close with and I have learned to open up to new people even though I have serious trust issues.

But yeah I have to say writing has really helped me get over things and balance my emotional issues out. Documenting your own craziness also helps because you can look back and physically look/read the mistakes you don't want to repeat. You realize how far you come or what issues you still need to work on.

This was a big deal to me when I was 14, it's not anymore.

Well, I'm not doing 14 year old "Nobody understands me" thing, but rather the the 35 year old, "Hey, this is just the way life is," thing. If it's not for you, great.

It's a fact of life for most people that you put on a dozen hats a day, and each one requires different behaviors on your part. You aren't exactly the same person at work that you are at your kid's school picnic, nor are you even exactly the same at a party you are hosting vs a party at a friends house. When your boss does something repulsive, you probably act differently than if your friend does it. How you open up and express yourself (or even if you do) depends as much on the situation as it does on your temperament and tendencies.

This thread is not for bitching. It's for acknowledging the various coping strategies people employ to make it through the day and maybe learn some new ones. Or maybe just point and laugh at the dumb kid. I don't really care. Ok, that's a lie, but I will pretend I don't, and that the same damn thing, right?

Do you feel that you change your sense of humor to suit the crowd you're currently with? Does your laugh, itself, change? I do, and mine does. Why are we fixated on pleasing everybody? I don't think it's any kind of anomaly of our psychology. I think it's just a defense mechanism. Avoiding confrontation, and all. Maybe a desire for that tribal mentality? I guess it depends on which group you're shaping yourself to.

I don't like the whole idea of putting on airs or whatnot. I'm all about just Being. Sometimes that's passive, sometimes that's active. You could probably ask everyone I've ever known or met and they'd all give you a different description about me.
Although they all would probably say "He's kinda artsy-fartsy." which is kind of good and bad, but i'll take it.

I'm about the same way Nate. The only thing really consistently said about me from most people who know me (in situations where I have to deal with them on an ongoing, consistent basis) is that I have absolutely no sense of humor and am completely serious all the time.

This is why I MUST have a place to be a smart ass. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would implode in on myself, creating a black hole which would then suck in reality as we know it. I wouldn't want to do that to the universe. That would suck.

also, i just posted that Crunchy Frog Monty Python bit the other day. Didn't we all learn from that, that if you leave the bones in then, of course, it's Crunchy!

I know what you mean, I can act different and I don't think it's like a good to act differently but I see nothing wrong with it, I change my speech when talking to different people. I guess the only place I'm myself is with friends and if I hang out too much of one group then that act can become the me, it's never happened before, but sometmes I'll realse I'm doing something I'd only do with those people only I'm not with them, when I realize this I usually mentally make myself never do that thing again. Mostly it has do with speech and slang.

I honestly don't care what people think of me. (Unless it is some sort of official/proffessional; the judge in traffic court, my childs teacher or doctor etc. To those sorts of people of course I want to give off my best impression) I figure if someone doesn't like me I'm not really losing much, it is their problem not mine and who needs them anyway. My mom has this tidbit of wisdom saying to apply to people "It's none of my business what you think of me" I think it is a pretty good philosophy to keep.

All that said, not caring what others think of me does take effort at times. Not most of the time or even massive effort, but occassionaly a decent sized portion of telling myself to stop worrying because it isn't important. I'm speaking in terms of aquintances and strangers here of course, not close personal friends or family. Those peoples ideas of me matter because those people matter to me.

I have a bit of a double sided personality. I am an anti social loner who is near silent when in the presence of others, prefering to observe, and I am a social butterfly who chatters away to everyone, soaking up others stories and responding with my own in kind. I think when I am in my introverted contemplation mode, people can sometimes become nervous and they either talk too much themselves to compensate or, in group situations, just decide to ignore me. OR they ask me what is wrong/am I ok, I get that quite often, really all it is is I am reveling in beautiful thought and words aren't necessarry to me at the time.

Growing up I seemed to always be the weirdo outcast, the kid at school with no friends. I don't know how much that affected my loner tendancies or if it was my loner tendacies that affected my outcast status. I do know I spent many many schoolyard days lonsomely wandering the edge of the baseball feild at recess or climbling to the highest brances of the farthest tree thoroughly enjoying myself and my dreamland imagination world. Yet I had this continuos nagging complusion to conform to my fellow children, to be accepted into their arms and groups. The begining of the year I was always dressed to kill in all of last years styles. I never could seem to figure out how to be one of them, and the more I tried the more I was tormented by them.

It was eighth grade I decided I didn't care what others thought of me, that it didn't matter, who was anyone to pass any judgment over me let alone pull me down, I knew myself and I knew my heart and anyone who refused to see either for the goodnesss, the realness, that was there wasn't worth my time or second thought. I remember the moment I had this epiphany. It was lunch hour and I had gone out with my meal to the front lawn of my school. After finishing I was aimlessly meadering back around to the cafiteria when the three most popular jocks in my school started following me, after a minute the began to call out taunts. The called me Alien, kept saying it, things about my home planet and over and over Alien Alien Alien. It was the first time anyone ever bullied me with the result being nothing more than a failed attempt to pull a rise out. I was baffled. I stopped to just turn around and stare at them. I mean we were in the eighth grade for fucks sake, and here were the most popular boys in the whole school tossing grade school insults at me. I just couldn't see how it would ever be logical to take insults to my character form anyone, beyond those who actually cared to know that character in honesty to begin with, ever again.

So remembering Jeff Whateverthefuckhisnamewas and his two cronnies being idiots are one of my main coping stratigies when I forget to remember no ones opinion of me matters unless they themselves actually matter. If laughing at that doesn't work I just remind myself how strong I am and the things I have overcome: I've lived too much crap, figuring out how to use it to nourish the garden I make of my life, to bother worrying if someone else is going to care when I dance and frolic in the flowers naked.

also - Jazmyn you hit the nail on the head with the reading back over your own insanity and how helpful it is to know you don't want to go there again!!!!!

I am always contained and never seems to be my true self with anyone. I seem to always reflect back peoples personalities and be a certain person around certain people to the point where no one really knows the same version of myself. This started as a survival tool I inherited from moving schools every year. Its hard to make friends when your always the new guy and can't dress well cause your poor. So you have to take on a persona and be the funny or smart or even the dumb kid. I had to do this for so long its now embedded and while I try to be myself around people when I do let go I usually offend someone or hurt someones feelings cause they don't get my humor. I rend to contradict myself constantly, I like to have a lot of friends and go out but I also like to have this wall.

I tend to scare people a little whether its intentional or not, sometimes they don't like my dark or gory humor or the fact that I sometimes like to test people. This wall has been building since High School, I was always the scary guy. I though it was good cause nobody fucked with me but it was mostly because they thought I would just snap one day... which may have been true. So instead no body got to know me. I was the "Goth" or Dark guy, the "Stoner" the Psychopath, the Warlock/Vampire, the guy who walked alone at night in the rain just to think, which ended up scaring the shit out of most people. Sometimes it worked to my advantage with girls cause some girls like to be scared, most however don't and found it strange that I was actually a nice guy when they got to know me. But when people see you are nice they then walk all over you so then you have to shock them and let them think not, just unpredictable.

Even now its hard to figure out exactly who I am. Always fighting between the concept of who I am and who I want to be. When I am alone all I want is love, and when I have love all I want is to be alone. I constantly try to self destruct and destroy the life I have created but have learned to catch myself in these tendencies over the years. That is why I identified with Fight Club so much when I read it. Someone always in conflict with themselves always trying to be more and different. Trying to be myself, even though that usually conflicts with what peoples concepts of me are. So if someone if important I tend to slowly let them in a drop of the real me at a time so as not to scare them away.

Even now I'm in conflict over this post.

Yeah most people think I'm just really serious and even grumpy but sometimes I can be a riot when people get to actually know me and how I think.

Damn. Just, damn. We had a similar childhood, and we apparently developed very similar coping mechanisms. 19 schools in 13 years meant sometimes I didn't even bother trying to make friends, if I came to the new school in March or April. The difference is that I don't like being around groups now.

The second paragraph you wrote is so true for myself I was dumbfounded. I don't think I could have put it better, though I'm sure the details are much different.

Weird freaking world, man.

Now you see why your other thread made me think... a lot.

Not to mention I grew up with "Role Models" like Alcoholic Vets, Bikers, Prostitutes, and Butch Lesbians. Not that there is anything wrong with Butch Lesbians except one beat me up once when I was 10 cause I asked her if she was gay and she was an adult. The Police assigned to my neighborhood knew me on a first name basis cause we/I had to call them so much..... not to mention the "hit" still out on my mothers head in Florida. All this stuff are my little inspirations for my stories, however I get very lazy and self conscience about my writing.

Wow, even more similar. My mother achieved ol' lady status with the VP of the Portland Outsiders when I was 8 and that was a major step up for her. It made her somewhat respectable. No police though, ever. Shit was dealt with under the radar, but more often than not, just ignored unless it affected business.

Sometimes I feel like writing about my childhood, but it seems that if I write it, I want to share it and all it ever does is hurt the reader. Why put someone else through what I went through? Even if it's just a pale imitation echo.

Well I look back at all that childhood BS not as like Woes Me (not implying that you do at all, but some people think I do), but rather more like thinking it made me a stronger person. I learned a lot of what to do and what not to do in certain situations from all that and I survived some crazy stuff. If anything I'm sure there's lessons to be learned in there, somewhere. Maybe even some darkly humorous anecdotes. I actually got inspired by stories like Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson and Chuck's stuff to start writing stuff down again. I don't think it would hurt the reader if written from a certain point of view.

Weird, I read that earlier today with my son. He then wrote a paper on it it, 2nd grade style.

I guess I'm lucky in regards to my situation. I recently (as in, six months ago) moved down to Austin (TX) from Southeastern Idaho to stay with friends until I was able to get my life back in order. Let me tell you something--I've went through a lot of hell in the eighteen years I lived up there. Miraculously, though, I somehow managed to avoid a lot of the homophobia that tends to be in those small, religious towns, but my situation ended up affecting me to the point where I eventually developed anxiety disorder because of it.

To the original poster, I guess you could do one of two things: You could create a caricature of yourself, giving a character personality traits and allowing it to create itself in the role in which will best suit your needs, or you can be yourself. I eventually realized that no matter who or where you are, there is always going to be someone who doesn't like you. For that reason, I decided to be myself and as such, like myself because of it.

Did you just rhyme "mom" with "dorm"?

Pretty sure that's a faux pas.

I didn't even bother with it.

Plz do.

I think she means he's a caucasian.

So what your saying is that we shouldnt mess with Texas?
And that we should all have our own personal Tyler Durden to help us deal with out issues in life.
Hmmm, it all makes sense!

Texas? Only two things come outta Texas.

Steers... and effeminate sparkly vampire boys.

And I don't see no horns on ya...

that's oklahoma.

I never said anything about messing with Texas...

As to the Fight Club reference, I can't really say much about Tyler Durden. I recommended the caricature of ones-self because I've had to do it in the past to get through my situation.

I'm not from Texas. I'm from Idaho. Also--I hide my horns, and I have more than one.

EDIT: Because I realized that saying I have 'more than one horn' doesn't make it as dirty as I originally wanted it to be.

we're just fuckin with ya to see if you gots the scrotes to hang.

I saw a scrote hanging from someone's van the other day. He was listening to Little Richard.

My scrote prefers Buddy Holly.

As an aside, isn't the maker of trucknutz working on a vulvic version now?

Anyone want to see that?

Not particularly. I don't even want to see balls hanging on the back of someone's car...

I just got into Buddy Holly recently. I really like his music. I feel like everyday I have less and less in common with people my age.

Don't feel alone.

Don't give me life advice. We're the same age.

lol

Wasn't about to. You seem to know what you need to anyway.

Hey-o!