I Am A Big Wimp

I cannot tell people that I do not like them.

Or at least, it is a rare occasion. I can tell someone that I am pissed off with them, or that I am not amused, but I cannot tell someone flat-out that I do not like them.

I've been wondering why this is. After all, my life could be infinitely more interesting if I cut out the extraneous bits that just make it look ugly. Like a lint removal for my existence.

I think I've narrowed it down to three reasons, all extending from the title of this post (i.e. "I Am A Big Wimp"):

1) Tears. I cannot stand to see ANYONE cry. Usually, this mostly applies to myself, but ye gods, do waterworks make me edgy. Not only is it the biggest guilt trip, which I simultaneously fall for and want to smack the person around for, but it makes the person doing it look terrible. (Okay, shallow moment there, admittedly.) Crying does not make me pity you. It makes me want to retch, and give in so that you stop crying and let your red nose recede to normal proportions.

So, to spare myself guilt, I avoid telling anyone that might cry that I do not enjoy their company.

2) Anger. I also react badly to anger. The best defense is a good offense, but the defense that will let you live another day when you are my size is to turn tail and run. And it doesn't even have to be physically expressed anger. It can be verbal as well. A "well fuck you, too," said in the right tone of voice would probably have me grovelling for forgiveness.

So, to spare myself from losing face, I don't incite anyone's anger by saying, "hey, guess what, don't like you, NOW FUCK OFF".

3) is on top of 1 and 2: as we all know, after having read Alex's LJ for at least a few posts (we'll assume you've been around for at least twenty) that she has a certain... outlook on how people must view her. For example, "outright worship" is preferable, but she can settle for "socially liked, if not a close friend". Anything less than "liked" is going to send her into twitchy fits, because God forbid someone doesn't like her. Yes, this even applies to people she hates herself.

Why is this? Well, I really don't know. Why should I give a damn what someone I don't ever want to speak to again doesn't like me?

Maybe it's the social awkwardness thing. Got to keep a social group running, after all. Can't have huge upsets. Maybe it's low self-esteem. Maybe I want to say I was their friend when they're famous. Maybe I think everyone is secretly one drink away from hunting me down and shooting me with a rifle from the locker downstairs.

This has to be shared

Note: not mine, but an anecdote from Neil Gaiman's blog, reposted because it's too hilarious not to repost. www.livejournal.com/~gaimanblog will take you to his blog. He's very cool. I wish I could go to the signing today *cries*

Anyway. I cut out some lead-up, but basically Captain Morgan is a kitten they've recently adopted.

---

Captain Morgan is a sweet-natured kitten, who has only one failing.

He waits until you're asleep, then climbs onto your bed, and tries to insert himself into your nose.

It never works, a hefty kitten being much larger than the interior of a nostril, but he keeps trying until you open up an eye and pick him up and drop him onto the floor. And then he bounces back onto the bed and tries to stick his head into one of your nostrils again. So you sweep him unceremoniously onto the floor, and bury your face in your pillow; and he sneaks back onto the bed and waits patiently while you go back to sleep and roll over, or just come up for air, and all of a sudden there's a small brown cat patiently trying to push its head into your nose.

Sooner or later he'll wake you up enough that you'll get up, carry him into the hall, and shut the door firmly, with him on the other side of it, and go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

I commented on this peculiar habit to my assistant Lorraine today, in the casual way you do when you don't want someone to think you've gone mad. "Er, Captain Morgan the kitten keeps trying to push his way into my nose while I'm asleep," I told her. She looked relieved. "Yes, he does that to me as well," she said. "I think it's because he probably wasn't weaned properly."

It's possible, I suppose, although I thought that misweaning just meant they sucked and chewed on things, not that they had grandiose fantasies about being nasally insertable, small wet muzzle first.

Sometimes I worry that one night I won't wake up, and he'll succeed in his bizarre quest, and in the morning there'll be nothing but the tip of a kitten-tail sticking out of one nostril to tell me he was ever here at all.

---