Blog Every Day April: 4/2

"I was sort of the queen of good choices, ruled by niceness and doing the right thing."

The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Deb Caletti

Maybe it's something about me I cannot see myself, as it has long been assumed by many of my peers that I have All The Answers. When forced into doing group-work, it is generally I who is turned to for guidance. While I am not at my most comfortable leading discussion, in many a class I have been the only student to answer a teacher's questions or lend an opinion without threat of demonized kittens being thrown my way.

Right or no, I have yet to fully understand the fact that the general population doesn't work the same way I do in terms of academia (and, in a broader sense... everything?). How, for instance, does a person not carry paper or writing materials with them at all times? How, exactly, does one justify sleeping in class? And, for a shocker, why do many simply refuse to follow directions or complete work?

I try to expect nothing. This has yet to change the overall state of my confusion.

This aside, I must appear "normal" to some slight extent, as whenever I claim to be a nerd I am met with frantic, consoling replies.

"No, you're not a nerd!"

"But I am... it isn't a bad thing, you know."

"But a nerd is like... Someone who enjoys schoolwork. You don't enjoy schoolwork, do you?"

"Sometimes?"

"Oh."

I do not fit the mold. Thus, I am grateful to be able create my own, one that will not leave me gasping for air and understanding.

John Green may put it more eloquently than I, but I, for one, enjoy being a nerd. To me it means I can love things without pretending I don't, to me it means I can differ from the crowd unashamedly, to me it means much more than wearing thick glasses or being a confirmed social outcast.

I would rather be alone in the "real" world than feverishly attempt to associate myself with people who could never appreciate me fully, nor I them. In this maybe I do distance myself from people--but tinytowntexas isn't exactly a metropolis bursting with delicious nerd folk, and not being "from" here is a definite disadvantage. If you don't sprout from here or have a very outgoing personality, consider yourself sunk.

Or I'm sunk, anyway. I feel sunk. It's too late to make lasting friendships here, and I haven't the motivation or desire to attempt again. There's a sort of cold comfort in distancing myself. Sometimes I regret it. Often I consider it to be one of the only reasons I am able to keep somewhat sane.

I grew up moving every several years, a military brat. If I wasn't doing the moving, the few friends I made would move, and despite my trytrytrying, no friend but one was willing to keep up a friendship via email as I desperately wished they would.

In several cases I have been, in a very real sense, left heartbroken by friends who just couldn't give back what I wished to give them.

I am very much an introvert, and while I can see good qualities in many of my extroverted peers, I haven't the heart to face that particular brand of brokenness again. I am not happy in large groups; I could not find contentment in having scads of so-called friends. I cannot justify to myself the merit in being just another face to those I wish to be close to.

(Granted, I am not much better at befriending introverts in the "real" world. This is another story for another time.) (Don't you just love asides?) (HELLO.)

But here is something I hold close to my heart: there is no moving away from those I have befriended via the Internet. I share things with people I have met here in ways no person in "real" life ever has. And while no other person will ever be in quite the same situation as I am, the kindred spirits I have found sympathize in ways I have seen nowhere else.

I will no doubt continue to tug at the ragged edges of what I cannot understand, but it is you who read this, you who console me in the times I feel wordless, you who have not left--it is you who have made room for me to grow in ways I cannot find enough words for.

I've been staring at these words for longer than is safe. Time to step away.