The Moon and me
Aug. 14th, 2011 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistWhen I was in 7th or 8th grade (for people from countries who don't measure their childhoods this way, I was somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14), I formulated a plan for what I would say if a boy ever asked me out.
It is only out of the sheerest naïve optimism that I could have thought such a contingency plan could ever be necessary.
I only got to use it once, when some of the guys in my class were for some reason asking any girl in sight if we would go out with this other guy, a friend of theirs. At the time I recognized this as some sort of ploy, but I can't remember now what exactly it was. Maybe they were making the point to him that no girl could possibly be interested in him. Something like that.
Anyway, while I knew this was the furthest thing from a serious question, I proudly gave this guy my (unbeknownst to him, of course) carefully prepared answer.
Which of course he ignored, it not being a simple Yes or No -- or, really, just No -- it was of no use to the point he was making. It was of no use to anything really, except to haunt me still as a symbol of how I thought at that age, and for a long time past it.
I said "ask me tomorrow." My rationale behind this was that I was well aware that any boy (yes I expected only a boy; say what you like about heteronormativity but it does simplify things!) who expressed any interest in me was overwhelmingly likely to be doing it as a Joke, or a dare, or some cruel ploy to emphasize just how implausible it was that anyone could ever want to go out with me. I hardly even had any friends.
Though I don't know if this happened before or after, I have a clear memory of a boy in my class, when we would've been this sort of age, innocuously touching my side. Before he did so he sucked in his breath sharply, clearly having to brace himself for the terrifying experience of actually coming into contact with such a hideous creature as me. He made the sound of a mechanic who's just been asked if your car is going to be expensive to repair, or other awful contemplations.
This is the league I knew I was in.
So I reckoned that if I was asked to go out with someone and I told them to ask me the next day, they'd probably forget about it. And at least I wouldn't seem overeager -- which would only lead to further mockery, I knew well. But if they didn't forget, if they sought me out the next day...that mere thought made my little, pathetic heart soar. (Apparently a day was long enough for me to be convinced of someone's undying affection. Either that or I thought it was a good enough balance between a romantic gesture and throwing away my chances at ever being kissed. I don't remember -- I think a day just seemed the obvious interval of time -- but I think even then I didn't expect undying love just to find out what kissing is like.)
Luckily on the other side of many kisses and many good friendships and many more things, I feel hardly like that girl at all. But clearly there is some corner of my mind or heart still that hasn't progressed beyond that, because...
(I had a point, see! All this is leading somewhere.)
...because when in the last day or so a couple of lovely people I know have told me variations on "hey, not seen much from you online lately, hope you're all right" and part of me went "...what? These people are paying attention to me? Even when I'm not there? Indeed because I'm not there! Wow."
Which I know is ridiculous, and does a great disservice to those lovely people, who surely do not think it's so exceptional to think of people they like when those people are not around. Indeed I've known them to talk to me about other people! This is not about them, it's about my crazy outdated image of myself. Talking and thinking about other people, that's no big deal, I do that all the time! But when it's about me, oh that's different. Somehow.
And I didn't even think I have been particularly quiet online this week, though I checked Twitter and Facebook and of course they're right. Huh. I wasn't trying for radio silence, but it's quite true that there's been some. (Of course I write so little here that I don't even need to check to know about that.)
I've got no good reason -- yes it's not been a great week inside my own head, yes there have been riots and I've been more a mentalist than in a long time, but it's not as if feeling miserable has ever kept me from writing before! But I haven't felt the keen misery that drives me to write on occasions like those you can read about there. Quite the opposite.
I think I almost prefer that well-defined unhappiness to this... utter lack of words.
"Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?" Einstein is famously supposed to have asked Niels Bohr, who proposed what could be said to be an interpretation of quantum physics that depends on observation for the facts about, and even continued existence of, everything. Of course this is usually understood as "everything" on a tiny scale, not the Moon. And not people, either. But sometimes it does feel like I barely exist at the times when I have nothing to say for myself and thus give people no reason to observe me.
I guess this is why I can still be surprised when they do.
It is only out of the sheerest naïve optimism that I could have thought such a contingency plan could ever be necessary.
I only got to use it once, when some of the guys in my class were for some reason asking any girl in sight if we would go out with this other guy, a friend of theirs. At the time I recognized this as some sort of ploy, but I can't remember now what exactly it was. Maybe they were making the point to him that no girl could possibly be interested in him. Something like that.
Anyway, while I knew this was the furthest thing from a serious question, I proudly gave this guy my (unbeknownst to him, of course) carefully prepared answer.
Which of course he ignored, it not being a simple Yes or No -- or, really, just No -- it was of no use to the point he was making. It was of no use to anything really, except to haunt me still as a symbol of how I thought at that age, and for a long time past it.
I said "ask me tomorrow." My rationale behind this was that I was well aware that any boy (yes I expected only a boy; say what you like about heteronormativity but it does simplify things!) who expressed any interest in me was overwhelmingly likely to be doing it as a Joke, or a dare, or some cruel ploy to emphasize just how implausible it was that anyone could ever want to go out with me. I hardly even had any friends.
Though I don't know if this happened before or after, I have a clear memory of a boy in my class, when we would've been this sort of age, innocuously touching my side. Before he did so he sucked in his breath sharply, clearly having to brace himself for the terrifying experience of actually coming into contact with such a hideous creature as me. He made the sound of a mechanic who's just been asked if your car is going to be expensive to repair, or other awful contemplations.
This is the league I knew I was in.
So I reckoned that if I was asked to go out with someone and I told them to ask me the next day, they'd probably forget about it. And at least I wouldn't seem overeager -- which would only lead to further mockery, I knew well. But if they didn't forget, if they sought me out the next day...that mere thought made my little, pathetic heart soar. (Apparently a day was long enough for me to be convinced of someone's undying affection. Either that or I thought it was a good enough balance between a romantic gesture and throwing away my chances at ever being kissed. I don't remember -- I think a day just seemed the obvious interval of time -- but I think even then I didn't expect undying love just to find out what kissing is like.)
Luckily on the other side of many kisses and many good friendships and many more things, I feel hardly like that girl at all. But clearly there is some corner of my mind or heart still that hasn't progressed beyond that, because...
(I had a point, see! All this is leading somewhere.)
...because when in the last day or so a couple of lovely people I know have told me variations on "hey, not seen much from you online lately, hope you're all right" and part of me went "...what? These people are paying attention to me? Even when I'm not there? Indeed because I'm not there! Wow."
Which I know is ridiculous, and does a great disservice to those lovely people, who surely do not think it's so exceptional to think of people they like when those people are not around. Indeed I've known them to talk to me about other people! This is not about them, it's about my crazy outdated image of myself. Talking and thinking about other people, that's no big deal, I do that all the time! But when it's about me, oh that's different. Somehow.
And I didn't even think I have been particularly quiet online this week, though I checked Twitter and Facebook and of course they're right. Huh. I wasn't trying for radio silence, but it's quite true that there's been some. (Of course I write so little here that I don't even need to check to know about that.)
I've got no good reason -- yes it's not been a great week inside my own head, yes there have been riots and I've been more a mentalist than in a long time, but it's not as if feeling miserable has ever kept me from writing before! But I haven't felt the keen misery that drives me to write on occasions like those you can read about there. Quite the opposite.
I think I almost prefer that well-defined unhappiness to this... utter lack of words.
"Do you really think the moon isn't there if you aren't looking at it?" Einstein is famously supposed to have asked Niels Bohr, who proposed what could be said to be an interpretation of quantum physics that depends on observation for the facts about, and even continued existence of, everything. Of course this is usually understood as "everything" on a tiny scale, not the Moon. And not people, either. But sometimes it does feel like I barely exist at the times when I have nothing to say for myself and thus give people no reason to observe me.
I guess this is why I can still be surprised when they do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 05:58 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you've been having a bad week.
Lots of this chimes with me. Part of the reason I don't like making phone calls is what if they don't remember me and I have to spend half the conversation trying unsuccessfully to remind them who I am?
You are my friend and I love you and I think of you when you're not around.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 10:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 09:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 03:37 pm (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 05:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 08:37 pm (UTC)More on point - you were awesome then, you just have people around you with better taste and perception. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:38 pm (UTC)I do think the people around me now are better in lots of ways than the people who were then. I have always known this to be true :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-16 12:24 pm (UTC)It's no wonder I don't expect people to think of me when I'm talking to myself! ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-16 04:15 am (UTC).. what can i say? grade school/high school .. so, so confusing. going through all that i was - for better or worse - pure interior. not sure i could've withstood comprehending the actual state of things, something glimpsed - i think - on the day of my high school graduation: I don't know any of these people. .. not *literally* true, btw, but very much so in Spirit ..
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-16 12:25 pm (UTC)That's probably true of me as well. Hell, maybe it is now :)