The I, That Is Me

Many days I wonder if the real me were out here, would I have so many enemies?

The haunting question is, would I even have so many friends?

What does the virtual world do to people? And does the virtual world exist only inside the computer, or even just on the World Wide Web?

I don’t think so.

There is a virtual world out there in the real – a world of projections. Truth is, there are only so many places where the real me would allow itself to come out. Add to it the nausea induced by the clamour of a thousand egos, you have a recipe for delicious confusion.

Let’s just say the proverbial you, yes you, would one day meet me. What delusions do I harbour about a Pleasantville meeting with cheek to cheek kisses flying about in the air and the pleasing noises of pretense-ful over-a-cup-of-coffee conversations wafting above our heads; would that happen? I wonder many times when I read about people from the virtual world meeting their peers in the real and making huge noise about it and going berserk with theatrical joy.

It’s in a moment like this that something very evil inside my head begins to smirk and starts poking me in uncomfortable places, asking me, ‘So, do you think you can do it, drama queen?’

Welcome to disturbia!

I shirk and crawl into my favourite corner, pull the shades and peer from behind them. Feeling safe only in the hole of my faux security, a nice fuzzy corner, I begin to breathe again and shut out the evil noises in my head – and I begin to wonder.

Can I do it?

So if I can’t – who’s not normal? Me, or, them?

There are so many misconceptions doing the rounds about me – all around, that I have long ago even stopped keeping track of them. The most glaring of them is that I am vivacious, nerdy, spunky and prompt – chatty and pleasing and can make conversations out of a rat’s ass.

Sad news is, as rumours go – this one’s the most sordid of them all.

You don’t want to partner in me in a rock show and you don’t want to be left alone on an island with me.

No, relax; I don’t have AIDS – just that for reality’s sake – half the time I am groping for ways to line up a decent thought in string of words. I couldn’t spark up and set the coffee table on fire and I think I have a permanent disability – my smile’s a constant frown at its best – at its worse, I am dead panned.

Huh?

For all the drama queen act, I’d do a hundred meter sprint if I were to DQ someone in real. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what to do with strangers at all. I don’t even know what to do with my dad and my boy friend and my friends sometimes. They leave me fumbling for words a whole lot more than anyone else I know. People who materialize in real out of the computer stand a very meek chance.

Most of the conversations I have are in the head. Since, I don’t have to talk when I write; I might appear like a smooth talker. I can make swift repartees and I can shoot nice poison laced spears but I wouldn’t know what to tell someone who asked, ‘So, how ya been?’ except murmur, ‘uhh... yea, good, I guess. Hmm...’

And then there is a curse of being a hundred years old. Since I have been around a whole lot longer than any of you – I totally can know in straight five minutes who’s gonna bore the hell out of me – and there, I’m left stranded with pre-emptive knowledge that frankly has never served me so well, except leaving me painfully grimacing in the face of a whole many strangers - and rapid fire talking in the head, and mumbling, ‘aahh... nicee...’ when I open my mouth.

You so know I’m barely tolerating you when I go ‘aahh... nicee...’ in your face. There, I said it!

Am I retarded?

Maybe. But I do know for a fact that ignorance is bliss and I’m catastrophic.

I’m easily distracted and I don’t like people trying to tell me how good I do something in the real. It embarrasses the hell out of me. I have an I-cant-take-compliments-please-kill-me-before-you-do-that syndrome and I get a sick feeling rolling up in my gut when someone tries to go compliment-y on me.

I have to be straight jacketed when someone tries to go fake flirty on me, and that’s why with all them lub lub stories doing the rounds I wonder if someday this would be for real, who’d be my first homicide victim?

I bitch.

Someone who can get my freak on would never want to meet me again because once I get into the groove, I don’t care who’s listening. I bitch.

I’m bored exponentially. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation I get much bored and look up at the talkative little piss and tell them, ‘You talking to me?’

Immediately I feel very embarrassed and then I begin sulking at the talkative piss for making me feel bad about myself.

I hate most foods. I have a bad habit of rudely saying no to most stuffs offered to me. Which means that I look at most people in the face as they munch on food/drink – and then I look away bored and miffed at why I have to sit like in detention waiting out hungry feeds?!

As little as I can talk, make conversations, it is all the most difficult for me to make small talk with stark raving strangers. Since I don’t care about most people in real or virtual – I’m known to have thrown violent fits when I am forced to converse about x,y,z – and so and so – and how they write, and how cool they are – except of course if it involves a decent degree of bitching :-)

Then my eyes light up – and a rare nasty twinkle cracks up like star bursts and I might smile genuinely for the first time in weeks and I lift one foot off the ground and on the chair and tilt forward a bit and put on my bitchy whisper like, ‘Now, we’re talking...’

To be honest, and nothing but honest, I carelessly admit that I’m weird. I hate more causally than most people brush their hair and I have nasty fits of revulsion where people morph into these giant stick figure aliens threatening to annex my little corner to their oh-so-common Pleasantville regime and entice me into their logic repelling muaah muaah existences...

I freely admit that I’m as much of a faker who struts amongst them – sometimes doing all the things they do, but then you never know if the nasty evil smirk/glint in the eye is right there scanning the words, smirking, and air kissing back the sedate common talking away :-)

There is this one moment – comes once in a hundred years – when I meet a stark stranger who makes me want to talk - real talk. And not stop. It’s like that old over used word called – ‘connection’.

It’s as easy as peeling away orange face pack. And the insipidity washes away. The real remains.

Like they say, the real’s gotta be earned :-)

Until then, the muaah muaah existence is plan B, used and over used for da weirdo in da house!

Kisses ;-)))

Muaaaaaaaaaaaaah!