Enjoying: Gangs of New York w/ commentary by Martin Scorsese

(I have a lemming from Jen to get to. I'll get to it...eventually. }:> But this is on my mind now.)

My neice is maybe shy. Maybe she's stand-offish. Could be she's got the makings of a snob. She's five years old.

If she doesn't know you she'll keep away from you and refuse to directly engage you. She's always treated me this way, so much so that I think it's just become a thing. She obviously recognizes me but never says hello right off the bat. After a bit of hanging out and playing she'll chat with me and occasionally answer my questions if she's feeling like it. But if she's not I may as well not exist.

Another family member, a cousin noticed this once. And she called her shy. I said, no, she's like anyone else in the family. First she's gotta get warmed up to you, then you can't get her to shut up. My cousin knew exactly what I was talking about. We're like that in my family, for whatever reason. At least some of us: we won't jump into a situation assuming everyone is eager to see us and we don't feel like pretending we're eager to see everyone. But once we've taken the measure of comfort in our surroundings we open up and the torrent of whatever is on our minds just can't be dammed up. Anyone who's ever gotten my dad going can attest to how brief his salutations are compared to long it can be from "good-bye" to actually getting out the door.

My mom has always explained to other folks that I'm shy. My mom can be pretty outgoing, joking around and usually has something to say about anything on short-order topics - the things that are immediately on hand to talk about, aka small talk. Me, I'm terrible at chatting. At least, right off the bat. I don't know why, it's kind of bass-ackwards, but I'm much better at starting on a subject of some heft and then I can slip into talking about the chickenshit subjects like the weather and the guacamole recipe. Start me off with the social no-no's - religion, politics - or something in the humanities and I'll be engaged quick enough. With my dad it's history or the social sciences. But even my closest friends won't get much out of me at the top of the night with something like our clothes. And don't get me started on the inanities of "How are you?"

Anyway, I meant to get into the idea that I've run into time and again that I'm shy or stand-offish. And I think I'll go more with the label "stand-offish" because my descriptions of myself seems best summed up in that word over the many others available. I know I'm not shy because of how I'll go on and on. Maybe I'm reserved, once the signals I was waiting for (while not necessarily knowing I was waiting for them) are given then I open up. I have the things I fear, of course. And I associate shyness with fear. I can intimidate myself pretty severely when it comes to social situations, but I don't typically walk into a room feeling afraid. I walk in, I have an idea of where I'm going, I zero in and I head there. Obstacles in my way, people I don't know, it's all so much backdrop to a given situation. Unless I purposefully put myself into a frame of mind where taking in every detail of the evirons is what I'm there for, I do my observing as subtly and imperceptibly as possible. I think maybe tuning other people out is part due to carefully tuning in to the people I'm there with and part "not staring."

Like any kid, I think, I was taught not to stare at people. But for some reason I took that a few steps beyond and trained myself to default to not noticing people. That's only a default, I do notice people who try to be noticed. But folks quietly minding their own business are like wallpaper - quietly taken in to be associated with the ambience of a given locale and not afforded much of a second thought.

Maybe you would think with several years of LARPing and theatre stuff I would have learned gladhanding. But I've never been any good at the social stuff a lot of LARPs require. And theatre? Well, once in college someone remarked his surprise at my major considering several statements I made that bordered on misanthropic (oh, c'mon who's not at least a little misanthropic in college?). Actors, he noted, weren't typically found to be antisocial. I got as far as noting he made a mistake before an actor friend of mine interrupted to clarify that I wasn't in the School of Theatre to be an actor but a director. And that made all the difference.

I dunno... I don't mean to be antisocial, unfriendly or to alienate people. I would like to think that I'm quite warm and supportive of my friends and compassionate and cordial with everyone. But clearly that hasn't been the take away for a number of people.

When I'm not sure what to say, what to transmit, when what I do or don't say (and "say" is shorthand for everything that can be expressed, which is far more than mere words) is taken far off from what I intended, when I can't find the right time or place to interject myself, my thoughts, my identity, I hide. It isn't my default to avoid notice, it's my default to assume I'm not noticed. It's hard to undermine this assumption when, by and large, the people who react to me are folks I already know because I have a habit of holding back from interacting with people I don't know. Whenever someone reaches into my assumed cocoon and tries to pull me out by plying me with undesired attention my discomfort starts to get acute.

Optimally, attention paid to me comes under my terms. Now, forget for a minute that in reality that's an absurd hope. Consider, first, that this means (I think) that I'm not shy. I'm not self-effacing. I would not have been keeping an online journal for, lo, these many years if I were. But at least as far as transmission, I'm in complete control here. Perfect communication takes in reception as an essential factor but I have no control over that here so I have to hope for the best.

But since I can't realistically plan on getting attention on my own terms you would think that after so many spins around the sun I would have just gotten used to the plain fact that I'm visible, can't literally disappear into the woodwork and that I take up space. But the truth is, in moments of uncertainty - which at some times are more numerous and closer together than at other times - the best I can come up with is the same plan Jeff Goldblum had at one point in Independence Day, "Um, hide." It's the same plan my niece has when my sister and she walk in somewhere new, only I'm too tall to hide behind my mother's skirt. And my reaction to getting pulled out onto center stage when I already made up my mind to stay in the shadows is the same as my niece's, only I think I kick harder.

And she and I can carry a grudge like it's a badge. It won't last, of course. But if I feel harassed enough my heels dig in to such a point that I won't be looking for attention any time soon, even if I walked in thinking otherwise. Putting me on the spot is a fast track to getting on my shitlist.

So I hide. It's not that hard. Assuming no one gives a shit about me is a good way to ensure that no one gives a shit about me. Follow that up with clearing the mind and the eyes follow. Empty eyes aren't interesting so folks looking for business that's interesting will pass me by. Maybe it works... maybe it doesn't. I still get accosted from time to time on the street - not a big deal, typically, just folks who want attention or money. But if I live behind my face, covered by sunglasses, and studiously avoid looking strangers in the eye, I feel I'm as good as invisible. It's what I'm used to and thus where I'm comfortable.