Love me or hate me

56. I don’t believe in towels. I mean, I believe they exist, but I can’t get myself in the habit of using them. What’s the need? All of my clothes are made of cotton, not Rubidium!

Time: Saturday, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. the next morning.
Place: Some silly bar.
Characters: Pixel and a friend he's known for two years.
Comment that got him all self-conscious for three days:

“No offense, but when I first met you, I hated you.”

Now, I shouldn’t have taken offense, because she explicitly said the phrase “no offense.” So maybe I’m not justified in feeling a little concerned,,, but I am!

See, I’ve long known that I have too much character for most people to handle. ((Others might have less charitable explanations.)) But I always felt, in my heart of hearts, ((as opposed to my spleen of spleens)) that the people I’m truly compatible with will like me right away.

I imagine an experiment like this:

• 12 people are in a room. Each of these people is of varying degrees of coolness and lameness, interestingness and boringness, niceness and assness. Statistically, two will be people I would rather not speak to, eight will be ambiguous, and two will be either interesting or really awesome. Probabilities change, of course, when the ages/professions of the 12 people are limited.
• I come in and speak with each of them for five minutes about a randomly assigned topic.
• I leave the room.
• The 12 people in the room write down their opinion of me.

I always imagined that, if I couldn’t succeed in identifying the cool people, I would at least pick out the ones that ‘might’ be cool. But I also thought that maybe THEY would pick ME out right away.

But my friend’s comment made me doubt my conclusion. What if… what if they couldn’t realize my inner awesomeness?

Suppose, for instance, that I were to go on a prospective student visit to a major private university. While there, I would meet dozens of people, many of which will form tentative appraisals of my awesomeness… WHAT IF THE COOL KIDS COULDN’T SPOT ME? What if my entire way of life were based on the faulty assumption that I would attract people that I meshed well with?

What then?

…

That was a rhetorical question, but I’ll reply anyway: Well… that would make me incredibly self-conscious and not help me at all.

56. I don’t believe in towels. I mean, I believe they exist, but I can’t get myself in the habit of using them. What’s the need? All of my clothes are made of cotton, not Rubidium! Time: Saturday, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. the next morning. Place: Some silly bar. Characters: Pixel and a…