friend request

I have always had a hard time fitting in.  Don't get me wrong, I am ridiculously popular and well-liked.  Not the issue here.  The fitting in has more to do with my own brain, like when it decides to think and stop talking about how popular and well-liked it is in relation to other brains.  For the record, I don't think I'm ridiculously popular and well-liked...  I know it.

But there are people who don't like me.  There are a few.  Sometimes, I know who they are.  Other times, I catch it when I walk in on that conversation and suddenly there's a swift subject switch.  The Triple "S."  And I usually say "Did you just triple 'S' me?!" Rather than the "...Um..." shifty eye "..Okay."  You see, I try to hit things head-on.  It catches people off guard, it's what everyone should be doing, and most importantly - it's real.  It's direct brain-to-mouth flow.  After I'm done explaining what the Triple "S" is, they almost always describe the nicest thing in the world anyone's ever said about me, and all is good.

Except they're lying.  I don't really know if they're lying, but my insecurities creep in and then I become not so sure about my popular/well-liked status.  For example, I have nearly 1,000 friends on Facebook.  I have a general rule that I don't add anyone, anyone, that I do not know or have not met in real life.  Exceptions are made when exceptionally gorgeous men friend me out of the blue.  In such cases, they get the distinct privilege of being my rule-bending Facebook friend.  Typically, after one week of said friendship, they are removed because they failed to follow-up and perpetuate the fantasy that they would be blowing up my inbox, then blowing up my cell phone, then blowing up my ex-boyfriends' houses, then blowing up an air mattress in our new house, then blowing up pool toys for our children.  The fantasy has never come to fruition, sadly.

Shit.  Where was I?  Oh yes, Facebook.  I have lots of friends on Facebook, but this brings me no social comfort.  Sometimes, I like to get preachy on Facebook and share valuable, life-changing information with my big-ass-list of friends, thinking that I'm doing my part in spreading the good word.  You know, the 'don't be a racist bigot, you fucking idiot and check out this video of Madonna and my latest blog entry' word.  Or the 'this is a song lyric I'm really feelin' right now' word, with unwritten expectations that they will be so intrigued by the lyrical genius that they will be compelled to Google that shit and find a new favorite song.  However comma, I find that there are quite a few of my Facebook friends who still engage in really shitty behavior on my news feed.  Racism here, Madonna-dissing there, homophobia here, transphobia there, Farmville here, conservatism there.  And then, I start to wonder how much of an impact I have on other people's lives.

Because I want to have a lot.

Let me clarify: I want to be someone who sets into motion a change in someone's mind.  I don't want to take credit for it, and I don't want recognition, I simply want to make people think for a second.  And when I see the ignorance continue, I begin to wonder what's so fucking great about being popular and well-liked if no one's going to really listen to what you're saying?  And since we're clarifying, the tone of my braggy statements at the start of this entry was meant to be a wee-bit sarcastic.

I haven't always believed this, but in recent years, I've come to appreciate that pleasing everyone is not important.  I do play a little game with myself, one that I haven't always played, to try to be as positive and friendly as possible with people while maintaining a level of realness.  Keeping-it-realness.  Not keeping it too real, though.  I always find it entertaining to see what can happen when someone is a friendly activist rather than an angry activist.  Who is more effective?  And for the record, I define activism, at least for this entry, as the act of being actively involved in a cause - or at least bringing attention to it.  While I'm clearly not intimately involved or educated with/about all of the causes I endorse, I try to have a good understanding, and I try to draw attention to it.

It's taken a while to realize this, but I haven't been able to change the world, nonetheless 900+ people's minds about what it means to be gay, or LGBT, or a different race, or social status, or economic status, etc.  My social abilities, while helpful in throwing Lady GaGa theme parties, have not created change on a grand scale.

And here is my dilemma.  I want to cast a wide net of contacts, acquaintances, friends, and lovers, even, who enrich my life and who mean at least something to me.  I feel as though the more people I meet, and genuinely listen to, the more valuable my existence becomes, because if I'm as open as I expect myself to be, I have even more to offer the world than simply myself.  I also get upset when it's clear that people whom I admire, respect, or want to use one day down the road for a favor, don't see me the same way.  More directly, I get upset hypothesizing about who will feel that way about me.  Most times, I don't have proof.  My point is that having 900+ Facebook friends, while to some might seem comforting, may not necessarily increase your self-confidence, nor your social confidence.

Nor your ability to impact the world.  This is most clearly seen when I have created what I consider to be a close relationship with someone, only to see them engage in entirely ignorant behavior.  Maybe, because I'm a fool, I feel partially to blame for not having done enough to help my friend avoid that situation.  Moreover, I get disillusioned with the concept of throwing that wide-ranging net and expecting wide-ranging results.

I know that I owe no further responsibility to a friend, or an acquaintance, even, than acknowledgment of their existence.  However, I constantly grapple with this idea that I need to give them more.  I rarely feel as though I'm giving too much, but I often feel like I'm not giving enough.  And so often, I wonder, why do I feel the need to give so much?  Is it simply because I think too much?  It's so strange to think about - how in high school, I was concerned with everybody liking and admiring me, and knowing who I was.  Now that I'm grown, I want the same exact thing, only for, arguably, more respectable reasons.  And it still bothers me when I get shade thrown at me, or if people say mean things about me, and even if people are negative around or towards me.  Funny how things adapt, but never really change.

I sometimes wonder if I'll always have these tensions pulling back and forth: the strange need to want to change people's minds and the knowledge that you can't change some people's minds - whether it be their perception of me, their perception of GLBT people, or their perception of a movie I happened to like.  One day, I hope it snaps and I'm pulled in one or the other direction.  But balancing contradictions has seemed to be a recurring theme in my life.