Shyness and misanthropy

Something dendren just posted about in his Randomocité de jeudi set me to thinking about the history of my relating to other people. It's one of those miasmal topics that's always floating around somewhere in my head; but out of the sheer necessity of functioning on a daily basis, certain conclusions are generally forced on it rather than allowed to proceed naturally from it. Those conclusions are, understandably, oversimplified, and more often than not they take the form 'I hate people' (with or without the adjective 'fucking' thrown in). And, more often than not, such a motto is serviceable, but of course it doesn't begin to cover the complexity of my thoughts about other humans, nor to explore the underlying reasons for my natural distrust and distaste.

So in lieu of any concerted effort at psycho-auto-analysis, I thought I'd sit down and write about stuff. The promise that this could transmogrify, eventually, into a coherent essay may keep me interested enough to keep chipping away at this issue, or set of issues, until I find out something useful: a sort of journalistic coverage of my own intrepid expedition into the wild jungles of me.

Such cogitations have also been prompted lately by the difficulty I've had with making and keeping LJ friends—particularly those who comment often and meaningfully in my journal—and the disappointment I've felt as a result. Sure, I've added a few people to my journal (not to say my life!) that I value assez cher (dendren being a salient one, despite our never yet having met IRL; plus several others), but by and large the folks who read what I have to say and have themselves something of interest to say about it are the people I've known IRL for decades. I'm not talking about "playful" posts and comments, and I certainly appreciate folks who participate in those; rather I have reference to those posts where I actually "show some skin" as it were: tentatively put away the armor and express some personal realities and viewpoints and emotions. Speaking with madknits last weekend, I told him that it still hurts that a certain mutual friend of ours decided to excise me from his flist some months ago. Of all the acquaintances I'd made here, he was someone I found to be passing WYSIWYG and I valued his opinions and his counsel highly. Alack.

Of course, it was he who dumped me who also gave me the best insight into likely causes for the thorny relationships I sometimes have on here; and of course it is not news to me that I can be combative and cantankerous. I have little patience for illogic and less for groundless faith in deities and other imaginary beings. In short, my correspondence here may well read as if the sole foundation from which I proceed is a universal hatred for humanity. Perhaps the thousand individual frustrations and frictions of individual combative encounters are, to all effects, equivalent to a general misanthropy. After all, I do seem, as recently as yesterday, to fly into such engagements with an abandon that my better judgment and my erstwhile de-friender would doubtless both proscribe.

[Aside: There IS the fact, too, that I write sentences like the immediately preceding, which may do as much as my obstreperous nature to make people chat awkwardly about the weather or the salmon mousse before quickly excusing themselves to another part of the e-room. /Aside]

I hold out hope, however, that such is not the case; for as often as I proclaim a patent and practiced misanthropy—and paulsimonian "I Am a Rock"-styley impenetrability is most certainly appealing!—I know the very fact that I have decades-long IRL friends renders it hogwash. My experience with madknits himself likewise heartens me: we met maybe 1.5 years ago on the cited mutual friend's journal and immediately disagreed stridently about two or three meaty topics. (Meaty in the sense of pithy or germane, not related to dead flesh. Or clams, for that matter.)

I think the then-LJ user poetry2weasels de-friended me fairly quickly; but we continued to run into each other here, and several months later I "importuned him for a private dance" (to quote him on recent events). Well, golly, there he was using words like "importuned" on a daily basis! I was helpless, really. So I hauled up a white flag and cautiously reminded him of who I was and what our history was, and then began wooing him with all the ways we were perfect for each other. He was more than reasonable; and while this reconciliation has yet to result in our getting sized for wedding rings, we have gotten along splendidly, including during our recent travel to Montréal. Hell, we shopped for yarn together, which is almost the same thing, really.

That much said (and this has been nothing but prefatory material), I need to attend to life today. Matters financial, nutritive, and salubrious await, in that order.