Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

"Who are you to others when you're not who you are?"

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:23 / 21.02.02

Spinning off from the "How you murdered your family means nothing to me" thread:

quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:
I've had ppl... try and forge a relationship with me, only it wasn't actually me, it was some character they'd cooked up in their heads. Then, when I wouldn't conform to the artificial construct they'd made for me, they'd behave like I was being spiteful. Am I dangerous? Well, their pain was real enough, but I don't reckon I caused it.

quote:Originally posted by Floats With Spider:
<snip>This happens frequently in my relationships, romantic, platonic, business and otherwise. People have a construct of me, often quite archetypical, and any deviance in my behavior from the patterns associated with their construct is just unacceptable.

Personally, people make me their Nemesis. Every attempt will be made to render me incorrect or foolish looking, contradicting me purely to be arbitrary, and I am assumed to have an ulterior motive or rakish intent in everything I do. Yet, these exact same people will approach me for advice when in a particularly difficult quandary, as if I put them there, and therefore the only one with the cognition to help.

I've grown a bit tired of this pattern, but haven't found my way out.

So, what's your archetype? Who are you to others when you're not who you are? I'll elaborate on my own later.

Any thoughts on this, you crazy kids?

pointless and uncalled for

16:33 / 21.02.02

Varies from person to person, I am who they want me to be. I'm also good at being that person for a while and then gently morphing into myself.

Friendship by internal deception.

Lazlo Woodbine [some call me Laz]

16:38 / 21.02.02

Mainly myself, because i'm an actor i am different people all the time.
So in reality i try to be as true to myself as i can other wise, how will i be other people convincingly.

16:43 / 21.02.02

I do not ever change who I am for the sake of someone else. Like me, warts and all, or I've no time for you.

(Hey, who said that? That's not me.)

Zoom.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:45 / 21.02.02

Good points, guys, but I was thinking more of "what personality do others hang on you," rather that "who do you pretend to be?"

pointless and uncalled for

16:51 / 21.02.02

It varies from person to person.

16:56 / 21.02.02

I was actually God once. I walked into the shared living room to be told by my two pals "we've decided you are God." I thought "at last, why has it taken them this long?" but then realised it just meant I'd be held responsible for everything and, therefore, to blame for our shit lives. Nice for a few seconds though.

When I was at school I was always Sensible and Responsible (I was just very quiet) and in my twenties I was Incredibly Wise (I was just quiet). Now I am more correctly labelled a Hapless Chump.

17:00 / 21.02.02

The Doctor.

The Son Who Never 'Phones.

The Nephew Who's Lost His Way.

The Safe (Unthreatening) Male.

The 'Almost Straight' Poof.

The Flighty, Irresponsible One Within That Relationship.

The Leather-Boy.

The Elephant Man.

17:26 / 21.02.02

"what personality do others hang on you?"

Fuck, that's a good question...Hmmm...

I do get a lot of "otherness" dumped upon me, because I'm a triple-threat: female, nonwhite and non-monotheistic. There's a great deal of immediate assumptions about my sexual availability made by people when they meet me:

"Oh you must be very dark and passionate!"

"Pagans – they like to fuck, right? Wanna fuck?"

"Gee– I really like girls who look like they come from somewhere else!" (my response to this was "You mean like – Saturn?")

[ 21-02-2002: Message edited by: Ierne ]

17:34 / 21.02.02

I'm always "the smart silent guy" or "the shy guy" just because I don't speak up in class. Jesus, this is only my second semester in college and I'm already stuck with this damn personality again. I always hear "oh when you get to college you can start over". Hah! I was stuck with the same two personalities in elementary school, middle school and high school. I'm never going to escape. I may as well just stop going to school and become an assassin since I've heard that "smart silent guys" get paid really well.

17:46 / 21.02.02

the guy that all the straights can share their shining moment of deviance and transgression with (because for some reason they've assumed I've done stuff just like it).

"Yeah, my brother and I used to kill cats. You must have done stuff like that too, huh?"

WHAT?

"Yeah, I blow a lot of money paying this girl in chinatown to massage my thing. You must go to those places, don't you?"

WHY?

"Hi, would you like to come hang out with my friends and I tonight? We talk about all kinds of fun stuff, like life and the Bible. You know about Jesus, don't you?"

HUH?

(all these statements more or less word for word)

19:20 / 21.02.02

Shy boy.

The Vulcan.

Cult leader.

Encyclopedia Boy.

The Crazy Monkey Boy - he'll do *anything*.

19:41 / 21.02.02

(these are all IRL, I haven't the foggiest what any of you think)

The Bad Seed (father's side)

The Good Kid (mother's side)

dictionary/thesaurus/encyclopedia/handyman/geek (though I kinda like that one)

Rake at the Gates of Hell

The Boy with the Ulterior Motive

The Boy with the Infinitely Long Fuse

The One Who Takes it Too Far/Too Low --My personal favorite, and only appears once Fuse-Boy has been battered into submission.

Sometimes it becomes less tedious to avoid peoples projections than not. So, I play into their game, acting, nay, becoming what they are looking for. I've taken it as far as shape-shifting to agree with a perceived me (methinks this may soon belong in Head Shop or Magic). Almost inevitably, the game goes too far, and the other person becomes physically/intellectually/psychologically unable or unwilling to continue, or I've said or done the one thing to actually upset the other person. Maybe that's what makes me "dangerous" (see the thread that started this one) but I absolutely insist this isn't a chicken-and-the-egg circumstance, and I only play rough like that when really pushed.

20:02 / 21.02.02

completly fucking nuts

An asexual or female male. (litterally had female friends who did not regard me as male, because I'm so far from thier view of what a typical male is supposed to be like)

A really out going person. This would be the main difference between my fiction suit and the other me. And a lot of my friends find it very hard to beleave that I'm acctually painfully shy.

In the last six months or so I've started to really piss off people who don't really know me, and aren't ready to deal with me. I've been trying to see how far I can take the idea of Discordianism and subjective reality. And when I don't respond in a binary way, people get pissed and automatically assume that I'm fucking with them. At first I found it extremly frustrating and spent a lot of time trying to explain things to people. Then I just gave up. If they can't take 5 seconds to realize that thier view doesn't fall in line with anything else they know about me, it's just not worth it.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:30 / 21.02.02

The total out-and-out Psycho Bitch-Queen From Hell (I wear black, have not one but two facial peircings and go to fetish clubs, therefore I obviously have no conscience, no moral compass and place no limits on my behaviour.

)

The Damsel in Distress, waiting to be rescued from inside my tower of Having A Fucking Personality by a Tall Dark Stranger. (Seriously- there are people out there who think I'm one lipstick away from turning into a little gothic barbie-doll.)

The Dangerous Wastoid, who's only temping with you so they can rip off the entire contents of the stationary cupboard.

The Walking Encyclopedia/Dictionary (okay, as long as you don't ask me to spell anything.)

The Rabid Health Freak (I don't smoke or eat meat, and have been known to stir-fry tofu. Apparently this makes me Jim Fixx.)

The Irresponsible Teenager (I am twenty-bloody-eight, for the love of Mike, it doesn't matter whether my Mum likes my clothes or not! Rghghghghg!)

There's more, but it's too tedious to relate.

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:05 / 22.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:
Good points, guys, but I was thinking more of "what personality do others hang on you," rather that "who do you pretend to be?"Good distinction. I think people tend to think I'm a lot smarter than I am, judging by some posts/emails. That's not to blow my own horn, but just sayin' - I don't think it's particulary true.

Although, that said, I am aware of feeling a little more intelligent and witty when I'm in "online" mode. Text can convey this a bit more successful than my sometimes-dire conversational skills, I think, and I feel like I come across better, textually. It's odd, and not something I'm happy with - I don't think it's a separate character to me-me, but it's certainly a more polished version. Online subbing; as you can cut out a spelling mistake, so can you cut out what you're not comfortable with.

But at other times, I'm known as:

That Gay bloke at the office. (Not by gay men, funnily enough; just straight women. Odd.)

That curmudgeonly fucker who hates the world.

AngryMan.

Moper.

There's more, but they're just variations on the theme. One or two involve wit, occasionally.

09:05 / 22.02.02

The wacky bong-head dope smoker.

The lazy bastard. Or the always late bastard.

The 'deep' thinker, in that its all a bit too deep. Probably insert 'wanker' really...

The social retard.

The comic nazi/evagelist.

The troublesome son. Or the 'worry'...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:05 / 22.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ierne:
"Pagans – they like to fuck, right? Wanna fuck?"

[ 21-02-2002: Message edited by: Ierne ]

Heh.

quote:Originally posted by gridley:
"Yeah, my brother and I used to kill cats. You must have done stuff like that too, huh?"

WHAT?

Because of course there is absolutely no difference between a social transgression that doesn't do anybody any harm, and a social transgression consisting of pointless and moronic cruelty.

If you lot aren't careful I'm going to start relating, and that always makes me feel... icky.

09:05 / 22.02.02

That girl that always wears black.

09:05 / 22.02.02

I have no idea how others' see me, but I'm fascinated by the possibility that one day I might find out.

A guy I know wrote a hate song about me once; I thought that seemed moderately disproportionate... I never did find out how the lyrics went.

m.

Disco is My Class War

09:05 / 22.02.02

I'm interested to know, for myself and other people, how much of this all is what we project people hang on us, and what actually happens. But then, I have experience with people hanging stuff on me too. Sometimes ridiculous stuff.

1. The Person Who Is So Successful and Confident That She Must Never Have Any Problems, Therefore We Can Dump On Her With Impunity But Still Secretly Resent Her.

2. The Process Fascist. (Actually I am a process fascist, and will happily take on that role in meetings. Anytime.)

3. That Raving Mad Psycho Lesbian Feminist Ballbreaker.

4. The Listener. Various people, many of whom I honestly don't like, seem to think I am the one who they can tell their problems to. Including both my parents, who started the whole thing when I was about five. I have a housemate who will talk at me for up to an hour about his problems, even though I am probably only grunting in response. Actually, I should just tell him to shut up; I live in fear that one day I"ll actually tell him what I really think oif him, which is that he's a creepy, misogynistic, womanising pretentious git, who has no social skills and is completely self-absorbed. Men are worse at this than women.

5. The Irresponsible and Incompetent Daughter Who Still Cannot Drive At the Age of 26.

6. The Confidante; related to The Listener, but more about all kinds of sexual matters than personal problems. Which is kind of related to the Porn Star archetype, by which people assume that I am always having really kinky great sex all the time and are therefore to be envied. (It's true, okay, I often do have great kinky sex. Uhm. But not all the time.)

Also I totally relate to the long fuse/takes it too far thing; I actually DO that.

I'm probably projecting a lot of these; I am in a great big nasty funk at the moment and am feeling quite resentful of the world and most of its inhabitants. Yuck. Sorry.

09:05 / 22.02.02

I like to think of it as objectification:
Apparently I am...

an encyclopedia.
a teddy bear.
Dr. Ruth's Sex for Dummies.
a copy of 120 Days of Sodom.
a can of pepper spray, or possibly a samurai sword.
the Necronomicon.
a confessional.

09:05 / 22.02.02

me, i was described as somewhat of a disappointment by this grrl, who thought that my rather butch appearance meant that i would be the nasty, aggressive top that she'd always dreamed of.

that's all i know. except that my work 'mates' are still wary of me. once a nut-case, always a nut-case, right? and that new tattoo......

09:05 / 22.02.02

A lot of people like to see me as this hopeless drunk/drug user type party person that has no real personality outside of getting drunk or high and arguing about how great Judas Priest or S.O.D. or Motorhead is. My stint as a non-drinker shocked a lot of people, but they were really happy to find out that I started drinking again (they would hug me, as if it were the greatest thing that ever happened to me).
Other people see me as this massive shit talker, which is only partially true; this only bothers me because these people see it as my only trait.
Many of the kids I went to school with thought they were much smarter than me, this lasted until they would make some idiotic right wing comment that they couldn't back up to save their lives and I would argue circles around them, or until they found out that I got a higher ACT score than them ("How the hell did you get a 32?" "Well, you see, I went to the testing place with a number 2 pencil and started marking down answers on the answer sheet and apparently I got a bunch of them right.").
I have one ex-girlfriend that deifies me almost. At first that was a nice egoboost, but eventually it became rather tedious because I didn't want to get back together with her and she was trying her damndest to win me back and holding me up to such high standards can only lead to massive dissapointment.
Then there are the people that think I'm the biggest scumbag ever. The only people that piss me off more are the people that see me as a novelty because I have a 7" tall bleached blond pompadour with the sides and back completely shaved, all psychobilly looking and shit. I try to talk to both of these types of people, but they are not interested because they only want to see me as they already do.

09:05 / 22.02.02

I'm useless at practical things but good at stuff he couldn't conceive of doing (my dad)

I'm "clever" but have no common sense (my mum)

I'm a head-bending pseudo-magician (L, wife of T)

I'm a cool motherfucker stoner dude who knows lots of wild, dangerous stuff (T, former colleague, good friend)

I use unnecessarily big words and should know more about football (J, used to work together, good mate)

I'm a slave to fashion (D, used to be my boss, now drinking buddy)

I'm clever and the boss of where I work (I'm not really) (my nan)

I should be thinking about starting a family and not pissing about reading comics (my dad)

I drink too much (my mum)

My problem is, I think I should have more than other people have, I've got fancy ideas about writing books (exact words of an ex-girlfriend's mother)

I'm going to be a blockbuster author (my agent. She was wrong)

I'm stupid, unreliable, forgetful, but she loves me (my fiancee)

I'm all of these things and so much more (me)

Jack The Bodiless

15:27 / 22.02.02

Well, apparently I'm untrustworthy; the best friend anyone ever had; a liar; a 'good man'; an alcoholic; relatively straight; a freak; refreshingly normal; a fantastic lover; a pervert; a brilliant writer; a flashy, shallow writer; unpretentious and genuine; pretentious and sesquipedalian; utterly gorgeous and incredibly sexy; somewhat funny-looking, balding, and overly hairy; non-conformist; conformist; seriously camp; inherently masculine...

People really don't know shit, do they? Only I know me, and that's only in passing.

16:29 / 22.02.02

I'm a nice, decent, gentle person. [heh!]

I'm very intelligent. [heh! squared]

I am a 'music guru' whose opinion on records is generally worthwhile.

And my favourite misconception about me, which I dearly wish was true...

I can suck my own cock

17:22 / 22.02.02

My partner described me recently as 'Hyperactively Lazy', which seems to suit.

That said, I'm always curious (perhaps fatally so) as to how other people view me. I think opinions are probably 50% gossip, 15% genuine knowledge, 35% assumption. I know that when I first sampled the heady delights of Ectasy my old social group (the people with whom I was at University) convinced themselves that I was somehow a drugs guru, spending each new day consuming as many substances as I could acquire (which I wasn't). When the same group learnt that I was working on another book, and intended this time to bare my teeth (arse?) and take on the world of publication, the opinion of me seemed to alter to 'drug-fuelled writer, enslaved to his manuscripts' (which I wasn't either). I'm half tempted to tell them that I fight crime by night, just to see the next development in their opinion of my character.

Am I alone in this, or has anyone else experienced assumptions being made about their entire character based on one event or comment or whatever.....?

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: Tezcatlipoka ]

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: Tezcatlipoka ]

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:53 / 22.02.02

As far as I can tell, to my mother I'm the comedy son... don't get me wrong, my mum's fucking ace, it's just I always felt like I was a hideous disappointment- UNTIL my sister got married and had a couple of kids, therefore fulfilling my mum's wish list from her kids, and leaving me free to be the comedy son- I provide her with the funniest stories to tell her friends; meanwhile she knows one of her kids is doing the Proper Kid Thing that fulfils Good Old-Fashioned Christian Parents like my mum.
To my dog, I'm the coolest person ever (yes, I know that's probably got a lot to do with me being the Provider Of Food, but let me hang on to that, please.)
To the people at work? I'm the guy that swears a lot, talks about cartoons & Star Wars far more than is healthy, and is always pissed as soon as we get out in the morning.
To my friends? Christ knows- the guy that needs looking after, and especially needs to be told when he's doing EXACTLY the wrong thing by getting involved with someone, the guy that's always a source of good "being fucked" or "my fucked mate" stories, the guy that sleeps too much, the guy that's crap at video games...
To most people on the street- "that bloke with the cute dog".